About the project

The overarching objective of my PhD project is to explore encounters between social workers and irregular migrants within the context of the Norwegian Welfare State. My particular interest relates to how social workers in various welfare state settings understand, shape and (re)negotiate professional roles, identities and values in situations where migrants clearly are in need of social welfare services but where their access and rights to such services are limited and contested. At the same time, I aim to study how the migrants experience and understand such encounters.

Research is scarce when it comes to these topics, particularly from the Norwegian context. The larger knowledge base the study aims at contributing to is the academic field of social work and migration, where scholars recently have called for critical investigations of the consequences of the nation-state being the basis for social work in a globalised society.

The methodological approach to be employed in the project is long-term anthropological fieldwork where participant observation is the key component.

Background

Masters degree (Cand. Polit.) in Social Anthropology, University of Oslo