Discrimination and Social Exclusion in Sweden in the Age of Globalization. The Case Study of Thai Migrants

Sammanfattning: International migration facilitated by contemporary globalization has brought about feelings of insecurity in terms of identity for both the host societies as well as incoming immigrants posing a major obstacle in host countries to integrate immigrants into society. In such context, social exclusion and discrimination can occur. The author argues that this is not a one-directional process. In order to better understand this, psycho-political concepts have been employed to explain how socio-cultural boundaries are hardened in the context of globalization by the feeling of ontological insecurity, which in turn has intensified social exclusion and discrimination and how social exclusion and discrimination exist with help of in-group and out-group biases developed in the social identification process. With the case study of Thai migrants in Sweden, this thesis aims to investigate the two following questions: 1) How do Thai migrants in Sweden react to ontological insecurity caused by migration? And 2) How do Thai migrants experience social exclusion and discrimination in daily life? The author relies on the data from semi-structured interviews that he conducted with ten Thai migrants who have a Swedish permanent residency.