Sarah Philipson Isaac
Affiliated to Research
Department of Sociology and Work ScienceAbout Sarah Philipson Isaac
I am a doctor in sociology. My dissertation, Temporal Dispossession: The Politics of Asylum and the Remaking of Racial Capitalism in and Beyond the Borders of the Swedish Welfare State (2024), is an ethnographic examination of the transformations of the Swedish asylum legislation post-2015. The thesis seeks to contribute to research on how dispossession operates in and through the border regime, specifically through its temporal configurations, and how the latter is weaponised to dispossess people of their life chances. The thesis further seeks to contribute to research on the political economy of borders in the Nordic context by examining the operation of racial capitalism through the welfare state, where labour market exploitation is exacerbated by the precarity produced through its migration bureaucracies.
Research interest
Neoliberal restructurings of the welfare state, welfare bureaucracies and their distribution of life chances. This includes the precarisation of life through the frame of temporal dispossession, with a particular focus on migration and migration regimes. I approach these topics through feminist ethnographic methods and theoretical commitments within critical border studies, racial capitalism, Black, and postcolonial feminism.
Teaching:
I teach theoretical and methodological courses in sociology, work science, and teacher education. I have also taught at the European program and the Department of Psychology. I also supervise bachelor's and master's theses in sociology.