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Integration, Finnish Somalis and Their Right to Everyday Life

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The Contexts of Diaspora Citizenship

Part of the book series: International Perspectives on Migration ((IPMI,volume 17))

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Abstract

Within the public discourse of immigration, migrants who arrive in Finland as refugees or as asylum seekers, and particularly those coming from the African continent, are often singled out as the most ‘different’ in terms of their culture and background. Finnish Somalis, the majority of whom arrived in the country during the early 1990s, are still recognized as a group that faces significant challenges with respect to integration and citizenship. While focusing on the ways in which citizenship is negotiated as part of everyday interaction offers important perspectives for understanding the positioning of migrants, this chapter claims that research also needs to pay attention to the everyday in and of itself. Thus, this chapter works to challenge  the idea of the everyday as something that we all possess self-evidently, while also reviewing the routines and quotidian practices embedded in integration efforts. Fundamentally, this chapter asks, what kind of everyday is being taught to Somali migrants involved in the state-induced integration activities?

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Tiina Sotkasiira

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  1. Tiina Sotkasiira
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Correspondence to Tiina Sotkasiira .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Päivi Armila

  2. Juvenia – Youth Research and Development Centre, South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, Mikkeli, Finland

    Marko Kananen

  3. Department of Social Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Yasemin Kontkanen

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Sotkasiira, T. (2019). Integration, Finnish Somalis and Their Right to Everyday Life. In: Armila, P., Kananen, M., Kontkanen, Y. (eds) The Contexts of Diaspora Citizenship. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94490-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94490-6_7

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