NORDCORP. Slippery Suffering? A comparative ethnography of the encounter between survivors of war and the Scandinavian welfare states

Our overall academic interest is to tease out how the content of legitimate and publicly acknowledged suffering is determined. Focusing on Middle Eastern survivors of violence we examine comparatively how their encounter with state representatives in Scan dinavia takes place, how it is experienced and narrated as well as what the implications and responses are, when asylum seekers, refugees and applicants for rehabilitation tell their stories in situations where their testimony is assessed for achieving as ylum or welfare services. We ask who are regarded as a deserving victim by both survivors of violence and representatives of the Scandinavian welfare states. Thereby we compare processes of inclusion and exclusion of new citizens in and across Scandinavia . People who have lived through armed conflict have experienced a variety of violent events, ranging from poverty and forced displacement to torture and killings. However, only certain forms of suffering are publicly acknowledged and may lead to a strengt hened social position within the community, or grant political asylum in the country of refuge.The guiding questions of this research project are: How is the category of the victim constructed and why do some refugees succeed in fitting into the category of the ideal victim, while the majority of migrants do not? We will also look at which actors are encouraged to express their violent experiences publicly and how. Empirically our object of study is the encounter between Middle Eastern survivors of violen ce and representatives of the Scandinavian welfare states. We examine comparatively how this encounter is influenced by expectations, political views and notions of suffering and victimhood created in wider social fields. Datacollection takes place in Den mark, Sweden and Norway thereby contributing with new insights on survivors of violence living in Scandinavia, how these are viewed by state representatives and not least knowledge on the encounter between the two