Research Fields at REMESO

Our Research Fields

Five Research Streams in REMESO's Research

Research at the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society is divided into five broad areas, or research streams, which also serve as platforms for research projects.

Social transformation, migration and mobility

Causes and conditions of migration, mobility, and displacement. Research on global, regional, national and local inequalities, environmental change, war, conflict, precarious livelihoods, unfair labor conditions, and other material processes affecting migration and mobility.

Borders and Boundaries

Frameworks and regimes of inclusion and exclusion. Research on local, national, international and geopolitical arrangements determining the processes of migration, such as borders and border practices, surveillance of migration and migration, and migration infrastructure, technology, and logistics.

Integration and Segregation

The Political Economy of Social (In)justice. Research on the forces of inequality and governance that affect migrant inclusion and exclusion in receiving societies, including institutional settings and rules for residency and citizenship, labour-market integration, language acquisition, and access to housing, healthcare, welfare, and human rights.

Discrimination and Racism

Discourses, Ideologies and practices of difference and discrimination. Research on discrimination related to identities, nation, indigeneity, race, gender, and class, as well as studies of ideas, ideologies, histories, cultural expressions, and social practices connected to ethnicity, nationality, nationalism, and whiteness.

Migrant Agency

Migrants’ experiences of injustice and their practices of coping, everyday living and resistance. Research on the agency and practices of migrants, migrant organizations, and migrants’ social movements, including struggles for recognition, redistribution, and rights, and the expressions of such struggles in politics and culture.

Man in refugee camp behind the Belgrade Central Station

Explanation to the photo

Abdul Saboor is an Afghan refugee and photographer based in Paris. During 2017 he was stuck in Serbia, due to the new border closure. He lived in an informal camp behind the Belgrade Central Station. There he started to take pictures with his phone and later with a donated digital camera.

Research

Research at the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO)

In these videos, nine of the researchers at REMESO provide an insight into their work. Their research highlights power structures, identifies structural barriers within welfare systems, provides decision-makers with essential knowledge, promotes integration and deepens our understanding of democracy.

Anna Bredström

Racism and assumptions of biological differences in medical research and healthcare.

Nubin Ciziri

What we are missing in the integration debate.

Stefan Jonsson

How societies are shaped and reshaped through migration.

Kristoffer Jutvik

Migration policy, residency permits and inclusion.

Karin Krifors

Why it may be worthwhile to think about the different infrastructures of migration.

Catrin Lundström

Whiteness as capital.

Anders Neergaard

The role of security in migration and integration policy.

Olav Nygård

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Claudia Tazreiter

How democratic deliberation can contribute to better societies.

Glossary - important terms in the research

Asylum

Asylum means a place of refuge or protection. It gives a person fleeing war, persecution or the threat of death in their home country the legal right to stay and seek protection in another country. Seeking asylum is a fundamental human right. Yet in Sweden and elsewhere in the world, governments are making it increasingly difficult to do so.

Class

Groups of people that take shape and change in relation to one another, according to how production is organised. Individuals and groups occupy different levels within a social hierarchy shaped by economic, social and political power. These positions affect their access to resources such as wealth, income, education, influence and status.

Colonialism

A process through which a state conquers, controls and economically exploits other territories and their populations. Colonialism involves more than geographical expansion: it establishes unequal power relations and institutions that benefit the colonial power and its population at the expense of colonised people. Colonial structures persist and continue to shape global relations.

Cultural capital

A sociological concept coined by Pierre Bourdieu to describe the non-material assets鈥攕uch as education, language, style, taste in art and values鈥攖hat confer social status and power. Cultural capital is often passed on through parents and social networks. It is central to understanding both an individual鈥檚 class position and the wider class structure of society.

Ethnicity

An individual鈥檚 identification with, and sense of belonging to, a particular group. This belonging is based on shared cultural characteristics, such as language, religion, history, traditions or common ancestry. It differs from nationality, which refers to legal citizenship. Ethnicity takes shape through relationships between groups: everyone has an ethnicity, yet the term is often used to refer to 鈥榦thers鈥�.

Ethnoracism

A way of viewing and organising society that divides people according to racialisation rather than class or social status. It involves treating a particular ethnic or racial group as superior, or as exclusively entitled to resources and political influence within a given territory. Even when the word 鈥榬ace鈥� is not used, the effect is racism expressed through ideas about ethnicity and culture.

Gender

The socially and culturally constructed dimensions of sex/gender. Gender differs from biological sex by focusing on the norms, expectations and roles that society assigns to men and women, and on how these create and sustain structures of power.

Infrastructure

The physical, institutional and digital systems essential to the functioning of a society and its economy. Infrastructure acts as society鈥檚鈥榮keleton鈥�, connecting people, organisations and institutions. It is shaped by structures of power, while also sustaining and transforming the societies in which it operates.

Integration

The process through which individuals, groups or cultures come together and participate in a shared society. Integration involves interaction between all groups in society to create inclusion on equal terms. It differs from assimilation, which focuses on changing 鈥榯hem鈥� to make them more like 鈥榰s鈥�. Integration is often used as a political term for assimilation.

Migration

An umbrella term for people鈥檚 movement across geographical and other kinds of borders to settle temporarily or permanently elsewhere. It includes both emigration and immigration. Understanding international migration requires examining the rules that govern it and how these interact with class, gender and racialisation.

Mobility

A broad concept concerned with the movement of individuals and groups, usually divided into two main categories: physical mobility and social mobility. Mobility is often understood in terms of the interplay between social structures and human agency: people鈥檚 capacity to act within, navigate and change society.

Racialisation

A process through which people are assigned racial characteristics by others on the basis of appearance, culture or ancestry, while those doing the categorising attribute positive qualities to themselves. These categories are socially created and often shape belonging, opportunities, power, and inequality in society. Processes of racialisation generate subordination, exploitation and exclusion of people.

Racism

An ideology or set of practices based on the belief that people can be divided into hierarchically ranked groups according to ethnicity, skin colour, culture or religion. Racism works through exploitation and exclusion and manifests itself in prejudice, discrimination and abuse These racist practices create inequality and restrict people鈥檚 fundamental rights and freedoms. Racism is used to preserve privilege, while anti-racism is grounded in an understanding of social justice.

Security/safety

A fundamental human need with both psychological and physical dimensions. Safety and security are often central to political agendas, but can be understood in different ways. These different ideological understandings shape which threats, anxieties and forms of harm are seen as problems. They also shape ideas about solidarity: with whom it should be built, and how safety and security should be achieved.

Segregation

A process or condition in which different groups of people live and carry out their activities separately from one another. This separation often follows divisions based on socioeconomic status, ethnicity, racialisation, gender and/or level of education. The term is most commonly used in relation to housing and the labour market.

Whiteness

In critical whiteness studies, whiteness is understood as a social construction that establishes what is treated as normal, rather than primarily as a skin colour. The concept is used to analyse power relations in which whiteness has historically and structurally conferred social and political privileges relative to other groups.

Welfare

People鈥檚 overall living conditions and quality of life throughout their lives. The concept encompasses resources and conditions such as material living standards, health, education, housing and social security. It is used to examine how social structures shape the distribution of resources among individuals and groups, often along lines of class, gender and ethnicity or racialisation.

Research projects

A group of people standing around each other.

Democratic Futures

How is democracy experienced, shaped and challenged in everyday life? We explore this through ethnographic, artistic and Indigenous methods. We highlight minority communities whose perspectives are often absent from dominant narratives of democracy.

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