Research project The New Green North is attracting major investments to northern Sweden and aims to become a driver of green innovation. A key part of this transformation is the construction of factories and infrastructure, where temporary migrant workers play a central, but often invisible, role. The project highlights their importance and analyses the infrastructure that enables and shapes temporary labour migration, as well as the co-creation of places.
In this project, we examine migration infrastructures, while analysing institutions, actors, built environments and technologies that facilitate temporary labour migration. These infrastructures create enduring structures that mediate migration over time and have long-term effects on the places they encounter. Focusing on construction workers, the project analyses the constitution of migration infrastructures, how they are created and channelling migration, and how they affect places.
Every year, thousands of temporary migrant workers arrive to build our society. Their stay is short, and therefore often tends to be overlooked. This research project puts temporary migration at the forefront by examining how construction workers with temporary employment are contributing to the green transition of northern Sweden. The transition to so-called green technology involves large-scale construction of factories, and migrant workers are the main constructors of the New Green North.
Capitalist economies depend on international labor, which only stays as long as the job opportunity exists. The system is underpinned by migration industries and infrastructures that have commercialized and institutionalized the recruitment of temporary labor, which belongs to the most vulnerable groups in society.
In this project, we examine the infrastructure that promotes temporary labor migration, in the form of institutions, actors, built environments and technologies. While labor is flowing temporarily between places, infrastructure creates enduring structures that mediate migration over time and have long-term effects on the places they encounter.
Focusing on construction workers, the project analyzes what the constitution of migration infrastructures, how they are created and channelling migration, and how they affect places they encounter and interact with. The research forms the basis for strategies that can enhance the social inclusion of labor in Sweden's New Green North.
The project uses ethnographically inspired methods, based on fieldwork in two case study areas in Norrbotten, where interviews with companies, migrant workers, and social institutions are conducted. The study offers valuable insights into the complexity surrounding temporary migration and contributes to a deeper understanding of the infrastructures of migration and their role in societal transformation.
