Becoming Integrateable : Hidden Realities of Integration Policies and Training in Finland

Abstract

Special issue: The efficacy of policies, theories and actions to support the inclusion of refugees ; This article scrutinises the normalised realities behind integration policies and training for refugees and immigrants that are claimed to be inclusive. The 'great narrative' of Finland has been focused on equal opportunity via education and training, which makes it even more important to examine the hidden realities and how such realities affect the integration process. We focus on labour market-oriented integration training, since employment is considered to be the most important element for successful integration and social inclusion. Our data consists of interviews with 20 refugees, 5 immigrants, 6 integration professionals and 3 policy makers, in addition to ethnographic field notes. Through a discursive approach and utilising studies on governmentality, we unveil how governing through integration practices works. The article explores how integration practices that claim to be inclusionary are maintaining forms of exclusion, which becomes a mechanism of exclusionary inclusion. Our analysis shows what refugees and immigrants have to adopt and adapt to as part of their own subjectification in order to become integrateable, and thus includable. ; Peer reviewed