Waiting: Migrant nurses in Norway

Abstract

Theories of waiting have created interest and discussion among migration scholars and especially in studies of asylum seekers, where imposed waiting is a key part of the experiences studied. ‘Skilled labour migrants’ such as nurses are privileged in many ways, and their migration-induced waiting, although significant, may be less evident to others. This paper uses waiting as a lens to help understand the experiences of nurses coming to Norway for work. We wish to contribute to the discussion about waiting by showing how experiences of waiting in migration may be less determined by structural conditions than has been suggested by the evidence so far. We argue that the experience of waiting arises at the intersection of politically imposed structural conditions and the messiness or complexity of individual, ordinary human lives. For nurses educated in Sweden, the process of registration is straightforward and takes little time. Nurses educated in the Philippines, on the other hand, meet major obstacles in the process, slowing down and sometimes permanently blocking their access to nursing jobs. While one might imagine an ideal, linear career that nurses could be expected to follow or want to follow, real life is not necessarily lived in a linear fashion. We use our material in this article to show how life happens and which role different forms of waiting may play in the deviations from any expected linear career. Viewing individuals from the two groups through the lens of waiting, we find similarities in the complexities of their lives, experiences, and reflections that it would otherwise have been easy to overlook or dismiss.