Asylum reception and the politicization of national identity in Finland : a gender perspective

Abstract

<div lang="en" class="abs"><p class="abs_header">Abstract</p><p>This chapter analyses the relationship between nationalism and gender by scrutinizing the gendered imaginations and rationalities of border crossing and asylum reception in Finland. In Finland, like in many European countries, border and migration securitization has become an integral part of national identity formation and of the making of political divisions between ‘friends’ and the ‘enemy’. The chapter examines the contextual, local, and mundane interpretations of border and migration securitization in the context of the reception of asylum seekers in Finland in 2015. The experiences of the securitization and politicization of national identity are discussed in the context of the asylum reception in Tornio. The anonymous survey and the social media discussions illustrate different kinds of attitudes towards the border and the asylum reception than do the face-to-face interviews with people who participated in border surveillance and asylum reception on the ground.</p></div>