Migrant Men and Conditional Belonging

Organizers: Anastasia Asikainen (anastasia.asikainen@helsinki.fi), Larisa Shpakovskaya (larisa.shpakovskaya@helsinki.fi) and Tatiana Glushkova (tatiana.glushkova@helsinki.fi)

Time: Thursday 7.11., session 1 at 13.00-14.30 and session 2 at 16.15-17.45

The concept of belonging is one that has been widely utilised in social research in the recent years to highlight people’s personal and lived experiences in various contexts. When adding the notion of belonging being conditional (Yodovich 2021) in the context of migration studies (deWaal 2020), it brings the focus to whose belonging is made conditional, by whom, and in what terms. A sense of belonging is ultimately conditional for all, however, different conditions related to e.g. ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic background or class become visible in the ways people search for, and negotiate their belonging. In short, belonging is a ‘feeling of being at home’ and we wish to explore what this entails as a lived experience for migrant men.

In this session, we are particularly interested in experiences of find a sense of belonging which is influenced by men/masculinities in a wide context, what these contexts could be, and representations that can influence people’s positions in the context of migration.

This session is open for all who work with similar themes as discussed above. We especially welcome papers that empirically work with men who are above working age; however, all ages are welcome. Art-based approaches in line with these topics are also warmly welcomed.

Ideas of topics (but not limited to):

Gendered places of belonging
Men’s social relations in the context of migration
Ageing migrants and masculinities

Presentations can be held in Finnish or in English.

Session 1

Josefina Sipinen, Tampere University; Peter Söderlund, Åbo Akademi University; Hannamaria Kuusio, Finnish Institution for Health and Welfare: Sense of belonging and political participation in Finland: A positively reinforcing relationship?

Literature in social psychology, political science, and sociology suggests that a stronger sense of belonging increases political participation. Belonging to a community reinforces norms of engagement in group affairs and enhances the sense of influence over common matters, while alienation weakens this efficacy. This study examines the link between participation and sense of belonging among migrants in Finland. The MoniSuomi survey, collected by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (n=7,838), asked migrants about their political participation and experiences of inclusion and belonging. We employ latent class analysis (LCA) to identify subgroups with shared characteristics. Some migrants may feel included but not participate politically, while others may experience the opposite. The MoniSuomi data allows for examining both institutional political participation and non-institutional participation, such as demonstrating. This is important as political participation also includes non-conformist forms like protest participation, which oppose the current administration or status quo and can stem from low levels of belonging. This study explores factors influencing subgroup membership, such as the democratization level in the country of origin, reasons for moving to Finland, age at migration, socio-economic status in Finland, gender, and discrimination experiences.

Tatiana Glushkova, University of Helsinki; Laura Kemppainen, University of Helsinki; Anne Kouvonen, University of Helsinki and Centre for Public Health, Queen’s University Belfast; Teemu Kemppainen, Centre for Public Health, Queen’s University Belfast; Ilkka Pietilä, University of Helsinki; Sirpa Wrede, University of Helsinki: A sense of belonging during the time of social raptures: population based-study of older Russian-speaking migrants in Finland

Aging in a foreign country, which is becoming more common due to increasing international migration and population aging, is associated with a greater risk of loneliness and social isolation. A sense of belonging provides a feeling of being “at home” and may protect against loneliness. However, learning the local language and adopting local cultural practices are not always sufficient to develop a subjective sense of belonging in the host society. For older migrants, creating a sense of belonging in a new country can be particularly challenging. Additionally, significant social changes can affect one’s sense of belonging, either to the destination society or the society of origin. Using panel data from a population-based study of older Russian-speaking migrants in Finland (n=1082 for 2019 and n=724 for 2022), we examined whether belonging to Finns, Russians, or other migrant groups changed between 2019 and 2022—a period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Preliminary findings indicate that belonging to Finns remained stable during these years, while belonging to Russians weakened, and belonging to other “immigrants” strengthened.

Inkeri Tanhua, Hanken School of Economics: Migrant men’s experiences of belonging in Finnish vocational education

This paper examines how male vocational upper-secondary school students experience belonging in their school, and how they perceive their prospects of getting a job after graduation. The study draws on group interviews with 28 students on two courses, women-dominated dental technology and men-dominated mechanical engineering, but focuses on the experiences of men, who have migrated to Finland. In dental technology, I interviewed three and in mechanical engineering nine persons who identified as migrant men. This paper thus focuses on the experiences of these twelve men. The paper examines their experiences of belonging by analyzing how they relate to their co-students in group interviews and in their talk, how they describe their relations to teachers, and how they perceive their prospects of getting a job after graduation. By examining the concept of belonging, the paper aims to contribute to the debate on the reasons for occupational segregation by gender and race/ethnicity. The study shows how segregation happens in local contexts, intersectionally.

Session 2

Eveliina Lyytinen, Migration Institute of Finland: Ageing and the end of life in refuge – The case of men

Ageing and the end of life are becoming increasingly critical issues in the context of forced migration, as more and more of the world’s population live in exile, yet elderly refugees are under-researched and underrepresented in migration-related debate (Bastia, Lulle, & King 2022). In this research, I investigate how elderly men with a refugee background experience their belonging in Finland, alongside their feelings and strategies connected with dying in the context of refugeehood.

I hope to bridge the study of individuals’ end-of-life-connected experiences and reflections with the analysis of transnational community practices of support and care at times of death and the expansions of ‘deathscapes’ in refuge (Maddrell & Sidaway 2010). In doing so, my aim is to produce further understanding of the ways in which ‘transnational death raises questions about identity, belonging, and customs, but also about the logistical care of bodies, rituals, and commemoration’ (Saramo 2019: 8).

The premise of this research is that elderly refugees face particular challenges of belonging or finding an alternative end to their refugeehood, due to their age, with age-sensitive approaches therefore being needed in both research and services for them. Moreover, refugees are obliged to create novel transnational strategies in conjunction with dying and mourning in exile.

The empirical research utilizing observation, FGDs and interviews will commence in 2025 with a small group of elderly men with a forced migration background. This research is conducted as part of Mobile Futures – Diversity, Trust, and Two-Way Integration (Strategic Research Council) and Endings – Refuge, Time, and Space (Kone Foundation) projects. The project has an ethical clearance from the University of Turku.

Anastasia Asikainen, University of Helsinki; Larisa Shpakovskaya, University of Helsinki; Tatiana Glushkova, University of Helsinki; Ilkka Pietilä, University of Helsinki: Negotiating Social Ties in Times of Aggressive State Politics – Intersections of Migration and Age

For Russian speakers living in Finland, Russia’s aggressive state policy has multiple consequences in their everyday lives. Since the politics of belonging and one’s own sense of belonging are inherently intertwined, this paper asks how the continued aggression of the Russian state and the discussion of issues related to these events affect the social relations of Russian-speakers living in Finland. Based on interviews (N=22) and observations with older Russian-speaking migrant men, most of whom migrated to Finland as older adults and lack fluency in Finnish, we ask how this segment of Russian speakers in Finland renegotiate their social relations in relation to these events. The issues related to finding ‘real’ connections with people while avoiding conflicting issues become relevant for their social relations. We argue that their sense of belonging to particularly close, but also more casual, social ties becomes more conditional in nature, which makes their ‘belonging work’ more laborious and creates situations where social ties need to be negotiated and rationalised anew. It is therefore both in the public sphere, where people who come from countries of aggression (or are identified as such because of a shared language), and in the private sphere, where their belonging is conditional due to political shifts.

Anastasia Diatlova, University of Helsinki: The building blocks of a nation: Migrant men working in construction industry in Finland

The construction sector depends on cheap and precarious labor in order to turn a profit. This cheap labor is often recruited from abroad and from among the migrants living in Finland. However, as the construction sector in Finland is slowing down due to various economic pressures, it leaves many migrant construction workers without work and income, and subsequently without the possibility to stay in Finland. Despite their integral contribution to building the infrastructure of the country, their own lives and futures as treated by the industry and the migration legislation as disposable. Based on semi-structured interviews, the paper examines the ways in which migrant men working in the construction sector in Finland cope and resist this precarity.

Stephanie Clark, University of Helsinki: Affecting masculinities in Privileged Migrant Men in Finland

This paper theorises research interviews with privileged groups of migrant men as affective encounters in which normative masculinities have the potential to be challenged and ultimately transformed. It forms part of my doctoral monograph in which I examine the construction and deconstruction of masculinities in privileged migrant men in Finland.

The data for this paper comes from interviews with educated white migrant men coming from Minority World countries (e.g. UK, USA, Germany) – those whom policy makers and journalists in Finland deem “the good migrant” (Koskela 2014: 24). Many of the men interviewed expressed feelings of alienation and loneliness in their lives in Finland, while others did not express such feelings explicitly but told stories which left a similar intensity and were often accompanied by a sensation of profound sadness for me as a researcher. Some men stated that the interview was the first time they had been invited to talk about these topics, while others said that they previously had not even considered them even privately to themselves. This paper examines these encounters in terms of Todd Reeser and Lucas Gottzén’s (2018) arguments on transformational affect, and Reeser’s (2020) work on leaky affect, looking at how affect moves between researcher and participant and other bodies within the space of the interview.

Alongside contributing to studies on migration between Minority World countries, this work intends to contribute to the still underdeveloped but growing body of work in masculinities and affect theory (Reeser and Gottzén 2018).

Abstracts

Session 1

Session 2