Academic literature on the topic 'Immigration to Finland'

Until the 1960s, Finland was more often the country of origin than the country of destination. Once a depressed area, it soon turned into a welfare state, becoming one of the most attractive countries for international migrants. Since Finland’s labour market and society are beset with demographic problems, the country gladly accepts labour migrants, particularly those from neighbouring states. Most EU immigrants coming to Finland are Estonians. Immigration from without the EU — from Russia and other former Soviet countries — has, however, an even greater potential. Non-EU immigration falls into several categories — from seasonal labour migration to the relocation of top specialists and entrepreneurs. Currently, family reunification, marriages, and student and labour migration account for most migration from Russia to Finland. This article attempts to study immigration to Finland from neighbouring countries, primarily from Russia. The result of the study is an analysis of principal channels of international migration to Finland. These are family reunification, student migration, top specialist relocation, and the expansion of Russian business. Finland is in dire need of healthcare specialists, researchers, business development and IT specialists, and other professionals. For example, Russia-bordering Finnish regions lack upper and middle-level healthcare specialists. The focus of the study is on the professional and socio-demographic structure of labour migration to Finland and the country’s migration policy on the adaptation and integration of Russian-speaking immigrants. The article gives a general picture of Finland’s migration policy on labour migration from Russia and other countries. In collecting and processing materials, data from official websites of Finland’s Migration Service and Employment Service, the database of Statistics Finland, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Finnish National Agency for Education were used.

Immigrants and Immigration Policy in Ageing Finland The paper addresses the issue of current immigration to Finland in the context of population ageing. It is estimated that about 40% of the present labour force will have withdrawn from the Finnish labour market by the year 2020. The government of this rapidly ageing country is seeking possible remedies to the problem of a shrinking labour force. The necessity of attracting a new workforce as well as the growing number of immigrants in the ethnically homogeneous Finnish society create a need for more detailed and creative immigration policy. The paper analyzes the age and economic structure of the immigrant population, its participation in the labour market as well as the importance of immigration in contemporary demographic changes in Finland. Another aim of this paper is to outline major issues concerning Finnish immigration policy.

During the 20th century many insect species have expanded into Finland and established themselves as part of the fauna. Some species of Coleoptera seem to have been carried here originally by man, but nowadays live outdoors. Many other species seem to have reached Finland on their own, and colonized a minor or major part of the country. Most colonists have come from the south, only a few from the east or north-east. This article lists various kinds of newcomers to Finland.

Analysis based on historical geographical information systems (hgis) databases can be used to trace the relationship between railway infrastructure and population change in Finland from 1880 to 1970. The use of accessibility calculations, statistical analyses, and gis reveals that Finland's population was almost evenly distributed in 1880, when railway development began, but that immigration to cities was well underway by 1970, when motorization by road was rapidly becoming the primary form of transportation.

AbstractThe ethnic and religious compositions of Nordic populations have been projected by Eurostat (Lanzieri, 2011), the Pew Research Center (2015), and Statistics Denmark (2015). These studies are updated and complemented in this paper. Lanzieri’s consideration of the native population is supplemented by taking into account assimilation via marriages between natives and foreign-background persons. Immigration to Nordic countries increased significantly in 2015, but, on the other hand, immigration restrictions have been put in place. Therefore, there are no reliable estimates of future immigration. In this situation, the paper’s “what if” projections, incorporating the average 2012–2014 net immigration level, serve as useful reference information. The projected demographic changes are similar in the four Nordic countries. The development is fastest in Sweden; in 2065, the share of the native population is to decrease to 49%, the Western population is projected to fall to 63%, and the Muslim population increase to 25%.

Immigration from the former socialist countries into Western Europe generally increased after the fall of the Iron Curtain. This was also apparent with respect to the Nordic labour markets and Finland where the share of immigrants grew from countries around the Baltic Sea Region. The main immigrant groups come to Finland from Sweden, Russia and Estonia. Immigration from Poland, Lithuania and Latvia has not played such an important role. This paper analyses the volume and integration of immigrants from the selected countries of Baltic Sea Region. Integration can be measured by their performance in the Finnish labour markets.

Abstract Populism has been on the rise in Europe, especially in the last decade. Finland is no exception, and a populist party ‘The Finns Party’ has gained momentum since the 2011 parliamentary election. The purpose of this paper is to examine the discourses of the Finns Party in their official releases on immigration and language in the 2015 parliamentary election. The socio-politically situated examination draws from Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, especially the concepts of biopower, biopolitics, racism, governmentality and subject position. In addition, language identity, language ideologies, and populism are used to discuss how linguistic identity and ideology are perceived and constructed in the data, especially in terms of discourses of inclusion and exclusion of ethnically Finnish but linguistically non-dominant groups, and immigrants.

The aim of this study is to find out if or to what extent residential context can explain attitudes toward immigration. Although immigration is a global phenomenon, the practical challenges related to integration need to be solved locally. For integration to succeed, the majority population needs to accept the influx of new and different cultures as part of a common society. Against this background, it is important to understand the basis of different opinions on immigration and how they are dispersed in the local community. We make use of large data set (n=2977) on attitudes toward immigration in Turku collected in 2012. It allows us to analyze how attitudes toward immigration vary within different parts of the municipality and whether neighborhood context can explain attitudes toward immigration. We find that the most potent explanation related to residential context is the general sentiment toward immigration in a neighborhood.

This thesis examines how national identities are discursively constructed in online discussions around immigration in Finland. The discursive construction of Finnish national identities is analyzed both in the light of the construction of ‘sameness’ and of ‘otherness’, drawing upon critical discourse analysis and the notion of a nation as an imagined community. The analyzed data is from a Finnish discussion forum, Suomi24. The discussions analyzed generally construct an exclusionary identity: Finnishness is often represented as something inherent and impossible to combine with, for example, Islam or Russianness. Elite discourses as well as discourses previously identified in Hommaforum, a Finnish ‘immigration critical’ forum, were reproduced in the discussions, implying that online discussions, in addition to reproducing elite discourses, can also foster them. The prevalence of exclusionary discourses and stereotypical representations in a moderated discussion forum speaks for the normalization of such ways of talking about immigration, ‘us’ and ‘others’.

This paper investigates the relationship between national identity and attitudes towards immigrants. It examines three countries with different history of nation building and immigration: Finland, Great Britain and the USA. It is assumed that the differences in nation building and immigration across the countries have led to a different understanding of national identity and attitudes towards immigrants. The hypothesis is that the relationship between national identity and attitudes towards immigrants is not consistent but is dependent on how belonging to the nation is defined. This paper uses eight different aspects to measure the understanding of national identity. Attitudes towards immigrants are explored on six dimensions: criminality, economy, labor market, society, culture and the number of immigrants. The paper uses the theory of ethnic and civic types of national identity as a basis for the analysis. The ethnic definition of national identity is assumed to be related to anti-immigrant attitudes while a more civic definition may even lead to more open attitudes towards immigrants. Ordinal logistic regression has been used to estimate these relationships. The data used comes from the International Social Survey Programme’s ‘National Identity’ module from 2013. The results show clear differences between the countries both in the general attitudes towards immigrants and the prominence of anti-immigrant attitudes. In all countries ethnic definition of national identity is connected to more negative attitudes towards immigrants. However, there are differences in how individual aspects of identity correlate with different dimensions of attitudes towards immigrants. The number of people viewing the ethnic aspects of national identity as important is larger in Great Britain and anti-immigrant attitudes generally more widespread than in Finland and the USA. Additionally, the results from ordinal logistic regressions show that while the majority of aspects of national identity correlated with anti-immigrant attitudes, some of the civic aspects were connected to more positive attitudes. The results differed between the countries suggesting that the relationship between national identity and attitudes towards immigrants is not consistent and that it does depend on the definition of national identity.

This thesis investigates the construction of Finnish identity by Finnish policymakers when discussing the Right to Return Policy for Ingrian Finns. This policy, which existed from 1990 to 2010, granted Finnish residency to citizens of the Soviet Union, and subsequently Russia and Estonia, who descended from seventeenth century Finnish émigrés to the region around St Petersburg. The thesis critically analyses the discursive constructions of Finnish identity presented in the language of lawmakers on this policy, and argues that lawmakers established an ideology of Finnishness initially predicated on ideas of language, religion, ancestry, and historical relations to Finland’s neighbours Sweden and Russia. I further argue that lawmakers’ calls for an end of the policy in the late 1990s and 2000s used some of the same discursive constructions of Finnishness initially employed to justify Ingrian inclusion to now exclude Ingrians from their idea of Finnishness. To a large extent, the history of the Ingrian Return policy therefore presents a renegotiation of Ingrian, but not Finnish, identity by Finnish lawmakers. The thesis contributes to the study of identity construction on two levels. Firstly the policy presents the tension between constructions of Finnishness as an ethnic identity and as a community of Finnish citizens, and shows the relative resilience of ethnicity-based identity constructions in Finnish immigration policy at this time. Secondly, the Ingrian Finnish Return policy provides a case study of how essentialising discursive constructions of identity can be strategically used in political discussions. Analysis of this policy contributes to the broader study of identity theorisations as an example of establishing identity norms through public policy, using essentialising identity constructions that ignore alternative views of the nation as a diverse community, particularly in a period of increasing migration.

This master thesis is dedicated to the understanding of the challenges that both the immigrant Social Workers and the Finnish welfare state face when they meet each other. To assess the challenges of the Finnish welfare state, native Social Workers were interviewed, because they are seen as the most visible face of a welfare state. But in order to accomplish this, a vast theoretical background is provided about the Finnish state, the Finnish welfare state, and the migrations in Finland before the presentation of the empirical results. The results were obtained after the realization of deep ethno biographical interviews to get to know the life trajectories of four individuals (two immigrants and two Finnish nationals) that have at least completed the bachelor’s degree in Social Work in Finland or abroad. Its objective is to try to understand how the Finnish welfare state can better integrate the immigrant Social Workers that are needed into the Finnish Welfare State of nowadays that is struggling with the worsening of the dependency ratio mainly due to the ageing population and the low fertility rate. The focus of this work is predominantly transdisciplinar. The immigrant Social Workers went to Finland due to motives related to studies, and they have stayed, although without chances to by now work permanently as Social Workers, mainly because of the language barriers. Regarding the Finnish Social Workers, the cultural shocks with the service users call for the promotion of more and better intercultural dialogue.
Esta dissertação de mestrado é dedicada à compreensão dos desafios que tanto os Assistentes Sociais imigrantes como o Estado de Bem-estar finlandês encontram quando se cruzam. Para compreender os desafios para o Estado de Bem-Estar finlandês foram entrevistados Assistentes Sociais Finlandeses, pois estes são vistos como a face mais visível do Estado de Bem-Estar. Mas para atingir isto, uma vasta fundamentação teórica é proporcionada acerca do Estado finlandês, o Estado de Bem-Estar finlandês e as migracões na Finlândia antes da apresentação dos resultados empíricos. Estes resultados foram obtidos na sequência da realização de entrevistas etnobiográficas aprofundadas procurando conhecer os trajetos de vida de quatro indivíduos (dois imigrantes e dois nacionais da Finlândia) que tenham pelo menos completado a licenciatura em Serviço Social na Finlândia ou no estrangeiro. O objetivo passa por tentar compreender como o Estado de Bem-Estar finlandês pode integrar melhor os Assistentes Sociais imigrantes que são necessários no Estado de Bem-Estar finlandês de hoje em dia, e que enfrenta um agravamento do índice de dependência principalmente devido ao envelhecimento da população e à baixa taxa de fertilidade. O foco deste trabalho é predominantemente transdisciplinar. Os Assistentes Sociais imigrantes vieram para a Finlândia devido a motivos relacionados com os estudos, e acabaram por ficar, apesar de para já não terem hipóteses de trabalhar permanentemente como Assistentes Sociais, principalmente devido a barreiras linguisticas. Quanto aos Assistentes Sociais finlandeses, os choques culturais com os utentes parecem pedir a promoção de mais e melhor diálogo intercultural.

The master thesis "True Finns. Establishment of right-wing populism in Finland?" deals with political party True Finns (The Finns, PS), its historical development and current position in Finnish party system. The master thesis is devided into three chapters. The first chapter deals with populist radical right political parties (PRR), which have established themselves in a lot of Western Europe party systém (inluding Scandinavia). Finland represented a state which had been immune of PRR. The aim of the first chapter is to answer an question, which are the main reasons of PRR emergence, respectively which were the reasons which delayed the Finnish PRR. The second chapter is concerned with political party True Finns (The Finns, PS), its historical development and ideological profile. The chapter reffers to ideological and personal roots in Finnish Rural Party. A part of the chapter is ideological core used by Cas Mudde (nativism, authoritarianism, populism) which is supplemented by an economical programme. The final part deals with the parliamentary election 2012. The final chapter concerns with current PS position in Finnish party systém and with impact on finnish politics. The chapter is closed with positive and negative factors for the future development.

Cette étude doctorale présente une analyse des identités musulmanes et de leurs multiples compréhensions dans un contexte d’immigration, de globalisation et de multiculturalisme en Finlande et au Québec, Canada. Elle porte sur les auto-identifications d’étudiantes universitaires issues de l’immigration qui ont un attachement personnel à l’identité musulmane – cette identité peut être considérée, entre autres, comme religieuse, culturelle ou faisant partie de l’héritage familial. Ainsi, elle peut être vécue comme acquise, choisie, adorée, mais aussi imposée, rejetée ou ignorée. Étant donné que dans plusieurs contextes européens et nord-américains l’identité musulmane est devenue « le symbole de l’Autre », les rapports de pouvoir locaux et globaux sont mis en relief dans notre étude. Nous supposons que quelle que soit la manière dont les participantes s’identifient comme musulmanes, elles ne peuvent pas échapper aux hiérarchies de pouvoir discriminatoires qui participent à la définition de leur « groupe ». Notre thèse interdisciplinaire est au croisement des disciplines des sciences des religions, de l’approche discursive de l’identité et des études critiques sur le multiculturalisme et sur les rapports de pouvoir. Nous appuyant sur un corpus de 30 entrevues effectuées en milieu universitaire à Helsinki, à Turku et à Montréal, nous proposons d’analyser les identités musulmanes des participantes dans le cadre méthodologique et théorique de la théorie du soi dialogique et des pragmatiques discursives à partir d’une conception d’un sujet hétérogène et multivocal. Ce cadre nous permet de cerner l’identité comme négociée et instable qui est, en même temps, à la recherche d’une certaine cohérence. L’objectif de notre recherche est de proposer une nouvelle analyse des identités musulmanes à partir des interactions complexes entre les identifications, les désidentifications et les confusions en tant que « types de négociation » identitaires. Ces négociations s’ancrent dans différents contextes discursifs : elles se réalisent à partir des rapports de pouvoir globaux et locaux, de divers repères spatiaux et temporels ainsi que de multiples positions et voix du soi et des autres, auxquels nous nous intéressons. Ainsi, les résultats de notre recherche confirment la complexité de la construction identitaire musulmane. Ils reflètent des manières multiples de considérer cette identité comme contextuellement construite et négociée en relation avec l’altérité et avec plusieurs points d’identifications saillants. Notre recherche contribue donc à dépasser certaines simplifications des définitions de l’identité musulmane : elle propose des moyens de s’éloigner de certaines tendances actuelles théoriques qui ne soulignent pas suffisamment la multiplicité qui caractérise la construction de cette identité.
In this doctoral research project I explore the multiplicity of Muslim identity construction in Finland and the province of Quebec, Canada, within the context of immigration, globalization, and multiculturalism. My interest lies in the Muslim self-identifications of female students who have an immigrant background. They can define their Muslim identities in many different ways: as religious, cultural, part of family heritage, and so forth. Thus, these identities can be experienced as given, chosen, or admired, but also imposed, rejected or ignored. As Muslim identity has become “the symbol of the Other” in many European and North American societies, the global and local power relations are also prominent in my research. I assume that in whatever ways the participants identify themselves as Muslims, they cannot wholly escape discriminatory power hierarchies which participates in shaping the definition of their “group”. My interdisciplinary thesis situates itself in the field of religious studies. It engages with a discursive approach to identity and with a critical approach to multiculturalism and power relations. The analysis draws on a corpus of thirty (30) qualitative and semi-structured interviews conducted in university contexts in Helsinki, Turku and Montreal. Dialogical Self Theory and Discursive Pragmatics are used to explore Muslim identities, as these theories draw upon heterogeneous and multivocal subject positions. This framework allows me to conceptualize identity as something negotiated and unstable, but which, at the same time, aims at a certain degree of coherence. In my analysis I propose new ways to analyse Muslim identities by considering the complex interplay of identifications, disidentifications, and confusions as “types” of identity negotiation. I observe the multiple ways these types of negotiations are acted out in various discursive contexts and the ways they are anchored in local and global power relations. I draw especially attention to diverse temporal and spatial reference points and to multiple positions and voices of the self and others. The results of my research confirm the complexity of Muslim identity construction, as they reflect a variety of ways these identities can be contextually negotiated through the self and the other. As such, my research contributes to overcoming some simplifications of the definitions of Muslim identities: it proposes an alternative way to study Muslim identity construction beyond certain theoretical tendencies treating these identities without being able to fully highlight the complexity and the multiplicity that characterises them.
Tutkin väitöskirjassani muslimi-identiteetin monimuotoisuutta monikulttuurisuuden, globalisaation ja maahanmuuton kontekstissa Suomessa ja Québecin provinssissa Kanadassa. Keskityn tutkimukseeni osallistuneiden naispuolisten maahanmuuttajataustaisten korkeakouluopiskelijoiden tapoihin, joilla he määrittelevät itsensä muslimina: he saattavat kokea muslimi-identiteettinsä uskonnollisina, kulttuurisina tai hyväksyttynä osana perheen perintöä. Toisin sanoen heidän muslimi-identiteettinsä voivat olla ennalta annettuja, itse valittuja tai ihannoituja, mutta myös ulkoapäin pakotettuja, torjuttuja tai ignoroituja. Koska muslimi-identiteetistä on tullut ”toiseuden symboli” monessa Euroopan ja Pohjois-Amerikan maassa, myös globaalit ja paikalliset valtasuhteet ovat tutkimukseni keskiössä. Lähtokohtani on, että osallistujat eivät voi täysin välttää syrjiviä valtahierarkioita, jotka osallistuvat heidän “ryhmänsä” määrittelemiseen. Ja tämä huolimatta painoarvosta, jonka he muslimi-identiteetilleen antavat. Tutkimukseni on monitieteellinen ja laadullinen. Se sijoittuu uskontotieteen kenttään. Taustateorioinani käytän diskursiivista lähestymistapaa identiteettiin ja kriittistä lähestymistapa monikulttuurisuuteen sekä valtasuhteisiin. Pääaineistoni koostuu 30 puolistrukturoidusta haastattelusta, jotka on toteutettu yliopistoympäristössä Helsingissä, Turussa ja Montrealissa. Analysoin muslimi-identiteettiä dialogisen itsen (Dialogical Self Theory) ja pragmaattis-diskursiivisesta teoreettis-metodologisesta viitekehyksestä, joka perustuu heterogeenisten subjektipaikkojen moniääniseen ja monipaikkaiseen tarkasteluun. Kyseinen teoreettis-metodologinen viitekehys auttaa minua lähestymään identiteettiä epävakaana ja neuvoteltuna, mutta myös voimana, joka pyrkii luomaan jatkuvuutta. Tutkimukseni tarkoituksena on kehittää uusi lähestymistapa muslimi-identiteetin analysoimiseen useiden erilaisten samaistumisen ja epäsamaistumisen tapojen sekä hämmentyneiden positioiden kautta. Nämä identiteetin ”neuvottelutyypit” rakentuvat useissa eri diskursiivisissa konteksteissa ja ajan ja paikan kiinnekohdissa. Ne kiinnittyvät täten globaaleihin ja paikallisiin valtasuhteisiin sekä itsen ja toisten positioihin ja ääniin. Tutkimukseni tulokset vahvistivat käsitystä muslimi-identiteetin monimuotoisuudesta ja useista erilaisista tavoista, joilla sitä voidaan rakentaa eri diskursiivisissa konteksteissa itsen ja toiseuden kautta. Tulokset edesauttavat kyseenalaistamaan muslimi-identiteetin osittain yksinkertaisia yleisiä määritelmiä sekä nykyajan teoreettisia lähestymistapoja, jotka eivät aina kykene tuomaan esiin sen moninaisuutta.

AbstractFinland has only relatively recently become a country of immigration, and as a result most immigration and integration policy legislation is also relatively recent. Since the 1990s, the number of migrants to Finland has increased steadily, motivating the adoption of various policy measures to regulate migration and support integration. From the perspective of migrant labour market integration, the two most important legislative acts are the Aliens Act (FINLEX 301/2004) and the Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration (FINLEX 1386/2010), which lay out basic labour market integration supports for migrants, and determine who can work in Finland and on which grounds. Finland’s comprehensive residence-based welfare state policies and collective bargaining based labour regulation also shape labour market outcomes for migrants. Immigrants working in Finland are subject to the same labour regulations as native Finnish citizens. There are different justifications for labour market access for different groups of immigrants, depending on from which country they come, and what kind of work they are doing. The chapter will go over the principle legislation regulating migration and migrants working in Finland. Also, the legislative basis for applying for asylum is discussed.

Abstract With 1.6 million Finnish-origin individuals abroad, the focus in Finland has traditionally been on Finnish cultural associations and educational programmes over any other type of engagement with this population. This chapter provides an overview of Finland’s diaspora policies, with a focus on social protection. It shows that Finland does not have a specific global policy of supporting Finns abroad, but rather a regional approach with Nordic countries (Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). Similarly, this chapter shows that Finland has a somewhat decentralized approach to diaspora engagement by which its strong network of non-profit organizations abroad perform a role traditionally given to public authorities in the area of social protection and consultation. The diaspora policy of the Finnish Government could be characterised as reactionary, since Finnish missions increasingly help Finnish tourists abroad. A strong Nordic cooperation in the field of social protection has widened after huge immigration of Finnish people to Sweden, and bilateral social agreements have been established with countries where Finns have immigrated historically like the United States and Australia.

AbstractThis chapter aims to investigate whether (restrictive) policy measures on migration across seven European countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the UK) are better explained by political factors, rather than the actual number of migrants/refugees/asylum seekers, their integration process or the effective European societies’ demographic and economic needs, within each national context. The analysis shows, indeed, that restrictive legislative and policy measures on immigration and integration issues seem to be not justified by the reality of immigration in the selected European countries. Conversely, these restrictive measures can be explained by some relevant political factors: prevalence of negative attitudes towards immigration among European citizens and salience of the immigration issue; electoral relevance of populist radical-right parties who mostly mobilized on immigration issues and significant diffusion of their authoritarian/traditionalist/nationalist positions within each country’s party system. These data confirm that citizens’ perceptions and party systems’ features are closely related phenomena, which influence one another and are all key factors that need to be considered to explain the law and policy-making of recent years on immigration issues.

AbstractThe phenomenon of irregular migration is very complex in the EU, including Finland. Definitions and practices regarding asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants are blurred. The laws and immigration policies also attempt to define and enact fixed categories by which to classify undocumented migrants, but these people always escape such legal boundaries through their actions, decisions, and migratory behaviours.In this chapter, we study the asylum-related legislation and processes from the viewpoints of both the authorities who decide whether to grant international protection, and the undocumented migrants who request asylum. The chapter describes the Finnish asylum process in detail, and explains how the undocumented migrants (mostly former asylum seekers) we studied experienced it. Some countries tolerate undocumented migrants, allowing them to work and have access to many public services. In other countries, such as Finland, they are denied the right to work and barely have access to healthcare. Being an undocumented migrant is simultaneously about becoming an undocumented migrant, and failing the asylum process is the most common path to becoming an undocumented migrant. We also indicate how, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of new asylum applications in Finland decreased by more than half.

AbstractMillions of undocumented and irregular migrants live in the EU, and many more live in the countries outside of it. In Finland, the number of undocumented migrants has so far been rather small—up to a few thousand people. There are many kinds of undocumented migrants, but the common factor is that they reside in a country without the proper legal right to do so and their presence is not fully approved by that country’s authorities.This chapter presents the main findings of the research about the everyday lives of undocumented migrants in Finland, showing how these findings corresponded closely with the international academic literature and brought insight to the current discussion. The results are reflected in the broader EU context and beyond. Additionally, the chapter suggests promising research themes on the topic, as they emerged from the main findings.Research has already demonstrated that no country can expel all its undocumented migrants. The results of this study and earlier studies have also suggested the revision of immigration and asylum policies in the EU, including Finland, to create win-win situations for both undocumented migrants and the countries in which they reside.

AbstractLooking at the relationship of experiences and memory Jalagin discusses the significance of the nation for a minority of a minority. Focusing on Soviet Karelian refugees who sought asylum first in interwar Finland and then in post-World War II Sweden, the chapter explores family histories as presented by government authorities in archival documents as well as in written and oral history narratives. Jalagin argues that the nation-state dominated the national experience because the refugees were meticulously controlled by government immigration policies and practices. While considering Sweden their home country, the refugees emotionally tended to identify with the Finnish migrant community in Sweden. Their sense of Finnishness testifies to flexible nationalism, making the nation-state an ambivalent, yet important element in their life.

Recently many studies have remarked migration issues. Thus, in countries such as Finland, having a governmental strategy for increasing the number of migrants, especially educated immigrants or encouraging international students to stay, is highly important. While Finland is recognized as the happiest country, it would be arguable why it is not included in the list of top destination countries for immigration. The literature shows communication is one of the most issues for immigrants and international students, particularly those from Asian countries. Therefore, this study aims to understand how technology-based communication such as the use of social media influences international students' decision to immigrate. Respectively, 23 Iranian tertiary-level students were interviewed as the case of the study. Uses and Gratification theory was employed to investigate the role of media usage among the participants. The findings showed that although there is high desire among the participants to immigrate to Finland, the difficulty and unpopularity of the Finnish language and culture of distance in Finland reduces the motivation to emigrate and made the participants feel being the outsider in the university and society. The use of communication media has facilitated university admissions and communication with family, friends, compatriots and other international students, but has not been able to connect them to Finnish society. While educated immigrants in every country are human resources, the results of this study draw our attention to explore different aspects of communication, identifying motivating factors and reducing frustration among international students for immigration. These results emphasize on the development of strategies and tools for harnessing the potential of media and technology to connect international students as future educated immigrants in the host community.