Migrants and their Descendants about Migration Crisis

Among the European countries that have traditionally shown a generous migration policy Sweden stands up. However, the increasing arrival of refugees in the past months made the country’s reception system collapse. It is estimated that almost 200 000 refugees seek asylum in Sweden during 2015. The migration crisis has led to a reconsideration of the Swedish generosity towards refugees. The step backwards came not only from the part of the government but also from parts of the civil society. Swedish citizens were divided between voluntary work for the newcomers and sympathies for nationalist anti-immigrant parties. How do people of migrant origin who have become Swedish citizens perceive the “refugee crisis”, the reception of refugees by the authorities, and the social responses to it? This study analyzes the perceptions and reactions towards the current affluent of refugees from a citizenship perspective. The analysis is based on 41 interviews to people with foreign background who are Swedish citizens by birth or acquisition. The intention is to contribute from a qualitative optic to the debate about the “refugee crisis”. The aim of this paper is to find out whether there is a relation between the attitude towards the reception of refugees and personal biography - being an immigrant or having migrant parents. Later, the study analyzes the collected narratives trying to distinguish arguments linked to new modalities of citizenship such as cosmopolitanism, postnationalism or transnationalism. These citizenship frames are used together with considerations about identity and sense of belonging in order to disentangle people’s attitudes towards the so-called refugee crisis. Is it possible to distinguish cosmopolitan interpretations or nationalist reactions of a well-assimilated immigrant population? Could transnational solidarities based on a common immigrant origin be behind people’s narratives about the refugee crisis in their home town? Can we distinguish a post-national perspective of citizenship based on human rights or a cosmopolitan feeling of universal values? These are the questions that this study tries to find out.