To establish the unestablishable: non-governmental social work with asylum-seeking minors in a neoliberal Sweden

Abstract

This article aims to explore the impact of neoliberal logic and ideas of establishment in Sweden on non-governmental social work with asylum-seeking young people. The focus is on the perceptions of the social workers within a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working with the establishment of unaccompanied young people. Data were collected through interviews and participant observations and analysed using theories of neoliberalism, belonging and neoliberal racism. The results show that when the migration laws were toughened in Sweden, the social workers and the NGO had to adapt. The NGO repackaged their target group only to include young people with residency, excluding others. The social workers resisted these changes and went beyond their formal duties to support all young people regardless of asylum status. However, the social work provided was still within the establishment framework of the programme. They kept working towards establishing people already deemed within a neoliberal and colonial logic as unestablishable.