STREET-LEVEL ENGAGEMENTS:
Migrated Families Encountering the Local Welfare State
Special Issue Editorial • DOI: 10.1515/njmr-2015-0008  NJMR • 5(2) • 2015 • 54-57 
University of Helsinki, Finland
Camilla Nordberg*, Sirpa Wrede
* E-mail: camilla.nordberg@helsinki.fi, 
Abstract
T??????
Introduction
During the last decade, new research approaches to global migration 
have highlighted the multifaceted ways in which structural inequalities 
and subordination impinge upon the possibilities to substantive 
citizenship (Fraser 2009; Nordberg 2006; Olwig 2011; Tully 2000). By 
shifting the focus from migrants themselves to reciprocal processes 
of interaction, the complex macro–micro relationship between 
recognition, redistribution, representation and a sense of belonging 
becomes visible. Scholars, particularly drawing on governance 
perspectives, have effectively shown how the political-cultural 
framework morally constructs and disciplines migrants (Lippert & 
Pyykkönen 2012; Geiger & Pécoud 2013). The categories produced 
for the purposes of governance are ordered along intersectional 
social divisions such as gender, race, class and sexuality (Anthias 
2013).
Recognising the insights of such previous research, the specific 
aim of this special issue of the Nordic Journal of Migration Research 
is to bring to the forefront new, empirically grounded understandings 
of policies and practices of migrant citizenisation in the restructuring 
welfare state. The individual contributions have been produced in 
different scholarly contexts: social work, social policy, sociology, 
education and ethnic and migration studies. A multidisciplinary 
approach to citizenship proved particularly fruitful for grasping the 
complex and multifaceted nature of contemporary citizenship. 
Accordingly, introducing the notion of citizenisation, we develop it from 
a top-down understanding (cf Tully 2005) to the interplay between 
migrants’ negotiations and acts of citizenship (Isin & Nielsen 2008) 
and the normative practices of (welfare) state incorporation played 
out in street-level encounters. We understand acts of citizenship as 
a broad category of engagements. The notion of the street-level was 
introduced by Michael Lipsky (1980) to identify the specific character 
of this type of institutional encounters between bureaucrats and 
service users. In this issue, we find that street-level encounters 
constitute sites of fundamental importance for citizenisation, referring 
simultaneously to formal institutional encounters in the Lipskyan 
sense, to semi-formal institutional encounters and to the myriad 
forms of everyday encounters with fellow members of society.
In the Nordic welfare state contexts at the street-level, migrant 
citizenisation practices are typically featured by extensive interaction 
with the local welfare state: mainstream social and welfare services 
as well as specific integration plans, language training and citizenship 
training (Fernandes 2013; Hagelund 2010; Keskinen et al 2012). 
The neoliberalisation of what once were perceived as mature 
welfare states has not only implied a move towards a fragmented 
and increasingly marketised model of service provision, but also a 
redefinition of the social contract with a stronger emphasis on the 
duties and responsibilities of individual citizens (see also Carmel et al 
2011; Schierup & Ålund 2011). Accordingly, there is a call for research 
that empirically examines the implications of the reconfigurations 
occurring at the nexus of state policies, street-level encounters and 
the individual.
The special issue takes as its starting point the way migrants 
socially engage/disengage with the street-level welfare state. This 
analytic lens that has not previously been discussed in the literature 
vis-à-vis migrant citizenisation draws on the understanding that 
migrants lose the social status they had in the country of origin. In 
the country of destination, the category of being a migrant is often 
a stigmatised category, regardless of the individual background and 
reasons for migration. Hence, the common denominator for people 
who have migrated is the experience of renegotiating subjectivities 
and social status positions (Wrede & Nordberg, 2010). Thinking about 
migrancy as a social category (Wrede 2010, 12–14, Näre 2014) in 
this way, we follow the lead of Bryan S. Turner (1989) who developed 
Received 23 February 2015; Accepted 25 March 2015
54
Brought to you by | Helsinki University Main Library
Authenticated
Download Date | 1/19/17 11:01 AM
an analysis of engagement/disengagement for his discussion of 
ageing as an issue of status politics. Accordingly, the process of 
migration often constitutes a loss of social status that is akin to 
that occurring for age groups outside the ‘productive ages’. Turner 
(1995: 123) argues that young people as well as the aged are held 
irresponsible and disengaged, because of their lack of involvement in 
the community and/or their ‘dependency on the community’, whether 
real or perceived. With the notion of street-level engagements, we 
want to call attention to the implications of status politics for the ways 
in which migrant citizenisation is played out in street-level encounters. 
In many ways, the studies resemble the complex conception of 
recognition centred on subordination and participatory parity, as 
introduced by Nancy Fraser (2013). She maintains that participatory 
parity is conditioned by institutionalised value patterns that ensure 
equal respect and opportunity for achieving social esteem.
In the following, we further identify the specific analytical and 
empirical foci the theme issue in its part will address.
First, welfare state citizenship has been marked by a formalistic 
approach to the citizen, neutralising the human individual and 
subsequently, neglecting the social contexts of human life. Employing 
the idea of social engagement through ties, we argue that integration 
policies have tended to narrowly focus on institutional dimensions of 
citizenisation in that policies invest in the building of the social capital 
of migrants with the interest of enhancing the creation of weak ties, 
of interpersonal ties featured by little time spent, by a low degree of 
intimacy and emotional intensity (Granovetter 1974). What policies 
and institutional practices tend to overlook or treat as problematic in 
the contemporary welfare state are the strong ties, most importantly, 
those to the family (see also Erel 2011; Olwig et al 2012; Schmidt 
2011). We bring to the forefront, the nexus of strong and weak ties 
in relation to processes of social engagement/disengagement and 
ultimately, for citizenship. While the empirical case studies draw 
on migrant background individuals’ street-level experiences and 
negotiations from different civic and life-course perspectives, the 
special issue specifically highlights the social category of motherhood. 
Mothers are increasingly singled out as a ‘special needs’ group in 
integration policy and practice. Drawing on empirical case studies 
from different street-level settings, the articles illustrate how status 
politics are related to notions of social engagement, infused by the 
dynamics of strong as well as weak ties.
Secondly, previous research has often overlooked the particular 
places and spaces within which citizenisation takes shape and is 
contested. In welfare state settings, the conceptualisation of the 
‘state’ as a dominant institutional structure has contributed to the 
analytical bias whereby local practices and encounters have been 
overlooked. Everyday life has materiality in that it revolves around 
particular institutions, streets, buildings and people, creating a web 
of street-level encounters through which social engagement is 
negotiated and established. According to Kevin Cox (1998: 2), spaces 
of dependence and spaces of engagement can be distinguished, 
referring to the former as place-bound ‘localised social relations upon 
which we depend for the realisation of essential interests and for 
which there are no substitutes elsewhere’ and to the latter as broader 
sets of relationships, as ‘the space in which the politics of securing a 
space of dependence unfolds’. Everyday life is an organic feature of 
concrete local ties and encounters as well as more abstract spaces 
of claims-making and engagement. Following John Clarke (2008: 
15–16), a careful analysis of ‘the local’ is a fundamental obligation 
of social analysis, looking into the local as the object of analysis and 
as the possibly changing scales and forms of governing whereby the 
local has become a particular site of governing practices.
While the notion of social engagement may involve more abstract 
senses of belonging and commitment, these special issue articles 
understand it as rooted in the web of localised, formal, semi-informal 
and informal encounters. Ultimately, we argue that the ways in 
which such encounters are played out shape migrants’ capability to 
agency - to negotiate and challenge the hegemonic discourses and 
practices surrounding citizenisation. Indeed, rather than discussing 
it vis-à-vis abstract notions of social equality, it is fruitful to examine 
citizenisation as a spatially and temporarily located process that is 
structured by the specific histories and dynamics of the welfare state 
settings in question. Accordingly, the particular institutional dynamics 
of the practices and mechanisms of social protection that migrants 
encounter need to be accounted for to achieve an understanding 
of how their potential exclusion from equal social protection may 
underpin inequality related to the specific welfare institutions in both 
the short and long run.
Thirdly, the articles are devoted to unfold the research processes 
in detail, including those confusions and mistakes that have emerged 
on the path to analysing and reporting our findings (see e.g. Whyte 
1993). We will discuss specific ethical and methodological challenges 
posed by researching potentially vulnerable individuals. While the 
migrant background population constitutes as diverse a group of 
individuals as the native born, particularly recently arrived migrants 
risk facing a subordinated position due to their very position as newly 
arrived and ‘resettling’ (Wrede & Nordberg 2010). Thus, recognising 
the self as relational has implications also for the ways in which we, 
as researchers, encounter our research participants and reflect upon 
these encounters in our writings.
Thus, from different scholarly perspectives, the articles in this 
issue approach the place and space of citizenisation as embodied 
engagement that is located in material surroundings that involve both 
semi-institutionalised and institutionalised settings infused by the 
larger socio-political context. All articles highlight the importance of a 
sound empirical basis for conducting social research.
Anna Bredström’s and Sabine Gruber’s (2015) article 
problematises the implementation of language interpretation in 
the context of maternity healthcare. Taking a critical stance to the 
neoliberal dismantling of public welfare institutions, they explore the 
ways in which healthcare professionals reflect upon experiences of 
cross-language interpretation. The analysis discursively illustrates 
the contradictions between language interpretation articulated as 
a migrant’s right for achieving equality, and a racialised discourse 
where language becomes intertwined with otherness.
Camilla Nordberg’s contribution (2015) focusses on newly 
migrated ‘stay-at-home’ mothers in capital region Finland. Empirically 
drawing on two case stories, she explores the contradictions 
between neoliberal policy rationales of the self-sufficient, productive 
individual and everyday institutional practice that paradoxically 
seems to reinforce the position of migrant mothers as long time 
assigned to the private sphere. Such external ‘cementation’ of the 
site of ‘stay-at-home’ parenthood is opposed to the active, transitory 
citizenship articulated in policy documents and by the mothers 
themselves.
Also, the article by Minna Intke-Hernandez and Gunilla Holm 
(2015) elucidates the interplay between migrant stay-at-home mothers 
and the local welfare state, from the perspective of education. Having 
conducted ethnographic work at an integration and language course 
for stay-at-home migrant mothers and their young children, they find 
that course instructors typically employ an ‘ethnocentric’ perspective 
in their teaching, thereby maintaining cultural silence. However, the 
results also show how the women negotiate and resist this approach, 
55
Brought to you by | Helsinki University Main Library
Authenticated
Download Date | 1/19/17 11:01 AM
highlighting their own perspectives and forcing the instructors to take 
a learner position.
Annika Lillrank (2015) explores refugee background women’s 
experiences of pregnancy and birth giving in interaction with Finnish 
maternity care professionals. She departs from salutogenic theory 
in her analysis of interviews with twelve women, maintaining that 
cultural-sensitive practice as such does not establish trust between 
refugee-background women and maternity care professionals. 
Rather, she concludes that the salutogenic theory moves us away 
from stereotypical ethnic-centred models to better understand the 
importance of strengthening individual resources.
Finally, Eveliina Heino and Minna Veistilä (2015) analyse 
discourses on social support received through social relationships 
among Russian background families in Finland. Drawing on 25 family 
interviews, they explore social support provided through informal and 
formal relationships from different angles, highlighting the complexity 
and tension of social relations, also of supportive relationships. 
Recognising these tensions is significant for the development of 
social services, understanding multicultural marriages and preventing 
racism.
To conclude, these contributions in their own specific way 
all highlight challenges to migrant background families’ social 
engagement in - and with - the local welfare state. When we 
conceptualise citizenisation as the ways in which ‘citizens to be’ are 
enacting and negotiating their paths to citizenship through myriad 
street-level encounters, the studies show how the potential to social 
engagement necessarily is defined by the recognition dimension of 
these encounters.
The intersubjective condition of ‘participatory parity’ introduced 
by Nancy Fraser precludes value patterns that ‘deny people the 
status of full partners in interaction - whether by burdening them 
with excessive ascribed difference’, as was the case in the study on 
migrant stay-at-home-mothers who were closed out from mainstream 
social services (Nordberg 2015) ‘or by failing to acknowledge their 
distinctiveness’ (Fraser 2013: 164), as was the case in Heino’s and 
Veistilä’s research on Russian background families in child protection 
(2015). By exploring contemporary welfare and integration policy 
through the lens of street-level engagement, we found that social 
ties often are at the core of citizenisation. The local welfare state 
that the migrant encounters neglects or misinterprets the meaning 
of strong ties, such as the family and kin (Bredström & Gruber 2015; 
Heino & Veistilä 2015). This is problematic as the weak ties in the 
form of street-level worker interaction do not constitute a basis for 
migrants to interact with street-level bureaucrats as equals. Fraser 
(2013) emphasises that equal participation always requires material 
resource distribution to ensure participants’ independence and 
voice. Only then can members of society ‘interact with each other as 
peers’ (Fraser 2013: 164). A joint conclusion of the studies, having 
looked at refugees as well as other categories of migrants, is that the 
welfare state to some extent caters for income redistribution while the 
redistribution of power and knowledge remains weak (Bredström & 
Gruber 2015; Heino & Veistilä 2015; Intke-Hernandes & Holm 2015, 
Lillrank 2015; Nordberg 2015).
Hence, from the point of view of street-level engagements, at the 
essence lies the call for counteracting the experienced stigma and 
lacking autonomy stemming from migration, either from being made 
invisible or unheard, or, from being institutionally unequal on the 
basis of race, class and gender. Furthermore, we argue for the need 
to further research on the workings of the state at the street-level, 
where citizenisation occurs in face-to-face interaction. Moreover, we 
call explicitly for research that seeks to make visible the agency also 
of vulnerable groups.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for valuable comments on this special issue of NJMR 
by an anonymous referee and by the editors-in-chief, at different 
stages of the writing process. We also want to thank the participants 
in the kick-off seminar in Helsinki in February 2014 for inspiring 
and thought-provoking discussions on street-level engagements in 
different contexts. Last but not least, we want to thank the managing 
editor for her professional and patient guidance of this contribution.
Dr. Camilla Nordberg is a Senior Lecturer in social work at the 
Swedish School of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. She 
currently holds a five-year Academy of Finland Research Fellowship 
conducting an ethnographic longitudinal study on migrant background 
mothers’ citizenisation practices in restructuring urban settings. Her 
research interests and publications have broadly related to the 
migration-welfare state nexus, with a particular focus on micro-level 
analyses of citizenship and power, media and public discourse.
Dr. Sirpa Wrede is a Senior Lecturer and aa Docent of  Sociology 
at the Department of Social Research at the University of Helsinki. 
In addition to research on the impact of globalisation on professions 
and professional work as well as on ethnic relations in working 
life, her research areas include the welfare state and welfare-state 
restructuring. Furthermore, she has written on the use of qualitative 
methods in international comparative research. She is principal 
investigator and leader of the Academy of Finland project ‘The 
Shaping of Occupational Subjectivities of Migrant Care Workers: 
A Multi-Sited Analysis of Glocalising Elderly Care’ (2011–2015).
References
Anthias, F 2012, ‘Transnational mobilities, migration research and 
intersectionality: towards a translocational frame’, Nordic Journal 
of Migration Research, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 102–110, DOI: 10.2478/
v10202-011-0032-y.
Bredström, A & Gruber, S 2015, ’Language, culture and maternity 
care: ‘troubling’ interpretation in an institutional context’, Nordic 
Journal of Migration Research, vol. 5. no. 2, DOI: 10.1515/njmr-
2015-0010.
Carmel, E, Cerami, A & Papadopoulos T (eds.) 2011, Migration and 
welfare in the ‘new’ Europe: social protection and the challenges 
of integration, Policy Press, Bristol.
Clarke, J 2008, ‘Governing the Local? A response to Kevin Stenson’, 
Social Work & Society, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 15–20.
Cox, KR 1998, ‘Spaces of dependence, spaces of engagement, 
and the politics of scale’, Political Geography, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 
1–23, DOI:10.1016/S0962-6298(97)00048-6.
Erel, U 2011, ‘Reframing migrant mothers as citizens’, 
Citizenship Studies, vol. 15, no. 6-7, pp. 695-709, DOI: 
10.1080/13621025.2011.600076
Fernandes, A 2013, ‘Ethnification of new social risks: programmes for 
preparing newly arrived immigrants for (working) life in Sweden, 
Denmark and Norway’ in Changing social risks and social policy 
56
Brought to you by | Helsinki University Main Library
Authenticated
Download Date | 1/19/17 11:01 AM
responses in the Nordic welfare states, eds. I Harsløf & R 
Ulmestig, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 189-219.
Fraser, N 2009, Scales of justice: reimagining political space in 
a globalizing world, Columbia University Press, New York.
Fraser, N 2013, Fortunes of feminism: from state-managed capitalism 
to neoliberal crisis, Verso, London and New York.
Geiger, M & Pécoud, A (eds.) 2013, Disciplining the transnational 
mobility of people, Palgrave Macmillan, UK.
Granovetter, MS 1973, ‘The strength of weak ties’, American Journal 
of Sociology, vol. 78, no. 6, pp. 1360–1380.
Hagelund, A 2010, ‘Dealing with the dilemmas: integration at the 
street-level in Norway’, International Migration, vol. 48, No. 2, 
pp. 79–102, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2435.2008.00497.x
Heino, E & Veistilä, M 2015, ‘Integration, recognition and security: 
discourses on social support by families of Russian background 
living in Finland’, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, vol. 5. 
no. 2, DOI: 10.1515/njmr-2015-0013.
Intke-Hernandez, M & Holm, G 2015, ‘Migrant stay-at-home mothers 
learning to eat and live the Finnish way’, Nordic Journal of 
Migration Research, vol. 5, no. 2, DOI: 10.1515/njmr-2015-0012.
Isin, E & Nielsen, G (eds.) 2008, Acts of citizenship, Zed Books, 
London and New York.
Keskinen S, Vuori J & Hirsiaho, A (eds.) 2012, Monikulttuurisuuden 
sukupuoli. Kansalaisuus ja erot hyvinvointiyhteiskunnassa, 
Tampere University Press, Tampere.
Lillrank, A 2015, ‘Trust, vacillation and neglect: refugee women’s 
experiences regarding pregnancy and birth giving in 
Finland’, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, vol. 5. no. 2, 
DOI: 10.1515/njmr-2015-0009.
Lippert, R & Pyykkönen, M 2012, ‘Contesting family in Finnish and 
Canadian immigration and refugee policy’, Nordic Journal of 
Migration Research, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 45-56, DOI: 10.2478/
v10202-011-0026-9.
Lipsky, M 1980, Streel-level bureaucracy: dilemmas of the individual 
in public services, Sage, New York.
Näre, L 2014, ‘Moral encounters: drawing boundaries of 
class, sexuality and migrancy in paid domestic work’, 
Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 363–380, 
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2012.729669
Nordberg, C 2006, ‘Claiming citizenship: marginalized voices on 
identity and belonging’, Citizenship Studies, vol. 10, no. 5, 
pp. 523–539, DOI: 10.1080/13621020600954952
Nordberg, C 2015, ‘Invisibilised visions: migrant mothers and the 
reordering of citizenship in a Nordic welfare state context’, 
Nordic Journal of Migration Research, vol. 5. no. 2, 
DOI: 10.1515/njmr-2015-0011.
Olwig, KF 2011, ‘Integration: migrants and refugees between 
Scandinavian welfare societies and family relations’, Journal 
of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 179–196, 
DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2010.521327.
Olwig, KF, Larsen BR & Rytter, M (eds.) 2012, Migration, family 
and the welfare state: integrating migrants and refugees in 
Scandinavia, Routledge, London and New York.
Schierup, CU & Ålund, A 2011, ‘The end of Swedish 
exceptionalism? Citizenship, neo-liberalism and politics 
of exclusion’, Race and Class, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 45–64, 
DOI: 10.1177/0306396811406780.
Schmidt, G 2011, ‘Migration and marriage: examples of border 
artistry and cultures of migration?’, Nordic Journal of Migration 
Research, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 55–59, DOI: 10.2478/v10202-011-
0007-z.
Tully, J 2005, ‘Exclusion and assimilation: two forms of domination’, 
in Domination and exclusion, eds. M Williams & S Macedo, 
Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Turner, BS 1989, ‘Ageing, status politics and sociological theory’, 
British Journal of Sociology, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 588–606.
Turner, BS 1995, Medical power and social knowledge, 2nd edition, 
Sage, London.
Whyte, WF 1993, ‘Revisiting street corner society’, Sociological 
Forum, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 285–297.
Wrede, S & Nordberg, C. (eds.) 2010, Vieraita työssä. Työelämän 
etnistyvä eriarvoisuus, Gaudeamus, Helsinki.
Wrede, S 2010, ‘Suomalainen työelämä, globalisaatio ja vieraat 
työssä’, in Vieraita työssä. Työelämän etnistyvä eriarvoisuus, 
eds. S Wrede & C Nordberg, Gaudeamus, Helsinki, pp. 7–31.
57
Brought to you by | Helsinki University Main Library
Authenticated
Download Date | 1/19/17 11:01 AM