‘Masculinity, Migration and Marginalization’: How Male Asylum Seekers are Perceived by the Swedish Migration Agency and its Implications for the Asylum Process

Abstract

This thesis takes a particular interest in the determination of state granted protection needs amongst male asylum seekers in Sweden. Using a mixed research method consisting of textual analysis on official documents by the Swedish Migration Agency (SMA) and semi-structured interviews with SMA officials, along with a feminist post-colonial theoretical framework, this thesis scrutinizes the relationship between masculinity, migration, and vulnerability. The research questions (RQ) seek to identify, describe, and analyze the values involved in the utterance (or lack thereof) of gender, vulnerability, and masculinity at the SMA and to discuss the impact these discourses may have on the determination of men’s specific vulnerabilities. The thesis finds that asylum officials, gender coordinators, gender equality experts and educators at the SMA lack satisfactory understanding of male asylum-seekers vulnerabilities. The results indicate that SMA discourses about men as ‘non-gendered’-, ‘capable’-, ‘opportunistic’-, ‘protecting’-, and/or ‘oppressive’-subjects might negatively impact these men’s perceived belonging in the protection category. By discussing how the masculinity discourses listed above risk marginalize migrant men, this thesis identifies and displays the inadequately recognized vulnerabilities that seem to characterize the nexus of masculinity, migration, and marginalization at the SMA.