A new book, published by Manchester University Press, explores the tensions that emerge within strong welfare states when faced with large migration flows. Nerina Weiss has contributed with a chapter on “The trauma of waiting: understanding the violence of the benevolent welfare state”.

In her chapter, Weiss focuses on the experiences of refugees who have received asylum, but who have been waiting for resettlement in Norwegian municipalities for years. She investigates how this waiting is experienced, and whether and how this affects their relationship to the Norwegian state. She argues that refugees waiting for resettlement often experience the welfare state as imponderable, negligent and, at times, as utterly violent.