Please join Visiting Scholar Dr. Camilla Nordberg, Associate Professor in Social Policy, Åbo Akademi University, Finland, for a one-hour discussion on Language diversity and new vulnerability regimes in a Northern European social work context
Location: Room 200
Date: Friday, March 10, 2023
Time: 1:15-2:30pm
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Abstract
Despite the fact that social work is essentially permeated by language, linguistic vulnerability has not as such received much attention in social work research or practice. Rather than making the system linguistically more accessible, change has been expected from the service user. Meanwhile, it remains unexplored how linguistic disadvantage is linked to other social divides.
Drawing on a set of qualitative interviews collected in Finland in two different regions in 2022, the presentation addresses the role of language in migrants’ experiences of welfare institutional encounters. The research participants share experiences of socio-economic vulnerability related to their lacking linguistic skills and precarious positions in life in general. Through conceptualizations of bureaucratic violence, we show how language barriers dehumanize and isolate non-native speakers and produce practices of silence in a situation defined by material and emotional strain. We further claim that these negative experiences are reinforced by the restructuring of the welfare state as the responsibility of managing bureaucratic processes is shifted from institutions to individuals.
Bio
Camilla Nordberg is Associate Professor in social policy at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. She has conducted long-term research on migration and social injustice, looking into issues of citizenship, power, political discourse and institutional encounters. She leads the Academy of Finland-funded research project Ordering the migrant family: power asymmetries and citizenisation in restructuring welfare bureaucracies and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health-funded research project Language diversity and vulnerability in social work in the era of digitalisation.