Linguistic bordering in Sweden: Actors, Everyday Politics, and Resistance

Demonstrating skills in the national language is a common requirement for getting access to citizenship, social welfare, employment and even entry to the country. Language testing thereby forms a key part of contemporary migration and border regimes. Whereas language testing as a condition for national citizenship is well researched, most forms of language testing occur on the local level, implemented by a complex network of public and private actors ranging from language teachers to employers. This paper aims to map out how seemingly separated acts of everyday linguistic bordering constitute a bordering regime that is both connected and disconnected from that of national citizenship and residency. The paper focuses on Sweden, a state that is in course of introducing language and civic knowledge requirements for permanent residency and citizenship and that has in past years politicized and securitized migrants’ language skills. Based on initial results from 1) interviews with policy implementers carrying out everyday bordering through language testing, 2) interviews with migrants subject to such policies, and 3) a policy analysis on documents regulating language testing, the paper will discuss how actors negotiate, resist, and relate to each other’s in part conflicting roles in policy implementation. It furthermore discusses how large top-down reforms, such as that of citizenship legislation, shape how local and everyday forms of bordering are implemented and resisted, thus showing how vertical and horizontal power shapes acts of everyday bordering.