Integration paths in the Swedish Finland: language choices and linguistic citizenship in Svenskfinland (Medspråk)
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Project description
The Medspråk project examines the integration and reception of asylum seekers, quota refugees, and people needing subsidiary protection in the Swedish-speaking areas of Finland.
We focus on language policy solutions in the asylum process and integration, how forced migrants can realise their linguistic citizenship, how local communities, such as religious communities, have received forced migrants, and the language practices of these communities.
The project is conducted in Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia (Vöyri) and Western Uusimaa (Raasepori). These municipalities have more than 30 years of experience hosting quota refugees and asylum seekers. Our research is sociolinguistic and ethnographic in nature. To obtain a comprehensive overview of language policy decisions and attitudes towards Swedish as an integration language, we analyse Swedish-language media (for example, Hufvudstadsbladet, Vasabladet, Västra Nyland, Svenska YLE, Kyrkpressen) over a period of 2015-2023. The linguistic everyday lives of forced migrants and their opportunities to realise their linguistic citizenship will be studied through ethnography and interviews.
