The research is divided into four Work Packages (WPs), together producing an interdisciplinary approach to the study of trust. The WPs focus on law (WP2), information (WP3), labour market (WP4), and everyday encounters (WP5), which we consider to be crucial for increasing social and institutional trust in society, and, ultimately, for improving societal preparedness for the challenges brought by demographic changes.
Approach
Mobile Futures highlights the importance of social and institutional trust in developing good demographic relations. We draw from critical integration research that challenges existing integration models for portraying society as neutral and integration as a responsibility – and often a problem – of migrants alone. Mobile Futures emphasizes the need to approach integration as a trust-based process that affects the society as a whole.
Goals
The aim is to create practical ways of translating research from the work packages into integration policies and practices to reach the following goals:
- Find ways to strengthen social trust between people of different backgrounds as well as people’s trust in society and its institutions;
- Identify discriminatory and racist structures and practices in the functioning of various institutions, and find ways to dismantle these structures and practices in cooperation with institutional representatives;
- Contribute to societal debates on integration and develop genuine cooperation between researchers and integration experts at national and local levels, using the Living Lab method.
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WP 2 Trust in Law
This work package investigates how trust is constructed in the regulations and discussions on legal reforms of the immigration law in Finland. It also explores how migrants’ and non-migrants’ experiences of law affects trust towards institutions.
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WP 3 Trust in Information
This work package looks at trust in information and expert knowledge by examining the relationship between social and institutional trust and views on migration-related issues, and the relationship between migrants’ Media Information Literacy (MIL) and institutional trust.
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WP 4 Trust in the Labour Market
This work package focuses on trust-building in the labour market and interpretations of structural racism among the key stakeholders by studying students on their transition to the labour market, employees who have entered jobs, and employers hiring them.
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WP 5 Trust in Everyday Encounters
This work package approaches two-way integration by studying everyday encounters of people of diverse backgrounds in Oulu and Turku, focusing on the possibilities and challenges of trust-building between migrants and the native-born both in informal and institutional settings.