Futures in line? : Occupational choice among migrant adult students in Sweden

The aim of this article is to analyse the ways in which migration plays outin adult students’ narratives about their occupational choice and future,focusing on three individual narratives of adult students with variousexperiences of migration to Sweden. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s conceptionof orientation, our results show how the adult students’ narrativeson their future occupations are formed on the basis of migration, pertainingto their particular experiences of being recognised as migrantOthers. Among the three students, similar challenges emerge in terms oftheir claims for belonging. One the one hand, the students do claimbelonging to the Swedish social community. On the other hand, theyare – as ‘migrants’ – repeatedly reminded of their non-belonging to thiscommunity. In various ways, they feel out of place. Although migration,in the narratives, is not played out one and the same way, but in variousways, engagement in adult education as a means of finding a job appearas the main orientation guiding the futures of the adult students, asbeing an important way of finding a future and claim one’s belonging tothe Swedish social community