Against the Current: Migrant Rights Activism in Malmö as Resistance to Sweden's Hostile Migration Regime
Author
Rasmusson, Johanna Linnea
Term
4. semester
Education
Publication year
2025
Submitted on
2025-10-15
Pages
79
Abstract
Dette speciale undersøger, hvordan migrantrettighedsaktivisme i Malmö udfolder sig inden for Sveriges stadig mere restriktive migrationsregime. Malmö har længe været et knudepunkt for solidaritetsbaserede mobiliseringer og er derfor et strategisk sted at studere, hvordan lokale aktører reagerer på en politisk kontekst præget af afskrækkelse og indskrænket civilsamfundsrum. Med udgangspunkt i semistrukturerede interview med aktivister fra lokale migrantrettighedsgrupper og en netnografisk undersøgelse af deres digitale tilstedeværelse, og informeret af praksisteori, intersektionalitet og teori om situeret modstand, analyserer specialet de hverdagspraksisser, hvorigennem modstand skabes, formes og forhandles. Analysen viser, at grupperne i stigende grad prioriterer juridisk, social og praktisk støtte for at modvirke den marginalisering, som regimet producerer, side om side med at bære vidnesbyrd, skabe offentlig opmærksomhed og opbygge fællesskab. Modstand fremstår både adaptiv og ambivalent og forhandles løbende i spændingsfelter mellem synlighed og sikkerhed samt afhængighed og autonomi, med fokus på at opretholde tilhørsforhold, kollektiv handlekraft og handlingsrum i og imod det fjendtlige migrationsregime. Specialet bidrager med opdateret, lokalt forankret viden til kritiske migrationsstudier og forskning i aktivisme ved at begrebsliggøre migrantrettighedsarbejde som situeret politisk praksis i nutidens Sverige.
This thesis examines how migrant rights activism in Malmö unfolds within Sweden’s increasingly restrictive migration regime. Malmö has long been a hub for solidarity-based mobilization, making it a strategic site to study how local actors respond to a policy context marked by deterrence and shrinking civic space. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with activists from local migrant rights groups and a netnographic study of their online presence, and informed by practice theory, intersectionality, and scholarship on situated resistance, the study analyzes the everyday practices through which resistance is enacted, shaped, and negotiated. The analysis shows that groups increasingly prioritize legal, social, and practical support to counter the marginalization produced by the regime, alongside bearing witness, creating public visibility, and building community. Resistance appears both adaptive and ambivalent, continually negotiated through tensions between visibility and safety and between dependence and autonomy, and oriented toward sustaining belonging, collective capacity, and room for action within and against the hostile migration regime. The thesis contributes updated, locally grounded insights to critical migration studies and activism research by conceptualizing migrant rights work as situated political practice in contemporary Sweden.
[This abstract was generated with the help of AI]
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