Division of race and ethnicity
My research on migration apply feminist and postcolonial perspectives to look at what happens when citizens and non-citizens are divided with reference to ethnicity, 'race' and heritage. I investigate how such divisions are explained and legitimised by alleged common-sensical economic and administrative concepts. I am also generally engaging in feminist and postcolonial perspectives in my research and teaching.
Migration and affective values of the economy
I do research on migration processes and institutional citizenship practices that shape migrant categories and I am particularly concerned with how these processes intersect with social relations of 'race', ethnicity and gender in a segmented society. I am also interested in how these processes play out in a number of different institutional and social settings and how knowledge production as a processes with both material and discursive dimensions affect these relations. My general research focus especially concerns work and labour market processes where I engage in critical and feminist approaches to labour and economy. I have designed courses on intersectional perspectives on migration and held several lectures on feminist theories on labour and economy, as well as on general feminist theories on identities and intersections of 'race' and class.
The Moral Economy of Managed Migration in Sweden
In my current research project I am analysing changing migration regimes in Sweden and how economic values interact with moral and affective values when temporary migrant workers are valuated and positioned at the Swedish labour market. The material I have used consists mainly of interviews with representatives of Swedish firms and offices who recruit temporary labour from countries outside the EU in order to understand how these employers and managers engage in policy and public opinion regarding foreign labour. I have also used participatory observations and interviews with migrant workers in order to investigate the negotiations and processes of legitimation of economy and morality in relation to both offshoring of jobs and seasonal work in Sweden. I engage in theories of the political economy of globalisation and spatial processes and put these in dialogue with migration studies and traditions of feminist and postcolonial critique of identities and categories of migrants and workers.
Methodological concerns
I have an interest in a wide range of methodological approaches. I have however mainly used qualitative methods and applied institutional ethnography as a way of approaching a field and analysing empirical material. My teaching includes different lectures and seminars on ethnography, qualitative interviewsas well as discourse analysis and social constructionism. I have also supervised fieldwork essays and a range of BA as well as MA theses in social and cultural analysis, social work and cultural studies.
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