Rural employers can be significant actors in defining who is welcomed to the local community and under which conditions. Despite their importance, however, the role of rural employers in the belonging process of immigrant employees is not widely known. In this study, we focused on the discursive boundaries that rural employers (re)produce when speaking about immigrant employees. The empirical data of our study consists of 35 interviews in small and medium-sized enterprises. We identified three frames within which employers’ carry out boundary work. These frames are dealing with work ethics, workplace rules and local community. We argue that belonging was constructed in these frames ambiguously, and highlight immigrants’ hard-working attitude, cultural discretion and local stability. We also found that the idea of belonging was not built solely on immigrants’ adaptation but that conventional boundaries were also flexible.

中文翻译：

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归属及其框架：农村雇主关于移民雇员的边界构建

农村雇主可以成为确定当地社区欢迎谁以及在何种条件下欢迎的重要参与者。然而，尽管它们很重要，但农村雇主在移民雇员的归属过程中的作用并不广为人知。在这项研究中，我们关注农村雇主在谈论移民雇员时（再）产生的话语界限。我们研究的实证数据包括对中小企业的 35 次访谈。我们确定了雇主开展边界工作的三个框架。这些框架涉及职业道德、工作场所规则和当地社区。我们认为，归属感是在这些框架中模棱两可地构建的，并突出了移民的勤奋态度、文化判断力和当地的稳定性。