When determining who should be accepted as a refugee, decision-makers use information about asylum-seekers’ home countries to assess the credibility of the claim and the risk of future persecution. ...As such, country information plays a decisive role in the outcome of asylum claims. Based on asylum case files and interviews with decision-makers in Norway, I investigate the use of country information in the refugee status determination process and compare the specific pieces of country information that decision-makers used in their assessments to landmarks on maps. Landmarks here are understood as decision-makers’ interpretations about places, customs, and political and social conditions in asylum-seekers’ home countries. To come across as credible, applicants had to demonstrate knowledge of landmarks familiar to decision-makers, but they also needed to present a story that testified to their personal experience with the landscape in their home countries. Minor deviations from the landmarks could undermine a claim’s credibility. The metaphor of the map as a seemingly objective representation of reality illustrates the authority of country information in the refugee status determination process. As I demonstrate, however, decision-makers based their knowledge of such landmarks not only on formal sources of information, but also on the narratives of other applicants, assumptions about rational behavior, and their own everyday experience with places. In line with the legal mandate to produce a binary decision, decision-makers had to consolidate uncertain information into solid landmarks that enabled them to clearly distinguish between refugees and non-refugees. Because of their important role in enabling such distinctions, landmarks are key in refugee protection on the one hand and migration control on the other.
Abstract
Assessing claims for refugee status is a task often riddled with uncertainties, not least because of the challenge of establishing the credibility of the claims. The uncertainties enable ...divergent interpretations of both evidence and legal rules, thereby constituting a space for discretion in the refugee status determination process. This article explores how decision makers in the Norwegian asylum system reached a conviction about the outcome of asylum claims, despite numerous uncertainties. Decision makers who worked closely together developed a system of distinction that enabled them to single out applicants with protection needs from those who were not considered to be eligible. This system ordered the space for discretion, thereby reducing doubts about the outcome. It was based on the law and other formal sources, but also on recognizing patterns of difference and similarity with previous decisions. The emphasis on comparison between cases meant that the outcome of an individual application could not be understood in isolation; the distinctions between applicants who were accepted and those who were rejected depended, in part, on the case set as a whole. The findings suggest that, in a context of uncertainty, refugee status is to some extent determined by producing a local yardstick of who ‘the refugee’ is.
This article investigates the depiction of social workers and bureaucracy in selected social work syllabi texts in Norway. The core message is that bureaucracy threatens to undermine important social ...work principles. The texts emphasize individual responsibility and that social workers cannot assume that the 'system' will be ethical. As bureaucrats, social workers should prioritize loyalty to the clients and the political agenda of the profession above the demands of public bureaucracies. This entails that social workers need to oppose rules and policies when necessary, engage in critical reflection, approach clients in a personal and holistic manner, promote anti-hierarchical attitudes and actively combat social inequality on a structural level. While the texts promote an image of the social work bureaucrat as an antidote to the dark sides of bureaucracy, they to a limited extent reflect the ethos of bureaucracy as a sphere with distinct values that are important in democratic societies.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Sammendrag Forskningen på rasisme og diskriminering i Norge har i hovedsak konsentrert seg om erfaringer blant innvandrere og norskfødte med innvandrerforeldre. Vi vet mindre om omfanget av rasismen ...og diskrimineringa som utenlandsadopterte møter, og hvordan slike erfaringer arter seg. Denne studien er den første i norsk sammenheng som utforsker disse temaene både kvalitativt og kvantitativt. Vi finner at utenlandsadopterte opplever diskriminering i et betydelig omfang. Erfaringene varierer fra direkte rasistiske og diskriminerende hendelser til mer subtile signaler om at andre ikke vurderer dem som norske. Utenlandsadopterte har mye til felles med andre synlige minoritetsgrupper som opplever diskriminering, men de har også noen unike erfaringer, som at noen av dem ikke bare opplever forskjellsbehandling fra fremmede og bekjente, men også fra sine aller nærmeste. Mange utenlandsadopterte føler seg mer alene i møte med rasisme fordi de ikke har andre i sine nære omgivelser som de kan speile seg i, eller som deler liknende erfaringer.
On the Risk of Being a Cultural Chameleon Downie, Michelle; Mageau, Genevieve A; Koestner, Richard ...
Cultural diversity & ethnic minority psychology,
07/2006, Letnik:
12, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In the present study the authors used an event-contingent daily recording strategy, the Rochester Interaction Record, to examine the relation of perceived evaluations of a multicultural person's ...heritage group to the nature and quality of his or her social interactions. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that having an interaction partner who positively evaluated one's heritage culture was associated with significantly enhanced interaction intimacy, disclosure, and quality, as well as with feelings of personal acceptance. Moderator analyses revealed that individuals who possessed a chameleon-like cultural identity and those who had low public collective self-esteem were particularly reactive to how their heritage group was being evaluated.
Konflikt spiller en viktig rolle på alle nivåer i samfunnet – fra et menneskes indre konflikter og konflikter i kjærlighetsrelasjoner, til politisk konflikt og væpnet konflikt mellom nasjoner. ...Sosiologi er en vitenskap som beveger seg på tvers av alle disse nivåene og som stiller et mangfold av ulike metoder og teoretiske perspektiver til rådighet. Slik sett kan man si at sosiologien er godt rustet for å studere et tema som konflikt. Konfliktperspektivet har vært sentralt for noen av de mest formative sosiologiske tenkerne, fra klassikere som Karl Marx og Max Weber, senere tenkere i Frankfurterskolen, som Habermas, og til klasseforskere, som Bourdieu. I en verden hvor vi opplever raske og store endringer i identitet, verdier, sosiale institusjoner og en vedvarende ulikhet i fordeling av materielle ressurser og makt, fortsetter konflikt å være et viktig tema å utforske med et sosiologisk blikk. I så måte forbinder konflikttemaet nåværende forskning med klassiske, sosiologiske tenkere.
Researchers engage in increasingly complex relationships with society and business in the process of conducting research. Can qualitative research produce high-quality results when there are close ...ties between the researchers and those being researched, or between research institutions, those who commission research, and user groups? This is a question that researchers should actively address, but which many are not always aware of. With examples from qualitative studies in healthcare, policing, bureaucracy and politics, the anthology’s contributors provide a comprehensive presentation of challenges researchers face when they are close to those they are researching, as well as tools that can be used to contend with certain challenges. Proximity to Professions, Work and Politics will be of particular interest to students and researchers working with studies of professional life, organisations, work and politics, either through commissioned research or other research projects.
Forskere inngår i stadig mer komplekse relasjoner med samfunn og næringsliv i gjennomføring av forskning. Hvordan kan kvalitativ forskning produsere kunnskap av høy kvalitet når det er tette bånd mellom forskerne og de som forskes på, eller mellom forskningsinstitusjoner, oppdragsgivere og brukergrupper? Dette er et spørsmål forskere bør forholde seg aktivt til, men som mange ikke alltid er seg like bevisst. Med eksempler fra kvalitative studier innen helse, politi, byråkrati og politikk, gir bokas bidragsytere en samlet fremstilling av utfordringer forskere kan møte når de er tett på dem de forsker på, samt hvilke verktøy man kan ta i bruk for å håndtere gitte utfordringer. Tett på profesjon, arbeid og politikk henvender seg spesielt til studenter og forskere som arbeider med studier av profesjon, organisasjon, arbeid og politikk, enten gjennom oppdragsforskning eller andre forskningsprosjekter.
Policymakers emphasise knowledge-based practices and evaluate their effectiveness. The Norwegian Directorate of Labour and Welfare has developed a model for Comprehensive follow-up of Low-income ...Families (the so-called HOLF model). The model includes several elements common in social work, such as relational and empowering practices, in addition to the implementation of intervention-specific tools and principles. Because most of the family coordinators are professional social workers, we measure pre-implementation practices related to intervention elements relevant to the HOLF model (i.e. relational skills, empowerment, comprehensive follow-up processes, goal-focused meetings, and the coordination of services). The data stem from a baseline survey conducted among 58 family coordinators in 29 Labour and Welfare offices in a cluster-randomised trial. The results demonstrate that family coordinators had high levels of relational skills prior to the intervention, were goal-focused in their meetings and emphasised empowerment, whereas comprehensive follow-up processes and the coordination of services were less apparent. Hence, this study shows the importance of measuring various social work competences prior to programme implementation, as some practices the intervention aims at improving might already be more or less prevalent.
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