As of fairly recently, migrant workers from South East Asia are migrating to Canada for work in the agricultural industry. Little research has been conducted on migration routes and recruitment patterns of these migrant workers. Interviews with 13 workers and three support workers were conducted between May and July 2011 to learn about this process; specifically with how these individuals are getting to Canada, and how they maintain (or do not maintain) relationships with the private intermediaries and employment agencies that facilitate this movement. This research will fill a gap in the literature by describing the recruitment processes of ‘low-skilled’ workers into Canada and, more importantly, it will provide a much-needed space for South East Asian migrants to share their experiences about working in Canada.

Syftet med denna studie är att öka förståelsen för hur rekryterare hanterar svårigheten att bedöma kandidater under anställningsintervjuer. Studiens empiriska material har samlats in genom ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt där sju semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts. Intervjupersonerna arbetar med rekrytering i Stockholms län och använder anställningsintervjuer som metod i rekryteringsprocessen. Med hjälp av tidigare forskning och teorier som förklarar likhetseffekten, homosocial reproduktion, haloeffekten samt hur en kompetensbaserad rekrytering går till visar resultatet av studien att intervjupersonernas bedömning av kandidater till stor del baseras på den “personkemi” som uppstår mellan rekryterare och kandidat vid ett första möte. Enligt tidigare forskning tenderar bedömning av kandidater baserat på ett första intryck att å ena sidan utesluta potentiellt starka kandidater och å andra sidan resultera i felrekrytering. Intervjupersonerna var medvetna om denna problematik och har därför utvecklat egna tekniker för att undvika fallgroparna som gör att de riskerar att “döma boken efter omslaget”. / The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how recruiters handle the difficulty of assessing candidates during job interviews. The empirical material of the study was gathered based on a qualitative approach by which seven semi structured interviews were conducted. The interviewees are recruiting staff in Stockholm County who uses job interviews as a method in the recruitment process. With support by previous research and theory which explains the similar attraction theory, homosocial reproduction, the law of effect and recruitment based on qualifications, the results of the study show that the interviewees assessment of candidates are largely based on “the chemistry” created between the recruiter and the candidate during their first meeting. However, according to previous research, this is an approach that on one hand tends to exclude potentially strong candidates, and on the other hand could result in a recruitment gone wrong. The interviewees were aware of this issue, and have therefore developed their own techniques to avoid the pitfalls which puts them in risk to “judge the book by its cover”.

Diese Dissertation folgt Fernando Pó Arbeitskraftanwerbern wohin sie auch gingen dort, wo sie zwischen den 1860er und 1920er Jahren den gesamten Golf von Guinea überquerten und hauptsächlich Kru von Liberien und Fang von Rio Muni, Kamerun und Gabon anwarben; und dort, wo sie ab den 1930er bis 1960er Jahren vor allem um die Bucht von Biafra eine noch nie dagewesene Anzahl an Vertragsarbeitern, vor allem Igbos und Ibibios aus dem südöstlichen Nigeria auf die florierenden Kakaoplantagen der Insel brachten. Die Anwerber tauchten vornehmlich als eine Modalität auf, die ich als ‘tout’ beschreibe und theoretisiere. Diese operierten fast ausschließlich mittels eines Exzesses an Sprache und Geld mittels Täuschung und informellen Vorschüssen. Zwar agierten sie ‘außerhalb’ des Rechts, doch erlaubte genau die Vertragsform von Fernando Pó, die langfristig und unwiderruflich zur Arbeit zwang, den Anwerbern die Ausübung ihrer Techniken. Eine Reihe an unerlaubten Verdrehungen wurden geschaffen und durchgereicht: Quasi-Versklavung durch Täuschung in Form von Kidnapping, Quasi-Schuldknechtschaft mittels informellen Lohnvorschüssen, die die Verträge ermöglichten sowie die grenz- und Arbeitsort überschreitende Migration einer relativ freien, allerdings flüchtigen Arbeitskraft. Der anhaltende Blick auf die ambivalenten Praktiken der Anwerber legt eine Reihe an Nebeneinandern von ‚frei’ und ‚unfrei’ offen, was kreative Potentiale für deren Intensivierung und Auflösung schuf, und über einzelne Punkten entlang eines Spektrums der freien-unfreien Arbeit hinausgeht. / This dissertation follows Fernando Pó’s labour recruiters wherever they went— between the 1860s and 1920s recruiters traversed the entirety of the Gulf of Guinea and enlisted mostly Kru from Liberia and Fang from Rio Muni, Cameroon and Gabon; between the 1930s to 1960s they gathered particularly around the Bight of Biafra and brought an unprecedented number of contract workers into the island’s booming cacao plantations, mostly Igbos and Ibibios from south-eastern Nigeria. Recruiters tended to appear in a modality that I will describe and theorize as ‘touts’. They operated almost exclusively with an excess of language and money—deceit and informal advances. They operated ‘outside’ the law and the regulated, yet it was only the shape of the contract on Fernando Pó—forced, long and irrevocable—that allowed recruiters to deploy their techniques. Recruiters created and relayed a series of wholly impermissible twists: quasi-enslavement through fraud that was a form of kidnapping, quasi-debt bondage with informal wage advances enabled by the contracts, and even a movement of really quite free but fugitive labour across borders and work-sites. A sustained attention on the ambivalent practices of recruiters reveal a series of juxtapositions of free and unfree that produced creative potentials for intensification and unravelling, rather than single points along a ‘free-unfree’ labour spectrum.