“A No Man’s Land” : A study of the undocumented Bolivian migrant workers in the Stockholm cleaning sector

Sammanfattning:

In order to study the different social networks and institutions that shape the access to work and working conditions for the undocumented Bolivian migrant workers in Sweden, I have a conducted a qualitative research. This research specifically looks into how the Bolivian social networks in Stockholm are organized in terms of the access to labor market for undocumented immigrants from Bolivia. Another research dimension will be to explore the social relationships within these social networks and their internal hierarchy. The eight conducted interviews of undocumented, and previously undocumented, Bolivian migrant workers have determined the perception of the undocumented migrants’ life and working conditions. Through their testimonies I have grasped the information of what kind of social networks operate among the undocumented Bolivian labor migrants in Stockholm. With four interviews directed to four labor union representatives there has also been unraveled what the relationship are between the Bolivian social networks and the formal Swedish labor unions, and reversely. Actor network theory has been used as a perspective and a tool to examine the undocumented migrants’ perceptions of the main actors within these networks. The role of the social networks has, in terms of access to the labor market, a big influence on the undocumented Bolivian migrants and how they perceive and approach the Swedish labor unions.