5cb4228b-4f08-43d8-a5eb-bee9afab1f9b202606200142233877Depositor Namedepositor_email@address.comRUA Metadata ExporterJohannaLeinonenNovia University of Applied Scienceshttps://ror.org/05e08rb26https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1359-8235MiikaTervonenUniversity of Helsinkihttps://ror.org/040af2s02Department of Cultural Studieshttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2762-9629Hans OttoFrølandNorwegian University of Science and Technologyhttps://ror.org/05xg72x27Department of Modern History and Societyhttps://orcid.org/0009-0000-9292-6289ChristhardHoffmannUniversity of Bergenhttps://ror.org/03zga2b32Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion (AHKR)https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5662-0768SeijaJalaginUniversity of Ouluhttps://ror.org/03yj89h83History, Culture and Communications Studies Research Unithttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4762-0288Heidi VadJønssonUniversity of Southern Denmarkhttps://ror.org/03yrrjy16https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3640-9345MalinThor TurebyMalmö Universityhttps://ror.org/05wp7an13https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8232-8664Forced Migrants in Nordic Histories is the winner of the Nordic History Book Award 2025 Forced Migrants in Nordic Histories sheds light on the often-overlooked histories of forced migrants in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden during the 20th and 21st centuries. It offers the first comparative, region-wide volume focused specifically on the histories of refugees and other groups of forced migrants across the Nordic countries. Nordic historiographies have long tended to marginalise or omit the presence of these migrants, producing a perception of forced migration as something ‘new’ or ‘exceptional’. This volume challenges that notion by uncovering the long and varied histories of forced migration within, between, to, and from the Nordic region. In doing so, it repositions forced migrants as integral to the shaping of Nordic societies. The volume includes contributions from and about all the five Nordic countries. It examines both national specificities and shared regional patterns, offering insights into how forced migration has been regulated, remembered, and represented in public discourses across borders. The chapters engage with a wide range of forced migrant groups, such as wartime evacuees, refugees, deportees, Holocaust survivors, and more recent asylum-seekers. Central to the volume is the recognition of forced migrants as historical actors. Drawing on oral histories, personal testimonies, and archival research, the book foregrounds the agency of forced migrants themselves, countering their frequent portrayal as passive or voiceless. By tracing historiographical trends and shifting discourses, regulatory frameworks, and memory practices, Forced Migrants in Nordic Histories contributes a vital historical dimension to contemporary debates on forced migration. ‘[T]he book is a pioneering work in that it provides the first comparative overview of patterns of inclusion and exclusion of forced migrants in Nordic historiography, hopefully motivating further historical research in this important field. It is notable that many of the chapters highlight the fundamentally transnational nature of forced migration histories, emphasizing connections and contrasts across borders.’ - Award committee of the Nordic History Book Award 2025. Louis Clerc, Professor, University of Turku, Merethe Roos, Professor, University of South-Eastern Norway, and Guðmundur Hálfdanarson, Professor, University of Iceland.Winner of the Nordic History Book Award 2025 Forced Migrants in Nordic Histories focuses on the overlooked histories of refugees, deportees, and other forced migrants in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden during the 20th and 21st centuries. Through case studies from across the region, the volume highlights shared patterns and national differences in how forced migration has been regulated, remembered, and represented. It emphasises the agency of forced migrants and their role in shaping Nordic societies.06232025978-952-369-130-8978-952-369-131-5978-952-369-132-2Helsinki University PressHelsinkihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/10.33134/HUP-32https://uplopen.com/books/e/10.33134/HUP-32https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/4ed90567-577f-4b7f-8b62-3d37db07e6d7.pdfhttps://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/4ed90567-577f-4b7f-8b62-3d37db07e6d7.pdfJohannaLeinonenNovia University of Applied Scienceshttps://ror.org/05e08rb26https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1359-8235MiikaTervonenUniversity of Helsinkihttps://ror.org/040af2s02Department of Cultural Studieshttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2762-96290623202510.33134/HUP-32-1https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-1https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/feb57cf6-2bb3-42c9-ade7-74a8da799bfb.pdfPhilipMarfleetUniversity of East Londonhttps://ror.org/057jrqr44Forced migration has been integral to the making of the modern state. For almost four centuries nation-states have been constructed through processes of inclusion and exclusion associated with mass movements of population – both within and across state borders. But, with rare exceptions, those affected by displacement do not appear on the historical record – their experiences remain “unheard.” Why is forced migration largely absent from the archival record and from mainstream history, and what are the implications for researchers today? This chapter considers how historians address “national” histories – and the implications for those assumed to stand outside or at the margins of national society. It examines processes that shaped the modern state in Europe and North America, and means by which states emerged across the Global South, producing repeated mass displacements that have often been erased from the historical record. Why have historians silenced forced migrants? What does this suggest about the agendas of mainstream history and the process of state-making – and what can we learn from exceptional cases in which refugees or internally displaced persons have been integrated into official narratives?0623202510.33134/HUP-32-2https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-2https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/16e0c421-a539-432c-ac83-a6025c6f1d1c.pdfMiikaTervonenUniversity of Helsinkihttps://ror.org/040af2s02Department of Cultural Studieshttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2762-9629Hans OttoFrølandNorwegian University of Science and Technologyhttps://ror.org/05xg72x27Department of Modern History and Societyhttps://orcid.org/0009-0000-9292-6289ChristhardHoffmannUniversity of Bergenhttps://ror.org/03zga2b32Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion (AHKR)https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5662-0768SeijaJalaginUniversity of Ouluhttps://ror.org/03yj89h83History, Culture and Communications Studies Research Unithttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4762-0288Heidi VadJønssonUniversity of Southern Denmarkhttps://ror.org/03yrrjy16https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3640-9345JohannaLeinonenNovia University of Applied Scienceshttps://ror.org/05e08rb26https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1359-8235MalinThor TurebyMalmö Universityhttps://ror.org/05wp7an13https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8232-8664The chapter provides the first comparative analysis of forced migrants in the Nordic historiographical traditions. Research outside the Nordic context has pointed to silences and blind spots regarding forced migrants, who have appeared as anomalies in nation-state-centric historiography. To what extent does a hypothesis of silences hold in the case of the Nordic countries? The chapter analyses relevant research in history and related fields in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden that covers the period from early modern times to the present. While highlighting the scale and complexity of histories of forced migration in the Nordic region, the overview finds highly patchy national research fields well into the 1990s, with forced migrants rarely in the focus and often subsumed into general migration or labor history. After the Second World War, specific groups such as Jewish refugees or Karelian “evacuees” received some scholarly attention, with critical research questioning self-celebratory national narratives particularly from 1970s onward. Yet major publications appeared as exceptions to an overall rule of silence and were often written outside the profession of history. Only from the 1990s onward has there been a sustained historical interest, reflecting contemporary debates on immigration and human rights. Expansion of research has been accompanied with diversifying methodological and theoretical approaches and a shift of focus towards the perspectives, agency, and specific experiences of forced migrants.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-3https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-3https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/73dfe98f-00cb-4088-9b13-5fc1648ec817.pdfAleksiHuhtaUniversity of Helsinkihttps://ror.org/040af2s02Department of Philosophy, History, and ArtThis chapter examines the return and reception of deported migrants from North America to Finland during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its main sources compose of case files on deportations held at Finnish diplomatic archives. By using these sources, the chapter looks into the process of deporting migrants from the perspective of the receiving state. It probes the attitudes of Finnish authorities to the deported migrants but also sheds light on the experiences of the deportees themselves. It traces the return journeys of the deportees and their reception in Finland. The chapter illustrates how deportations relied on transnational bureaucratic work. It argues that the reception of deportees was an important yet oft-overlooked venue for state- and nation-building where the deportees, too, had real if circumscribed agency.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-4https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-4https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/4502e2c3-4c42-47b9-b285-ee1c002ef587.pdfÍrisEllenbergerUniversity of Icelandhttps://ror.org/01db6h964Faculty of Subject Teacher Educationhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-7879-4814This article examines Iceland’s regulation of forced migration and refugee policy from 1940 to 2000, highlighting how the government’s approach was highly controlled and selective. During this period, Iceland granted only 374 individuals international protection, despite being a party to the UN Refugee Convention from 1956. The study identifies two distinct categories of refugees: UNHCR-resettled groups, carefully selected based on criteria emphasizing utility, potential for assimilation, and often whiteness, and individual asylum seekers, who were systematically denied formal refugee status. The research reveals that Iceland’s refugee policy prioritized women, children, and workers considered beneficial to the economy to maintain strong control over immigration. Even late-twentieth-century efforts to integrate refugee resettlement with regional development policies reflected this utilitarian mindset. The findings illustrate how Iceland’s geographical isolation allowed for particularly restrictive refugee policies, which were driven by economic self-interests and assimilationist perspectives rather than humanitarian considerations.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-5https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-5https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/dc4307b2-3289-4718-be8d-97ae6ea71494.pdfKristinaStenmanUniversity of Helsinkihttps://ror.org/040af2s02Faculty of LawThe chapter deals with the responses in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden to the refugee situation due to the wars in former Yugoslavia 1991–2001. The Nordic countries had achieved a common labor market and a joint Passport Control Area in the 1950s. Legislation projects on migration and asylum in the 1980s demonstrated common features. The Nordic countries also coordinated their responses to the conflict resolution efforts in former Yugoslavia. In the responses to refugees arriving from the wars, the Nordic countries, however, chose clearly national paths on visas, residence permit regimes, and the rights that residence permits entailed. By 1997, all countries still had opted for permanent residence for refugees from the Balkans, along the lines of other European countries. Yet there appears initially to have been a strong political pressure to develop responses from a national perspective, while responses converged over time. The question of temporariness of protection for refugees emerged as a more long-term consequence for refugee law from this situation, including in the Nordic countries.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-6https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-6https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/eee0e5a7-8454-4046-a264-dab0547fb8f5.pdfTineBrøndumAarhus Universityhttps://ror.org/01aj84f44Educational Anthropology and Educational Psychologyhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-0953-8889TrineØlandUniversity of Copenhagenhttps://ror.org/035b05819Department of CommunicationThis chapter portrays the incorporation processes of refugees in Danish integration and welfare practices by including colonial divisions of humanity within Nordic histories. The chapter is based on narrative interviews with forced migrants and local integration workers in Denmark. It identifies four key processes across the narratives as a way of conceptualizing refugeedom and its bordering practices: Becoming part of a new flock describes an incorporation where subcategories activate hierarchies of protection, care, and employment, increasingly emphasizing the latter. Dreaming and becoming rational testifies to how dreams are instrumentalized in integration processes, creating hierarchies between citizens and noncitizens. Work and becoming self-sufficient describes how refugees are cast as unemployed and in need of activation. Finally, Rebuilt but kept down illustrates the paradoxical obligations and expectations that refugees are met with. In conclusion, the chapter identifies refugeedom as a social category inscribed within the multiple economic and sociopolitical workings of global capitalism.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-7https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-7https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/65f4e3da-11c6-4971-bcfc-62489e9d4d5c.pdfHenrikLundtofteArchives of Danish Occupation History, Museum VestThe aim of this chapter is to give insight into public discourses on forced migrants in a special era in refugee history. Thus, the chapter analyses discourses in Danish underground papers related to German refugees – in 1945, the Nazi regime evacuated 200,000 refugees from Prussia and Pomerania to occupied Denmark. The chapter analyses a selection of 14 underground publications to discuss how the Danish resistance movement tried to influence public opinion on the refugees. Second, it discusses the political and social purposes of the anticompassion campaign that the underground press began against the refugees. Finally, the chapter focuses on discussing the question of why the underground agitation was radicalized. Here the chapter demonstrates not only that the harsh refugee discourses were related to German politics and terror in Denmark but also that they must be interpreted as a final showdown with the Danish state’s collaboration with Hitler’s regime and as an attempt to signal Denmark’s belonging to the Allied side.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-8https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-8https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/ca4cb3be-5705-4ea1-bf8b-5f4ce10184a3.pdfVictoria Van OrdenMartínezLund Universityhttps://ror.org/012a77v79Historyhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-4491-5520This chapter examines how the history and legacy of Polish-Swedish activist Ludwika Broel-Plater have been obscured in Swedish public discourse, in which she is recognized mainly as a passive and grateful recipient of Swedish humanitarianism. The first part of the chapter examines silences that have entered narrative constructions in Swedish public discourse about survivors who came to Sweden as repatriates in 1945 and how these have contributed to creating embedded narratives about Broel-Plater and refugees of the early postwar period more generally. Second, it begins to construct an alternative narrative that recognizes Broel-Plater’s historical significance by using her own and other neglected source material. In doing so, the chapter counters conventional narratives of survivors of Nazi persecution in Sweden as refugees and thus enhances the possibilities of understanding forced migration of the period in transnational contexts.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-9https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-9https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/12bacf7b-29c7-4fbe-882c-849d1fe718c5.pdfDaliaAbdelhadyLund Universityhttps://ror.org/012a77v79Sociologyhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9447-0390MinjaMårtenssonIndependent researcherThis study examines shifts in Swedish media representations of refugees over three decades by analyzing coverage of refugees from Yugoslavia (1992), Syria (2015), and Ukraine (2022) in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Through frame analysis, the research reveals how media narratives reconcile Sweden’s humanitarian self-image with increasingly restrictive refugee policies. While institutional responsibility remains the dominant frame across all periods, representing 65 percent of coverage, significant variations emerge in the portrayal of different refugee groups. Coverage of Yugoslav refugees focused on bureaucratic management and deservingness, Syrian refugee coverage emphasized both humanitarian concerns and security threats, and Ukrainian refugee coverage highlighted institutional barriers to integration while portraying them as culturally compatible and deserving. The study introduces the concept of “inclusive othering” to describe the subtle mechanisms of differentiation in Ukrainian refugee coverage. These findings demonstrate how media framing contributes to the politicization of refugees while maintaining Sweden’s self-perception as a humanitarian nation, even as policies become more restrictive.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-10https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-10https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/1df426a6-c580-44ff-a543-45099d3012d6.pdfPäiviPirkkalainenUniversity of Jyväskylähttps://ror.org/05n3dz165https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3705-0899SaaraPellanderMigration Institute of Finlandhttps://ror.org/025fkxt31https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0432-4390In this chapter, we focus on public debates on forced migrants in Finland by analyzing editorials of the largest Finnish national newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, that were published between 1981 and 2004. During these years Finland implemented the first Aliens Act (1983), amended it and replaced it with a new law in 1991 and 2004 as a result of the rapid internationalization of Finland. We analyze the editorials with the public justifications analysis method. We argue that identifying public claims and justifications related to forced migration can deepen our understanding on dynamics of contestation around the topic in Finnish public discourse. We show in the chapter that the politization and securitization of the issues related to forced migration did not arrive in Finland with the larger amount of asylum seekers after 2015 but can be traced back historically.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-11https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-11https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/f3b3a5a3-fcc4-42ad-9ce8-116b7336ddfa.pdfHans OttoFrølandNorwegian University of Science and Technologyhttps://ror.org/05xg72x27Department of Modern History and Societyhttps://orcid.org/0009-0000-9292-6289Vendula V.HingarováCharles Universityhttps://ror.org/024d6js02Faculty of Arts, Department of Scandinavian Studieshttps://orcid.org/0009-0002-8300-0075Nazi Germany conscripted some 2,000 young men from the occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia for forced labor in Norway (and Finland) during the Second World War. Their experiences as forced labor migrants in a distant polar habitat, as well as their commemoration during the Cold War, have been largely neglected in Norway and deliberately ignored in Czechoslovakia. Based on documents from the German bureaucracy, ego-documents from individual workers, and interviews with their descendants, this chapter explores the cohort’s collective experiences, memories, and memorialization from a prosopographic perspective. By first examining their experience from conscription in 1942 to repatriation in 1945, the chapter observes an inherent ambiguity between misery and tourist mode. In the second part of the chapter, it is argued that the ambiguity prevailed as memories persisted in close social networks in Czechoslovakia. Only in the Czech Republic was it possible to commemorate the cohort in public, when the compensation discourse tipped the balance of ambiguity in favor of misery.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-12https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-12https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/af9d174a-54ab-4674-9530-70b9a1efcd84.pdfOutiAuttiUniversity of Ouluhttps://ror.org/03yj89h83Giellagas Institutehttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9624-9585This article analyzes a previously understudied refugee case that connects two Nordic countries by exploring the experiences of children and young people evacuated from Finnish Lapland to Finnish Ostrobothnia and Sweden during the Lapland War (1944–1945). The study focuses on children’s experiences of leaving home, the evacuation journey, and either remaining in Ostrobothnia or crossing the border into Sweden. The article is based on qualitative interview material and three written narratives. By exploring the experiences of children, the study aims to reveal new interpretations of the past. Children’s key experiences of the evacuation period were related to refugee status, a sense of adventure and threats to home and family. Feelings of fear and insecurity were ever-present. The war and flight meant violence, losses, and uncertainty, but the events were not unilaterally negative for the children involved. The Lapland War and the resulting evacuation were also portrayed as a great adventure.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-13https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-13https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/fe625160-79e3-42f7-9c77-321148a93454.pdfMartinEnglundSödertörn Universityhttps://ror.org/00d973h41Historical studieshttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-6543-8765This chapter examines the cultural memory of Chilean exiles in Gothenburg, Sweden, through oral history interviews conducted with women who arrived in the aftermath of the 1973 military coup. It explores how metanarratives shaped by Chilean political discourse before exile intersect with and diverge from the migrants’ lived experiences in Sweden. By comparing oral histories with Chilean political media from the period, the chapter identifies elements of cultural memory that remained anchored in Chile and those transformed by migration. The study applies Niels Kayser Nielsen’s model of historical tropes and Gunnar Olsson’s concept of cartographic reasoning to analyze how narratives of displacement and activism structured the community’s memory. The chapter ultimately argues that the Chilean diaspora’s engagement with political and cultural heritage – through solidarity networks, music, and the Hammarkullen Carnival – redefined notions of home and belonging, illustrating the spatial and temporal dimensions of diasporic memory formation.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-14https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-14https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/b4c9b8ef-85b9-49a1-8622-a9e8ccfe1942.pdfSjammevan de VoortVrije Universiteit Amsterdamhttps://ror.org/008xxew50Athena Institutehttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-0550-9503This chapter examines the cultural memory of Chilean exiles in Gothenburg, Sweden, through oral history interviews conducted with women who arrived in the aftermath of the 1973 military coup. It explores how metanarratives shaped by Chilean political discourse before exile intersect with and diverge from the migrants’ lived experiences in Sweden. By comparing oral histories with Chilean political media from the period, the chapter identifies elements of cultural memory that remained anchored in Chile and those transformed by migration. The study applies Niels Kayser Nielsen’s model of historical tropes and Gunnar Olsson’s concept of cartographic reasoning to analyze how narratives of displacement and activism structured the community’s memory. The chapter ultimately argues that the Chilean diaspora’s engagement with political and cultural heritage – through solidarity networks, music, and the Hammarkullen Carnival – redefined notions of home and belonging, illustrating the spatial and temporal dimensions of diasporic memory formation.0623202510.33134/HUP-32-15https://uplopen.com/chapters/e/10.33134/HUP-32-15https://uplopen.com/books/10947/files/c2ac7f3c-d6e3-46b1-a750-56ee9e873e5e.pdf