2021/06/30 by Torun Elsrud, Philip Lalander · 1 voice · 1 citation
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Migration, Health and Trauma #Research in Social Sciences #Social Work Education and Practice
paper · pdf · doi:10.1332/204986021x16215151035945
openalex publication_date 2021/06/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
This ethnographic article addresses social work’s participation in exclusionary practices performed by migration authorities in Sweden, leading to extreme precariousness among young people searching for protection. Through ethnographic descriptions of young people who fled from Sweden to other European countries, we argue that Swedish social workers played an active role in depriving young people of their social rights. A central concept in the article is administrative violence. Such institutionalised violence risks being excluded from a moral assessment. We argue that moral responsibility is not about following state rules, but may instead involve acting in a way that rules do not support. If social work accepts the boundaries of the nation-state, its border work and the logics of neoliberal ideologies, it cannot live up to the ethical standards of social work and its emphasis on social justice.