This thesis aims to study how unaccompanied asylum-seeking children navigate through the asylum systems of two European member states, Sweden and France. By using a qualitative approach, five interviews have been conducted in order to study the complex situation of three Afghan young adults, having experienced a rejection to their asylum application in Sweden and who now live in France, engaged together in solidarity work with two European civil society activists and their experiences across these questions. The method used, a narrative analysis, together with theories on citizenship, deportability, and civil society activism helps bring to light how the informants speak about their situation and perceptions of belonging and solidarity. With the European migration policies having become stricter in recent years, this study finds how asylum-seeking migrants have resisted threats of deportability and border control. With civil society activism and solidarity work playing an important role in the migrants supporting themselves, their volunteered engagement can be viewed as crucial when it comes to stepping in with help where the state response has withdrawn, leaving them in a temporary phase and position of clandestinity.

In a context where Higher Education Institutions increasingly seek to attract students, this study follows the path of third country national students through their application process. Their particular status, situates them at the intersection between openness and closure. Between internationalization strategies that seek to attract them, and migration management policies that sometimes facilitate, sometimes restrain their movement. In a qualitative approach, it explores the application process’ different steps to Sweden's Higher Education Institutions. It uses Foucault’s governmentality, de Certeau’s strategies and tactics, along with Bourdieu’s understanding of capital, to analyze data issued from nine semi-structured interviews with third country national students, studying or recently graduate from Linköping’s University. Departing from students’ narratives on their application process to Sweden’s Higher Education Institutions, this study unravels the complex links between internationalization strategies and migration management, and how their disciplining effects appear throughout the application process.

Despite the increasing interest in asylum seekers and refugees within the field of migration studies, there has been a gap in queer migrants’ research. This thesis is an attempt to investigate how migrant and gender identity are influencing each other and how they lead to experiences of both inclusion and exclusion in Swedish society, based on experiences of six queer migrants. In the first half, there is a presentation and criticism on migrant theories and previous studies related to the subjects of migration, gender and sexuality. There is also an attempt to defining queer and presenting how it intersects with migrant identity, through the stages of welcoming, adapting, developing, and maintaining oneself in a Swedish level. Finally, aspects of space and feelings of belonging are discussed further on. The second half of the thesis consists of a methodological part and the analysis of the interviews with queer migrants in Sweden, leading to further discussions, additional thoughts, and suggestions.

It is important to consider the effects of past conflicts on the current perceptions of the people of Cyprus and of the future generations. This thesis contends that the ongoing division of Cyprus along with the many unresolved issues regarding past conflicts have had a profound effect on how the people of Cyprus perceive new information in regard to their future. The inquiry will explore the historical background of Cyprus and the affects of nationalism. The need for enemies, large group identity, divided societies and the need for dialogue will also be examined in relation to perception and new information. In light of the interviews and the lived experiences in Cyprus questions arise in regard to how the Cypriots will move forward to a solution that is agreeable to both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. With each person's perception being influenced by the past conflicts, pain and suffering how will they move forward? How has protracted conflict and nationalism influenced the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot perceptions to new information including a possible solution in Cyprus?

Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean and an unincorporated territory belonging to the United States (US), is facing an uncertain future as its population rapidly declines through emigration. The American public has only begun to pay attention to this problem in recent years as more and more Puerto Ricans relocate to the US mainland. This study therefore aims to understand the migration decision-making process of Puerto Ricans by exploring the underlying causes and motivations. In conducting qualitative research, the findings center on interviews conducted with seven Puerto Ricans who relocated from Puerto Rico to the US mainland between 1985 and 2018. Their reflections on their migration decision-making experiences demonstrate that the process is complicated, multi-focal, and multidimensional. Focusing specifically on the concepts of citizenship, migration as an adaptive strategy, and migration decision-making, the findings indicate that Puerto Ricans are US citizens in name only. They are more predisposed than other US citizens to relocate when faced with environmental and economic stress, yet not all Puerto Ricans have the desire, nor the ability to relocate. Despite the finite scope of this research, the findings nonetheless provide valuable insight into the ongoing trends of Puerto Rican migration

<p>Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group within the United States, and the present work studies the existence of intragroup biases within this community due to violations of prototypicality and the existence of colorism. The present work also explores identity denial as a possible mediator of the relationship between target prototypicality and negative social consequences. Specially, when presented with lighter-skin or darker-skin targets, Hispanic/Latinx individuals are more likely to see them as less likable, and less warm when compared to a prototypical target. There was no evidence to support that identity denial mediated this relationship. Additionally, this research extends previous literature on the content of stereotypes faced by individuals of differing skin colors and finds conflicting results using an intragroup sample. Unexpected results suggest prototypicality may trump phenotypic variations within this unique population.</p>

The study sought to understand the labour-market experiences of Kenyan women living in Swedenfrom a precarity standpoint. Specifically, from the point of view of uncertainty and vulnerability ofAfrican migrants workers in the labor market. The research explored how individual, structural, andcultural factors influenced the choice of profession and the labour market participation of Kenyanmigrant women in Sweden. Intersectionality, Precarity and the Dual Labor Market theory were thetheories picked to make sense of the particular vulnerabilities experienced, and strategies adoptedby Kenya migrant women in the Swedish labour market. A qualitative approach was adopted by thestudy and a case-study specifically used. Semi -structured interviews were used as the tool for datacollection and the data coded and analyses thematically. The research found out that African wokenfaced challenges in the Swedish labour market despite their academic qualifications, workexperience or Swedish language skills. Gender and ethnicity were found to be contributing factorsto these women being embedded mostly in the secondary segments of the labour market. Dualismor the labor market segmentation theory- divided into two sections; the primary and the secondaryjobs proved useful as it enabled the research make sense of the participants embeddedness in thesecondary labour markets. The concept of precarity was helpful in analysing various precariouswork undertaken by the participants from the beginning of their migration to Sweden and aftermany years of being in the country. The combination of the dual labor market theory with theintersectionality approach was significant to the study as it highlighted the dichotomy and thecomplexity of interactions between race, gender and ethnicity in the labor market. The findings ofthe research generally confirmed previous studies that show that highly skilled migrant women aremostly situated in the secondary segments of the labour market or face discrimination whenpositioned in primary jobs due to their different ethnicity and different culture. The studyrecommends that further research be done with a a larger sample and the same study done in otherEuropean countries for comparison purposes.

The aim of my study has been to examine the work related to integration into the swedish society of young adult refugees. To fulfill my work I have chosen 6 staff that work at the residents of the refugees and interviewed them qualitatively through the telephone. I have asked the staff about their working methods, priorities in their work, possible improvements in their work, observation of development et cetera. The interviews were conducted through the telephone because of current rules and encourages regarding social distancing during the corona epidemic. I have also been aware and described the advantages and disadvantages about my chosen method. I have chosen theories about stigma, socialization and empowerment, earlier research conducted about the subject and Malmö stads own plan of integration as tools to analyze my gathered information from the interviews. The results in my study show that my informants regard integration as the same as being a self-propelled individual that learns how to take care of oneself in different ways and that this is obtained by being a part of education, improving ones skills in the swedish language and lastly, establishing oneself in the labor market. The biggest obstacle in this work was the alienation that refugees end up in because of the stereotypical negative image that exists of refugees.

This case study touches on the development of refugees’ mental and physical health from their stays in the refugee facilities during and after the limbo process for a temporary and permanent visa, which in turn affected their socioeconomic integration. Seven refugees and their families that came to Sweden during the refugee crisis in 2015-2016 and were moved to a facility where I worked, were interviewed on how those issues impacted them. With the help of Egon Kunz’s [Refugee Theory] theory, the study showed that constant relocation to different facilities in Sweden, and experienced events and conflicts at the facilities have resulted in long-term health and socioeconomic problems. Such as PTSD, mental and physical recovery from occurred events at the facilities, in turn, negatively affecting socioeconomic integration. Additional research in those issues showed that other countries like Germany, which also had a large influx of refugees during that time, had better and faster success with integration when they helped the refugees with the language and societal information at the beginning of limbo. Because their interest in learning and integrating is higher, and the health and integration issues are much lower than when refugees are sometimes forced to wait at least two years, which is what some of the participants and other refugees in this study did before starting SFI, integration programs and have their own private place live in.  The temporary visa, especially with no help to integrate, caused the lack of interest in learning the language; socioeconomic integration, mainly when the person was alone with no family. Moreover, their developed health from their time at the facilities is still a recovering process.

The government and civil society have taken steps to combat the segregation in Malmö through integration initiatives. This thesis studies four NGO integration programmes found within Skåne Stadsmission and the Red Cross Malmö. The primary research question is: How do volunteers and employees at NGOs in Malmö work with the integration of migrants? The thesis aims to understand the role staff and volunteers at NGOs play in the integration of migrants, what perspective they have on integration, and what challenges they face. The primary material consists of interviews conducted with six volunteers and employees. The thesis uses Putnam’s Social Capital theory and finds that NGO programmes foster social networks, creating social capital that benefits migrants’ integration. The programmes are found to focus on migrants’ assimilation and conclude that a two-way process of integration is not identified, rather the programmes work by teaching migrants to navigate Swedish bureaucracy and find employment.