Outsourcing Equality: Migrant Care Worker Imaginary in Finnish Media
Forfattere
Camilla Nordberg
Academy of Finland Research Fellow, Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Social Policy, Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki
Implications from the restructuring of Nordic eldercare include the incorporation of new categories
of care workers and a redefinition of the terms of citizenship and participation in working life.
Drawing on the idea that policy actors script care worker subjectivities, this article examines print
media as a key arena where the cultural imaginary of care work is played out. The media has
the potential to accommodate ideological complexity through the possible range of participatory
actors. From the scripts promoted through the mediascape, we can learn about the positions
understood as being (in)appropriate for migrant care workers. This study draws on the analysis of
news and feature stories from 2003 to 2013 in the largest Finnish daily, Helsingin Sanomat, and
in the periodical Kuntalehti, published by the Finnish Association of Local and Regional Authorities.
The article points to tensions in Finnish media discourse, identifying ambiguous occupational scripts
for migrant care workers?rooted in neoliberal repertoires of self-sufficiency and normative individualism
on the one hand and helplessness and naivety on the other hand. It draws attention to
an unsettling construction whereby migrant care workers are excluded from a long-term contract
with the Finnish care labor market, and where social equality is conditioned to global redistribution.
Forfatterbiografi
Camilla Nordberg, Academy of Finland Research Fellow, Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Social Policy, Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki
