Skip to main content
Have a personal or library account? Click to login
The Double‑Edged Swords of Hope and Hopelessness: Ethnographic Insights Among Deportable Refugees in Sweden Cover

The Double‑Edged Swords of Hope and Hopelessness: Ethnographic Insights Among Deportable Refugees in Sweden

By:   
Open Access
|Jan 2026

References

  1. Ahmed, S. 2004. ‘Affective economies’, Social Text, 22(2), pp. 117139.
  2. Ahmed, S. 2013. The cultural politics of emotion. Milton Park: Routledge.
  3. Alexander, S., Gunneflo, M., Inghammar, A. and Tjernberg, G.N.M. 2010. ‘Papperslös, laglös, rättslös? Papperslösa migranters rättsliga ställning’, Europapolitisk Analys, 8, pp. 16.
  4. Andersson, H.E. and Nilsson, S. 2011. ‘Asylum seekers and undocumented migrants’ increased social rights in Sweden1’, International Migration, 49(4), pp. 167188. Available at: 10.1111/j.1468‑;2435.2009.00586.x.
  5. Barglowski, K. and Bonfert, L. 2022. ‘The affective dimension of social protection: a case study of migrant‑led organizations and associations in Germany’, Social Sciences 11, pp. 505. Available at: 10.3390/socsci11110505.
  6. Barone, S. 2025. ‘“It Takes Courage to Return”: West African migrants making sense of (In)voluntary return from Morocco Amid adventure, failure and destiny’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 51(4), pp. 10401057. Available at: 10.1080/1369183X.2024.2377863.
  7. Berlant, L.G. 2011. Cruel optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.
  8. Bloch, E. 1995. The principle of hope. Vol.1. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  9. Borevi, K. 2015. ‘Family migration policies and politics: understanding the Swedish exception’, Journal of Family Issues, 36(11), pp. 14901508. Available at: 10.1177/0192513X14558297.
  10. Boucher, G. 2020. ‘Revolutionary hope in Dark Times: Zizek on faith in the future’, Religions, 11(5), p. 243.
  11. Brun, C. 2015. ‘Active waiting and changing hopes: toward a time perspective on protracted displacement’, Social Analysis, 59. Available at: 10.3167/sa.2015.590102.
  12. De Genova, N.P. 2002. ‘Migrant “Illegality” and deportability in everyday life’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 31(1), pp. 419447. Available at: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085432.
  13. Dotsey, S. and Lumley‑Sapanski, A. 2021. ‘Temporality, refugees, and housing: the effects of temporary assistance on refugee housing outcomes in Italy’, Cities, 111, p. 103100. Available at: 10.1016/j.cities.2020.103100.
  14. Drotbohm, H. 2017. ‘How to extract hope from papers? Classificatory performances and social networking in Cape Verdean Visa Applications’, in N. Kleist and D. Thorsen (eds.). Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration. New York: Routledge (Routledge studies in anthropology, 33), pp. 2139.
  15. Elsrud, T. 2023. ‘Fragmentation of hope through Tiny acts of bureaucratic cruelty ‑ another kind of War on Afghan people seeking Asylum in Sweden’, Refuge, 39(2), pp. 1417.
  16. Engblom, R. 2023. Time warps: Refugees and the experience of waiting in rural Sweden. Dissertation. Uppsala University. Available at: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-489147 (Accessed: 23 October 2023).
  17. Ewing, K.P. 1990. ‘The illusion of wholeness: culture, self, and the experience of inconsistency’, Ethos, 18(3), pp. 251278.
  18. Fassin, D. 2009. ‘Les Économies morales revisitées’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 64(6), pp. 12371266.
  19. Fontanari, E. 2017. ‘It’s my life: the temporalities of Refugees and Asylum‑seekers within the European Border Regime’, Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa, 10(1), pp. 2554. Available at: 10.3240/86886.
  20. Gambaro, E., Mastrangelo, M., Sarchiapone, M., Marangon, D., Gramaglia, C., Vecchi, C., Airoldi, C., Mirisola, C., Costanzo, G., Bartollino, S., Baralla, F. and Zeppegno, P. 2020. ‘Resilience, trauma, and hopelessness: protective or triggering factor for the development of psychopathology among migrants?’ BMC Psychiatry, 20(1), 115. 10.1186/s12888-020-02729-3.
  21. Gustafsson, H. and Engblom, R. 2024. ‘Deservingness and temporal borders: the reproduction of global mobility hierarchies in Swedish family reunification’, Frontiers in Sociology, 9, 1427262.
  22. Hage, G. 2003. Against paranoid nationalism: searching for hope in a shrinking society. Annandale: Pluto Press. Available at: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/144694 (Accessed: 19 October 2023).
  23. Herz, M. 2022. ‘Balancing the line—the relation between waiting and activity among people in need of food in Sweden’, European Journal of Social Work, 25(6), pp. 10821092.
  24. Herz, M., Lalander, P. and Elsrud, T. 2022. ‘Governing through hope: an exploration of hope and social change in an Asylum context’, Emotions and Society, 4(2), pp. 222237. Available at: 10.1332/263169021X16528637795399.
  25. Hjalmarson, E. 2025. ‘“As if the soul returns to the body”: affect, stuckedness, and (in)voluntary return to Nicaragua from Spain’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 51(4), 10231039. Available at: 10.1080/1369183X.2024.2377862.
  26. Jackson, M. 2002. The politics of storytelling: Violence, transgression, and intersubjectivity. Vol. 3. Museum Tusculanum Press.
  27. Johnson, T. and Tomren, H. 1999. ‘Helplessness, hopelessness, and despair: identifying the precursors to Indian youth suicide’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 23(3), pp. 287301. Tillgänglig vid: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7p1610nf.
  28. Kleist, N. 2017a. ‘Introduction: studying hope and uncertainty in African migration’, in D. Thorsen and N. Kleist (eds.). Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration. New York: Routledge, pp. 120. Available at: 10.4324/9781315659916‑;1.
  29. Kleist, N. 2017b. ‘Returning with nothing but an empty bag: topographies of hope after deportation to Ghana,’ in D. Thorsen and N. Kleist (eds.). Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration. New York: Routledge, pp. 173192. Available at: 10.4324/9781315659916.
  30. Lacan, J. 1973. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book XI. The Four fundamental concepts of Psychoanalysis. (edited by Miller, J‑A., translated by Sheridan, A.). London & New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
  31. Ljungqvist, R. 2017. Klarlagd identitet – Om utlänningars rätt att vistas i Sverige, inre utlänningskontroller och missbruk av identitetshandlingar. Offentlig utredgning SOU 2017: 93. Stockholm: Återvändandeutredningen, p. 193. Available at: https://www.regeringen.se/4ae1cb/contentassets/1ff02032e89444998504e2e5fe14e105/klarlagd-identitet-sou-201793 (Accessed: 21 February 2022).
  32. Lucht, H. 2017. ‘Death of a Gin Salesman: hope and despair among Ghanaian migrants and deportees stranded in Niger’, in D. Thorsen and N. Kleist (eds.). Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration. New York: Routledge, pp. 154172. Available at: 10.4324/9781315659916.
  33. Mahar, U. 2025. ‘The feeling of destiny: Taqdeer and ‘Voluntary’ return in the everyday lives of irregularised Pakistani migrants’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 51(4), pp. 9871003. Available at: 10.1080/1369183X.2024.2377859.
  34. Migrationsverket. 2017. Årsredovisning 2016, Migrationsverket. Annual report 1.3.2‑2017–20000. Stockholm: Migrationsverket, p. 160.
  35. Miyazaki, H. 2004. The method of hope: Anthropology, philosophy, and Fijian knowledge. Stanford University Press. Available at: 10.1515/9781503624429.
  36. Muñoz, J.E. 2009. Cruising Utopia: The then and there of queer futurity. New York: NYU Press.
  37. Ong, A.D., Edwards, L.M. and Bergeman, C.S. 2006. ‘Hope as a source of resilience in later adulthood’, Personality and Individual Differences, 41(7), pp. 12631273. Available at: 10.1016/j.paid.2006.03.028.
  38. Pajnik, M. and Ribać, M. 2025. ‘Emotional solidarity: social movements’ framing of migration’, Social Movement Studies, 118. Available at: 10.1080/14742837.2025.2470240.
  39. Pedersen, M.A. 2012. ‘A day in the cadillac: the work of hope in Urban Mongolia’, Social Analysis, 56(2), pp. 136151. Available at: 10.3167/sa.2012.560210.
  40. Pettit, H. and Ruijtenberg, W. 2019. ‘Migration as hope and depression: existential im/mobilities in and beyond Egypt’, Mobilities, 14(5), pp. 730744. Available at: 10.1080/17450101.2019.1609193.
  41. Piot, C. 2010. Nostalgia for the future: West Africa after the Cold War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  42. Rosengren, A. 2021. jag bodde i Sverige: om unga svenskafghaners flykt till Frankrike. Stockholm: Carlsson.
  43. Statsrådsberedningen. 2015. Regeringen föreslår åtgärder för att skapa andrum för svenskt flyktingmottagande. Regeringskansliet. Available at: https://www.regeringen.se/artiklar/2015/11/regeringen-foreslar-atgarder-for-att-skapa-andrum-for-svenskt-flyktingmottagande/ (Accessed: 2 March 2022).
  44. Strasser, S. and Sökefeld, M. 2025. ‘The affective economy of removal: ethnographic perspectives on deportation and (In)voluntary return’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 51(4), pp. 953969. Available at: 10.1080/1369183X.2024.2377856.
  45. Tecca, V. 2025. ‘The affective economy of “Self‑Deportation”: materiality, spatiality, temporality’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 51(4), pp. 970986. Available at: 10.1080/1369183X.2024.2377858.
  46. Vammen, I.M. 2017. ‘Sticking to God: brokers of hope in senegalese migration to Argentina’, in D. Thorsen and N. Kleist (eds.). Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration. New York: Routledge. Available at: 10.4324/9781315659916.
  47. Vigh, H. 2009. ‘Wayward migration: on imagined futures and technological voids’, Ethnos, 74(1), pp. 91109. Available at: 10.1080/00141840902751220.
  48. Zigon, J. 2009. ‘Hope dies last: Two aspects of hope in contemporary Moscow’, Anthropological Theory, 9(3), pp. 253271. Available at: 10.1177/1463499609346986.
  49. Žižek, S. 1989. The sublime object of ideology. London: Verso.
  50. Žižek, S. 2018. The courage of hopelessness: chronicles of a year of acting dangerously. London: Penguin Books.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33134/njmr.1051 | Journal eISSN: 1799-649X
Language: English
Page range: 4 - 4
Submitted on: Apr 29, 2025
Accepted on: Dec 10, 2025
Published on: Jan 21, 2026
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2026 Rikard Engblom, published by Helsinki University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.