The thesis focuses on the work of Grassroots organizations in Greece after the peak of the 2015 refugee crisis. The research explores their current problems in Greece and their ability to report freely on the migrants situation. The information was gathered based on interviews with key informants from 6 different Grassroots organizations working in Greece. Findings show that there is an anti-NGO movement within the current Greek government. Furthermore, the government has introduced a new harsh registration process for all NGO’s within the migration field, which can determine whether organizations will be allowed to work in Greece or not. This causes fear amongst experts and Grassroots whether they will be able to continue their work in Greece and advocating for the human rights of the refugees and asylum seekers in Greece.

Leaning on the framework of Critical Race and Whiteness Theory, this qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews with second-generation Mexican Americans and White Americans to offer a yet untaken perspective on the fragmented nature of identity. It also sheds light on the ways racism and interracial relationships shape individuals’ notions of race and privilege. The study’s findings indicate that Mexicans perceive themselves as a distinct racial group situated in a “third space,” marked by a dialectic between externally ascribed and internally attributed racial identity categories. White individuals use color and power-evasion strategies to avoid cognizance of their own racial identities. However, their interracial relationships provide a meaningful premise altering the ways they perceive notions of race and White privilege. Shifts in White individuals’ perspectives occur in relation to heightened race consciousness, acknowledging White privilege, and racial inequality and includes behavioral changes resulting from their interactions with their significant others.

Abstract not available.

The aim of the thesis is to contribute to a growing understanding on how Venezuelan refugees are being constructed by the Brazilian media during the ongoing refugee crisis in South America and the main discourses related to them. The fact that South-South migration has so far been understudied and the relevant and fast-escalating displacement of people from Venezuela are the motivations for this study. The theoretical framework consists of Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of CDA and the theoretical concepts of stereotypes and othering. Twenty-one articles about Venezuelan refugees, published between 2016 and 2021, were analyzed. The findings of the thesis show that Venezuelans were mainly associated with negative aspects, entailing two sub discourses: in the first one, they were constructed as the origin of diseases at the borders and associated with violence and tension, and in the second one they were constructed as exploited, underemployed and poorly integrated into the formal labor market.

The colonial legacy of development aid has been widely discussed in academia. This study uses postcolonial theory to shed light upon how one Finnish NGO’s visual imageries affect the representation of the African continent. The thesis adds underexplored perspectives by highlighting the perceptions of five Finnish African diaspora members in Finland, giving a voice to the subaltern. Using qualitative semi-structured interviews combined with the photo-elicitation technique the study emphasizes through thematic analysis that the NGO’s visual imageries affect the everyday lives of the Finnish African diaspora by reproducing imageries that reflect colonial undertones. Results also indicated that the photos reproduce the single story of Africa in the Finnish society, affecting how the Finnish majority perceives the diaspora members. The diaspora members felt disappointed by the misrepresentation of the African continent, but they also provided solutions to overcome these very existing hierarchies.

This thesis investigates the formation of national identity in South Korea regarding Japan through the perception of Japan in the eyes of the South Korean people. Despite Korea’s independence from Japan in 1945, the complex relationship resulting from the historical events seems continual, blocking their further cooperation. The ethnic relation between these two countries has been revolving around socio-political issues. In this sense, this thesis focuses on the micro-level to understand the ethnic relationship, which is visible through the formation of national identity. By adopting the constructivist point of view, this research identifies the core elements of national identity in the case of South Korean people through the application of national identity theories. This research employs semi-structured interviews to attain primary data from the Korean interviewees. Secondary sources are complemented from the presidential speech to provide an insight into the constitution of South Koreans’ national identity in parallel. Thematic analysis is utilized from these two data sets to explore the national identities by generating the themes of history, Japanese goods, and imagery. The perception of South Korean people toward Japan has revealed that they take the colonial history into account the most in their constitution of national identity.

This bachelor thesis provides an analysis of hair and its role for the racial and ethnic identity of Black women living in Sweden. This is achieved by analyzing interviews with five women who reside in different urban areas throughout Sweden. In the analysis, the concept of Othering and social identity theory by Fiske and Taylor (2016) have been used to examine the position of the interviewees within Swedish society and the role of hair in their racial and ethnic identity. The results of the analysis show, that hair is a significant part of the interviewed women’s racial and ethnic identity. Furthermore, the results also show the ambivalence of hair for the women; though their hair is crucial for their self-identification and self-esteem, women are in a constant struggle with insecurities stemming from perceived external identification processes through negative labels attached to their hair.

This thesis addresses representation of ‘irregular’ migrants in the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ (SZ). The study employs the discourse event of New Year’s Eve 2015 in Cologne as a temporal marker and aims to examine representations of ‘irregular’ migrants prior to and following the event. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) of fourteen articles is conducted, and Fairclough’s three-dimensional model is employed to analyse the material. Following a textual analysis, in which the use of modality is examined, the sociocultural dimension of the newspaper discourse is investigated. This section sees the application of Stuart Hall’s Othering to the analysis, as well as an inspection of prevalent themes found in the material. The analysis concludes with the finding of ‘deservingness’ and ‘semantics of crime and threat’ as prevalent themes. Furthermore, the results show that ‘irregular’ migrants are constructed as the ‘Other’ in SZ articles, however, this finding is not generalisable to the entire sample.

The Swedish Migration Agency has, through the years, received criticism regarding its management and assessments of different cases. One of these critiques has been towards the Agency’s management of asylum seekers claiming to have converted as a refugee claim. Therefore, this thesis aims to strengthen the Agency’s management of these cases. Using the critisism made against the Swedish Migration Agency, I suggested recommendation and amendments to the Agency’s established guidelines. The findings in this thesis showed extensive criticism towards the Agency’s usage of religious knowledge tests to assess the genuineness of a conversion. The critic also argues that the Agency lacks religious understanding and that the Agency should focus on identity, community, and faith in a higher power. The analysis presented a need to address religion, the conversion process, and the role of the Agency’s personnel in the guideline.

This thesis examines the representation of temporary migrants in the OCVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand. The aim of the study is to understand how the pandemic effected this early decision making by the New Zealand Parliament in correlation with migration, more specific, the temporary migrants who are stuck within New Zealands borders. These issues can be linked with shock mobility, more specific, with immobility within shock. The material is analysed with the WPR method. The study concludes that there is a changing discourse and a changing representation of the temporary migrants. Where at first the New Zealand citizens have to be protected, later on in the discourse the migrants need to be helped and it is followed by financial gain that the temporary migrants bring with their labour and spending. The findings create a contribution in the field of shock mobility, with a focus on the immobility within shock mobility.