The Idea of “Labour”: An Anthropological Study of Women’s Told Qualification for Membership in the Norwegian Society.

Abstract

Since the end of the Second World War, the Norwegian society has seen an increased focus on- and value creation around labour – not only for the viability of the welfare state but also on behalf of the empowerment of the individual. With increased immigration to the country since the beginning of the 21st century, this idea of ​​"labour" as an empowering strategy can be understood as intensified through integration policy discourse, qualification programmes and media. This has put labour as a source of integration, recognition and membership in the Norwegian society as essential on the political agenda, thus opening the field for private labour qualification programmes. This thesis is based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork within such a qualification programme in Oslo, which is said to take part in a vision to create labour opportunities, networks and Norwegian language skills for all women. Based on this, I am in this thesis questioning how we can understand the idea of “labour”? And how do individuals practice, experience and contest this idea through the process of qualifying for it? With a desire to answer these questions, I have understood my field in light of a social field of power resources that the different actors accumulate, exchange or even contest. Integration policy discourses, qualification programmes and media, empowerment, qualifying skills, power relations and subjectivation, agency and contestations, thus figures as important theoretical and analytical lines throughout this thesis. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the idea of “labour” in a western society, but mostly on how immigrant women meet this idea themselves. The aim of this thesis is thus not to indict the intentions of integration by the Norwegian introduction programme or the qualification programme, but rather illuminate a relationship between social conditions and individual experience in this field. With this, I see the need for more individual knowledge concerning the actual effects of integration policy discourse and practice, and not just the intentions of it.