‘ You ’ re the one that I want ’ : di ﬀ erentiating between bene ﬁ ciaries in voluntary organizations

This paper examines di ﬀ erentiations between bene ﬁ ciaries in voluntary organizations. Drawing on the writings of Ahmed and Bauman, the paper suggests that bene ﬁ ciaries are socially constructed through e ﬀ orts to assist them and according to complex and varied criteria that combine immediate ‘ re-cognition ’ of otherhood with attention to the ‘ achievements ’ of bene ﬁ ciaries, i.e. how well bene ﬁ ciaries narrate and perform their assimilability. Taking the case of language cafés as an example, the study suggests that di ﬀ erentiations between bene ﬁ ciaries emerge not only according to essentialist criteria, but also according to how convincingly bene ﬁ ciaries express optimism about the future, intention to contribute to local community, and willingness to shed their past, and how respectful of boundaries they appear in the eyes of selves. Relational, narrative, and ideological dimensions then complement essentialist criteria to in ﬂ uence if/how others are included, implying that identities of both selves and others need to be seen as relational and context dependent.


Introduction
Processes of otheringfocusing on and constructing differences between selves and others that often leave others appearing as 'inferior' to selveshave attracted much interest within diversity research. In this paper, I problematize a seldom-discussed aspect of othering, namely how the social construction of others, in or through attempts to assist them, leads to differentiations being made between different categories of others. Organizational politics of inclusion may not only uphold differences between selves and others, but also insert distinctions between others that influence their individual experiences and the assistance they receive. If, in efforts to include them, some others are constructed differently from other others, 1 we need to understand according to what criteria and by what processes such differentiations emerge, for both practical and ethical reasons. The question that guides this paper is, therefore, on what basis and relying on what relational dynamics, differentiations between beneficiaries arise in voluntary organizations. The term differentiation does not refer primarily to practices of 'cherry picking,' i.e. selecting beneficiaries with certain socio-economic characteristics, but to how social perceptions and interactions construct differences, and how others' reactions to these influence their prospects of inclusion. Differentiations between beneficiaries have received scarce interest in previous studies, one exception being Wasserman and Clair (2013), who argue that institutions providing services to the homeless empower some of their 'clients' at the expense of others, prioritizing those who comply with market and industrial logics.
Diversity research has underlined that initiatives to include others may reproduce categorizations based on class, ethnicity, religion, or gender (Primecz, Mahadevan, and Romani 2016;Mahadevan and Kilian-Yasin 2017), and may have detrimental effects on others, raising expectations of their compliance (Romani, Holck, and Risberg 2019;Spivak 2012) or assimilation (Bhabha 2012). Diversity research has also stressed that while classifications, used to 'sort out people,' (Diedrich, Eriksson-Zetterquist, and Styhre 2011) are socially constructed, they tend to appear as natural, particularly when building on invisible categorizations (Zanoni et al. 2010). In this study, I explore differentiations made between beneficiaries as a largely unseen and unspoken organizational phenomenon, and relate mundane, micro-level interactions to macro-level societal perceptions of otherhood. Leaning on the concept of 'happy multiculturalism' (Ahmed 2010), I conduct an ethnographic study of language cafés as an illustration of how a voluntary organization (Schwabenland 2015) works to integrate newcomers into local society. I examine how volunteers in this organization perceive, construct, and implicitly include (or not) newcomer immigrants in relational processes that encompass difficultto-capture differentiations (Ghorashi and Sabelis 2013), and seek to understand on what grounds volunteers express enthusiasm about some newcomers, while signaling unease in interacting with others. The voluntary organization I studied attached great importance to the principles of justice and fairness (Tomlinson and Schwabenland 2010), yet differences in how newcomers were received emerged in the enactment of cafés. Local volunteers, despite their compassion (Nussbaum 1996) and acting in the interest of others, appeared to construct newcomers differently, seemingly influenced by a variety of assumptions according to which others needed to manifest their 'worthiness of inclusion' (Žižek 2008). To explore these differentiations, I draw on Bauman's (1995) ideas on 'the making of strangers' and Ahmed's (2013) conceptualization of others as classified according to their 'assimilability,' 2 aligning with a politically endorsed notion of 'happy multiculturalism' (Ahmed 2010). Through this lens, I seek to understand which criteria and relational processes shape constructions of otherhood, (inadvertently) influencing how others are received and included.
The aim of the paper is to provide insights into relational dynamics of processes of inclusionexclusion in (voluntary) organizations that render our comprehension of how othering may be 'done' more complex (Nkomo et al. 2019). The paper does so through a close examination of two encounters between selves and others, and by conceptualizing inclusion-exclusion not only as relational and contextual but as politicized and ideological, which brings links between individual microexperiences and societal discourse to the forefront. The paper contributes, firstly, to research on inclusion, more specifically on the intersections of gender, religion, and ethnicity (e.g. Primecz, Mahadevan, and Romani 2016;Mahadevan and Kilian-Yasin 2017), and how difference may be re-framed to signal compliance and includability. Secondly, the paper contributes to critical studies of diversity management (e.g. Ahonen et al. 2014;Ghorashi and Sabelis 2013), by interrogating power-related and ideological aspects of inclusion.
In the next section, I outline a brief review of previous diversity studies. This is followed by a section where I describe categorizations that influence constructions of otherhood through the theoretical lens of Bauman (1995) and Ahmed (2010Ahmed ( , 2013. I then present the case that this study builds upon, and juxtapose two encounters between volunteers and newcomers in language cafés. In the analysis, I identify criteria that influence dynamics of inclusion-exclusion, and, in the final section of the paper, suggest that making processes of differentiations visible and approaching them with reflexivity may render selveswhether volunteers, co-workers, or researchersattentive to the socially constructed nature of otherhood and selfhood. with including others (Liu 2020) while not recognizing that this approach presumes a normalizing view of western, white, male middle-class values (e.g. Zanoni et al. 2010). Against these dominating norms, the variety added by including others appears as enrichening, albeit essentially cosmetic, in that it does not question societal structures and reproduce those who deviate from norms as 'others'. The diversity discourse, Al Ariss et al. (2014) claim, thereby fails to address structural inequalities and leaves inherent stereotypes intact. Images of 'inferior others' then continue to exercise influence, often undervaluing the capacities and contributions of others, such as newcomers Kilian-Yasin 2017, 1156). Thus, while the diversity discourse assumes a self-congratulatory rhetoric (Liu 2020), reinforced by 'happy talk' (Bell and Hartmann 2007), and a determination to stand up against discrimination, it does not effectively challenge processes of exclusion, but rather invites others to become more like selves (Bhabha 2012).
Underlying this ambiguity lies a shift in the diversity discourse, from a focus on antidiscrimination and equal opportunity (Nkomo et al. 2019), to identity politics, which turns diversity into a less intimidating subject to selves (Ahmed 2012). Negative attitudes toward others and everyday discrimination (Diedrich, Eriksson-Zetterquist, and Styhre 2011) then go hand in hand with compelling discourses of the advantages of embracing diversity. The notion of 'happy multiculturalism' (Ahmed 2010) allocates role expectancies between selves and others in ideologically flavored terms, stipulating that selves should welcome diversity, thereby accentuating their own tolerance, while others should accommodate, conveying gratefulness, and acknowledging their obligation to integrate. Subscribing to happy multiculturalism enables selves to portray themselves as ideal subjects, while not considering the consequences for others, leading to an avoidance of aspects that contradict harmonious co-existence (Swan 2010). An appealing discourse of happy multiculturalism then broadcasts the benefits of diversity, while sparing selves from discomforts associated with social equality and structural change (Liu 2020).
This ambiguity of the diversity discourse can be conceptualized as a juggling of sameness and difference (Ghorashi and Sabelis 2013), in which selves both identify with and distance themselves from others (Bhabha 2012). Striving to achieve a sought-for diversity may direct the focus to surface-level, essentialist (Zanoni et al. 2010) criteria, such as gender, race, and ethnicity, while disregarding differences related to 'deep-level' criteria (Nkomo et al. 2019), such as values and knowledge. Critical diversity research has, however, underscored limitations of fixed, or essentialist, categorizations of otherhood, suggesting that identities are fluid, ephemeral, and intersectional (Holvino 2010), dependent on power relations (Mahadevan, Primecz, and Romani 2019; Özkazanç-Pan 2019) and situational-relational factors (Ahonen et al. 2014). This suggests that societal contexts, discourse and ideology enable individuals to 'reshape' their identities, promoting or downplaying certain facets, giving rise to hybrid positionings (Bhabha 2012;Ghorashi and Sabelis 2013), and implying a negotiable nature of otherhood: that otherhood, like selfhood, is 'made.' Theoretical framework: processes of assimilation and exclusion Zygmunt Bauman is categorical in his 1995 article The Making of Strangers. There are but two options available, he argues: either we welcome strangers with open arms, or we throw them out. In the first option, a 'strategy of assimilation,' selves embrace others while striving to control, or 'devour,' them, 'metabolically transforming them into a tissue indistinguishable from one's own ' (1995, 2). 3 In the second option, societies repulse others, 'vomiting the strangers, banishing them from the limits of the orderly world and barring them from all communication with those inside […]confining the strangers within the visible walls of the ghetto' (1995). In the first strategy, an 'appropriation' of the other takes place, transforming her into the sameness of the self. 4 In a strategy of exclusion, the other is thrown up or out, out of the community of selves and into demarcated enclaves, 'ghettos' as Bauman calls them (or suburbs in contemporary jargon). The two strategies, Bauman argues, are interwoven and may occur intermittently or in parallel. Bauman's main argument is that strangers are made - Ahmed (2012, 2) refers to this as 'the politics of stranger making'and that every society makes strangers in its own way, relating to its own challenges.
Those who transgress boundaries, whether physical or ideational, are those who turn into strangers; Bauman (1995, 1) terms them 'boundary ignoring.' The problem with strangers, he argues, is that they disrupt orderliness and control; strangers pose a threat/cause discomfort and disrupt boundaries erected around selves and their communities. Strangers may also provoke in a third sense, by reminding selves of their vulnerabilities, their interconnectedness with others (Bauman 2016). Associations with suffering, with the possibility that selves, too, may suffer, establish a link of exposure to the other that makes her not only a threatening exteriority, but positions her to touch the interiority of selves, in an invisible boundary transgressing. 'What we see mirrored in the other, ' Shildrick (2002, 13) observes, is 'our own […] vulnerabilities. ' Bauman's view of strangers as 'made' in intertwined processes of assimilation and/or exclusion, related to challenges and vulnerabilities, complements previous diversity studies; others are then constructed not only according to essentialist criteria, but also according to how they relate to selves and ideological contexts. Advancing this reasoning, Sara Ahmed (2013) argues that strangers are recognized by their appearance, 'known again'although selves have never met themand 'recognized' as being out-of-place, evoking distanciation. Re-cognition involves 'relations of social and political antagonism that mark some others as stranger than other others' (Ahmed 2013, 25). 5 Assimilable others show compliance, gratitude, and happiness, Ahmed (2010, 7) reasons, and are part of a 'happiness mission', acknowledging their 'duty' (125) to be happy, in which feelings of contentment signal the successfulness of their integration. The migrant's response connects with that of locals, turning happiness into a social glue that holds society together. In order to become assimilable, migrants must make selves happy, confirming a performativity of multiculturalism in which all stand to gain, malleable others as well as benevolent selves. Un-assimilable others, in contrast, emerge as stubbornly holding on to misfortune, in a pathological failure to proceed with their lives. They disrupt ambitions of multiculturalism by reminding selves of aspects selves do not want to acknowledge, provoking a firming of boundaries around communities or identities. Unassimilable others then destabilize selves by not aligning with their imagery, by imposing themselves, coming 'too close' (Ahmed 2013), transgressing internal boundaries (Bauman 1995), and threatening to 'touch' selves (Ahmed 2004).
According to Bauman, perceptions of strangers have been transformed in neoliberal society from a matter of ascription into achievement and demonstrated merit, making it 'an individual task and the individual's responsibility ' (1995, 3) to 'prove' her includability. Through this transformation, migrants are expected to post and perform appropriate identities (Diprose 2012), shifting the focus from individual rights (Nussbaum 2019) to politico-economic evaluations of how migrants add value to receiving societies ). 6

Method
To capture the dynamics of inclusion-exclusion in language cafés, I used Ahmed's concepts of assimilability and non-assimilability, together with Bauman's notion that migrants need to demonstrate their merits. Through this lens, differentiations between newcomers carry performative aspects, such as the communication of assimilability. In the study, I assumed a relational approach (Özbilgin and Vassilopoulou 2018) as a conceptual lens and methodological perspective, to examine relations in cafés and interdependencies between individual, organizational, and societal dimensions, viewing relations as unfolding and ongoing rather than static or based on personal traits. The study was designed as an ethnography with autoethnographic tendencies (Boyle and Parry 2007), building on interviews, participant observations, observations, and self-reflection. (Auto)ethnography allows for a consideration of complexities of social interaction, requiring reflexivity and linking interpretations of micro-level events to tendencies on macro levels (Mahadevan and Kilian-Yasin 2017; Golnaraghi and Dye 2016), enabling a view of social phenomena as products of human assumptions rather than naturally given (Romani, Mahadevan, and Primecz 2018).
In my dual role of researcher-volunteer, I strove to balance personal involvement with professional distance (Prasad 2014), accepting that my presence in all likelihood influenced interactions in cafés. In this dual positioning lies an ambiguity of being witness-narrator-experiencer and interpreter of encounters, underlining that the perceiving self cannot be separated from those studied. Permitting autoethnographic tendencies to emerge made it possible to capture more subjective and emotive aspects, acknowledging relational dimensions, including vulnerabilities touched upon in researchers while studying others (Liu and Pechenkina 2016). Understanding my own reactions has been important for grasping the complexities of interacting with others (Mahadevan, Primecz, and Romani 2019), and has facilitated a connection between micro-practices and societal dimensions (Boyle and Parry 2007). The relational approach made me realize that I was part of an othering process, which de-familiarized the mundane activity of having coffee with someone you do not know. Allowing my own emotive responses to surface in the text has meant expressing criticism of myself, engendering awkwardness (Holck and Muhr 2020), but also, I hope, insights into the challenges of interacting with others whom we do not know.

Data collection and analysis
The empirical material consists of semi-structured, recorded interviews with four (co)founders of voluntary organizations working with integration, and informal conversations with coordinators, volunteers and newcomers in language cafés. During a one-year period, from April 2016 to March 2017, I also acted as participant observer in 35 café sessions, each lasting two hours. Observations were made and notes taken during/after these and kept in a research diary. At the cafés, I hosted groups of newcomers, sometimes on my own and sometimes in pairs with a regular volunteer. This was done at my request, as hosting alone required giving full attention to ongoing conversations, leaving little space for observation. I informed all participants in the language cafés of my dual role. Most seemed unconcerned about my research, but some took an interest in my affiliation with a university, at times tilting conversations toward discussions of their own educational backgrounds. 7 In order to reduce influence on the café dynamics, and to avoid exposing those whose language abilities were weaker, I opted not to record the conversations.
The analysis was undertaken in four iterative steps (Alkhaled and Berglund 2018). First, I conducted a thematic analysis of the gathered material, examining first-order concepts (Gioia, Corley, and Hamilton 2013;Van Maanen 1979), such as how others presented themselves, while striving to remain attentive to relational and situational factors, including my own reactions and those of volunteers. Secondly, I created second-order concepts, relating to my theoretical framework, moving back and forth between inductively observed aspects and deductively derived concepts (Watson 2012). I focused in particular on how aspects of assimilability or un-assimilability were expressed, and on instances of boundary ignoring, or what I came to conceptualize as its contrastboundary respectfulness. From this material, I identified three themes according to which aspects of assimilability were conveyed: expressing optimism about the future, making statements about one's intention to contribute to local society, and signaling a willingness to disregard one's past. Thirdly, I selected two encounters to illustrate (Siggelkow 2007) interactions in language cafés. While the first encounter is representative of café interactionssmooth, pleasant, and supportivethe second deviates from typical patterns and may be described as 'extreme' (Flyvbjerg 2006), precisely therefore revealing relational dynamics that commonly remain unspoken. Fourthly, I juxtaposed these two encounters in a side-by-side reading, striving to illuminate the processes by which otherhood was constructed. By juxtaposing these two encounters, my aim is to make readers reflect upon their differences (and similarities), without implying anyone is at fault, while remaining sensitive to socially constructed aspects. Examples from the empirical material are provided in Table 1, while in the analysis below I concentrate on the two encounters. As the study is exploratory (Swedberg 2019), my aim is to problematize how differentiations between beneficiaries and images of otherhood are socially constructed. Bearing in mind the methodological limitations (Gioia, Corley, and Hamilton 2013) of the study, I strive merely to make visible and discuss such differentiations.

Language cafés
In this section, I first outline the context of the language cafés, and then illustrate interactions in two ethnographic accounts.

Context
During the refugee crisis of 2015, immigration became a controversial issue with media and public opinion displaying contradictory discourses (Holmes and Castañeda 2016). In Sweden, the crises Table 1. Self-presentations by newcomers (R = respondent number).
R5 appreciates being in the local community, finding it accepting towards immigrants. 'I have never experienced any negative attitudes.
[…] it is a welcoming community, I am positive about being here.' R27 focuses on opportunities available in the local community, stressing his wish to integrate and future opportunities. 'I want to find a job here. And I think I can, I just need to improve my Swedish.' R32 underlines the 'openness' of the local community, and a democratic attitude among locals. 'I could almost pass for a local.' Self-presentations of R17 and R18 circle around finding employment, making a career, further improving their education. 'I came here to apply for KTH (The Royal Institute of Technology). I did the test, and I hope I will be admitted.' (R18) R8 seems confident about his prospects in local society. 'It was easy to find a jobit took me some six months […] give it some more time and I think I will fit in nicely.' Observations: Newcomers' self-presentations underline ambitions and hopes for the future, emphasizing own initiatives undertaken to become part of/build a future in the local community: learning Swedish, learning to skate/ski, taking evening classes primarily to meet locals, studying local culture, architecture, Swedish literature, film-making, etc.
Expressing optimism about the future R62 frames her experience from working in high-tech labs as relevant for her integration. 'I believe my professional experience can be useful in a Swedish context.' R12, recently transferred to Sweden from another European country, wants to learn Swedish as quickly as possible to 'contribute to my company.' R22 has initiated an all-immigrant football team that practices every week with local players. 'It's a way of interacting with Swedes.
[…]Through sport you get to know people. Otherwise we would be isolated here. We would not integrate.' R40 volunteers in soup kitchens, to 'help others,' whether immigrants or locals.
'There are poor people in Sweden too.' Observations: A central feature of newcomers' self-presentations is willingness to contribute to local society through commitment, professional experience, knowledge or 'life experience'countering images of being 'a burden' to society.

Expressing intention to contribute to local community
In conversations with other newcomers, R10 is asked about the situation in his home country (where a war is ongoing). He politely declines to answer the question, explaining that he does not want to make café participants feel sad. He then changes the subject and recounts a humoristic anecdote from when he first arrived in Sweden. R51 says that she 'had to leave' her country, without going into any details, merely explaining that this is better for her son who came to Sweden with her. R22 presents himself as optimistic, coping well with the transition to Sweden. In conversations after café sessions, however, he conveys another self-image; he admits worrying about relatives at home and talks of casualties from an ongoing conflict thereaspects not verbalized during cafés, when he maintains a positive outlook, making volunteersand newcomersfeel comfortable. Observations: Newcomers rarely talk about missing their home countries or recount episodes from home, unless related to professional competence/ experience. They respond willingly to topics suggested by coordinators, but in generalized, non-personal ways.
Conveying willingness to disregard the past engendered initiatives by private, public, and voluntary organizations to facilitate the integration of newcomers into local society (Diedrich, Eriksson-Zetterquist, and Styhre 2011;Romani, Holck, and Risberg 2019). One example of this is Café Encounters (CE), 8 a voluntary organization that arranged the cafés that are part of this study. CE had been active for some years prior to the crisis, mainly supporting migrants' language acquisition. CE did not lay down any conditions for participation; their activities were free of charge and open to everyone. As a not-for-profit organization, CE was largely funded by donations and membership fees, and relied extensively on the engagement of volunteers.
The language cafés I participated in were run on a drop-in basis and were located in cultural institutions (theaters or museums) in central Stockholm. CE coordinators welcomed participants at the door as they arrived, matched newcomer migrants with local volunteers to create well-functioning groups, and monitored the interactions to see that they proceeded in a pleasant atmosphere. Participants came from a range of countries inside and outside of Europe, and coordinators sought to compose groups of newcomers that displayed ethnic diversity while having comparable language abilities, and to avoid combining participants whose countries were in conflict. After groups had been formed, participants were assigned to a table with a local volunteer acting as host. Cafés comprised some ten to fifteen tables, usually with two to five participants at each. During the sessions, coordinators assisted with questions and intervened if groups experienced difficulties. Volunteers were advised to avoid discussions on politics, religion, or conflict, and to focus on topics of general interest. There was, in my experience, a limited exchange of personal information during these sessions; volunteers and newcomers interacted with little knowledge about each other, which may have evoked a sense of exposure, increasing the influence of preconceptions. Notwithstanding this, I generally experienced interactions in the cafés as empathic, enthusiastic, and supportive towards newcomers, bringing forth energizing aspects of interacting with others.

First encounter
The snow is not a problem for them. Neither is the darkness; it is also cold and snowy where they come from. Zeynep,22,and Haşim,19, knew each other before coming to Sweden, about a year previously, as their fathers were colleagues working for a Turkish newspaper. Both families had to emigrate, for political reasons, but Zeynep chooses not to go into detail. She brings a book that she is reading, in Swedish, to the café. It is a tiny book, about love and emotions, and seizing the day. Haşim's Swedish is weaker. He has good pronunciation, but searches for words, hesitates, as if seeking perfection. Zeynep and Haşim are waiting for permission to stay in Sweden. Every morning they go to the city library, where they spend the day reading children's stories in Swedish to each other. Both say that it has been an advantage to have a friend by their side when coming to a new country. 'I am never alone,' Zeynep says, smiling at Haşim. 'When I cry, he reads me a story. But sometimes it is in Turkish,' she adds and laughs. Both share the same goal, Zeynep explains. 'Our dream is to study psychology,' she says, taking her cell phone out of her bag: Look at this picture. Haşim and I went to the Department of Psychology and we took a picture on the doorstep. We will compare them. We will take another picture in the future, when we have been admitted, and we will compare them.
She smiles at me, knowing that I work at Stockholm University, and continues: 'This, we will say, this, is what we looked like the first time.' I peer into the little screen that she holds out to me and see two tiny figures on the steps of a massive red brick building. The figures look small and frozen, motionless, in comparison to how they appear in front of me. They stand there, upright and solemn, Haşim stylish in his trendy beard and skinny black jeans, Zeynep delicate in a veil that marks her as foreign.
There is, at that moment, no doubt in my mind that they will be admitted to the psychology program one day, nor that they will be excellent additions to Swedish society; humble, thoughtful, and wise.
Zeynep and Haşim become regular café visitors and I am able to follow their progress during my year at the café. On one occasion, Margret, with whom I often co-host, is assigned to our table. Margret opens the notebook she always brings with her and focuses on Zeynep and Haşim. 'What are your names?' she asks, and when she has trouble understanding them, asks Zeynep and Haşim to spell their names, slowly. This leads into an exercise in pronouncing Swedish letters that engages all of us. Also at the table is Dragoslav, a middle-aged man whose Swedish is considerably stronger than Zeynep and Haşim's. He has spent nine years in Sweden and says he is troubled by the social isolation of migrants. Committed to helping, he volunteers as a language teachernot as a learner of Swedish, as he is tonight. Zeynep, barely able to make out what Dragoslav is talking about, adds that she too has started volunteering. Once a week she goes to a center for people with learning difficulties to help locals with autism do their daily shopping. It is a wonderful opportunity, she says, looking at Margret, to help out while practicing Swedish, and, turning to me, good practice for her studies in psychology.
Having Margret lead the conversation allows me to take notes and observe. 'The Afghanis coming here are a big problem,' I hear Margret say. 'A few weeks ago, we had a bunch of them coming to this café.' Margret is referring to an influx of unaccompanied teenage refugees whose integration requires extensive resources. She smiles at Zeynep and Haşim, finding what seem to be an apparent contrast. The conversation then turns to Zeynep's recent visit to the immigration office. Everyone around the table listens attentively. 'You are so ambitious,' Margret exclaims pointing to the lists of Swedish words neatly written in Zeynep's notebook. 'You deserve it [to receive a residence permit].' 'Deserve,' however, is a word Zeynep does not know. So we teach her and laugh in support, because this is something she really needs to know. 'I deserve it,' Zeynep mimics, blending eagerness with self-mockery, making a victory gesture with her hands. Dragoslav adds that the Swedish word for deserve has the same origin as to earn (money). As Margret and Dragoslav engage in a discussion of etymology, my thoughts wander. I was actually there, at the café, when the group of teenage refugees came. They were at my table.

Second encounter
There are five of them in total. They come late, about one hour late, and enter noisily, bringing the café to complete silence; all the attention is directed at the latecomers. Instantaneously, I recognize them as 'a situation' that requires some sort of alertness on my part. Had I met them at night, in the street, I would have crossed over to the other side, to make myself invisible. At the café, I have to face them. I watch Maria, the coordinator, slowly, deliberately, getting up from her table, and coming over to me. 'Can you take them?' she asks.
They are very polite. Maria has split them up, so that I only have three at my table. One is tall and talkative, the other two seem uncomfortable. One, exaggeratedly respectful, bows as he addresses me, appearing grateful for my attention. The third is passive. Hostile. Tensely, he looks straight ahead, as if preoccupied with controlling himself. There is nothing my privileged whiteness can offer him, his gazeor lack of gazeconveys. The conversation at the table is strained. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Maria approaching again. She has been watching us and has noticed that the tall one is dominating, leaving the other two quiet. With a look of determination, she splits the group again and takes the talkative one away. The dynamics then change and the hostile-looking youngster begins to speak, engaging in a stuttering accountbut to my despair, I cannot make out what he says. I cannot even grasp his name. I think of Margret and her name-spelling exercise, and feel embarrassed; addressing someone by their name seems a minimum level of respect. After having asked three times, and noticing his growing irritation, I give up. Calling to mind my studies in psychology, I try to transmit affirmatory signals. I look at him attentively, nod, and occasionally repeat the last words he said (when I manage to make them out). The story is, I think, about his being angry. He is very angry; he is angry about his situation, about his life, about what he has had to leave behind by emigrating to Sweden. He tells me about an episode at some kind of institutionperhaps a clinicwhere there is a woman (?) who responds to him. 'Yes,' this person says. 'You are very angry. You have every right to be. I understandyou are not angry at me.' There is something reassuring in his being able to tell me this. In his story, he is so angry that he is unable to control himself, even though he can see that others are trying to help him. His frustration is palpable, also at our café tablehow can he tell us about his destroyed youth, the hardships he has had to escape from, when we do not have any words in common? After his intense monologue, he turns silent again. Arms re-folded over chest. Eyes that look away. He has said what he wanted to say. I have not understood.
He then starts unbuttoning his shirt. I feel lost, acutely uncertain about what to do. Why is he undressing? I cast a glance behind me, to the café, now bustling again. Should I call for Maria? His friend reads my confusion and intervenes, uttering something I partially decipher: ' … wants to show you something.' The hostile youth opens his shirt, takes his left arm out of its sleeve and turns his now naked torso towards me, close enough for me to touch. It is full of scars; his skin is stitched, striped and woven together. When he cannot tell me, he shows me. 'These are his gunshot wounds,' his friend explains. The hostile youngster looks away. As soon as he has noted that I have seen his scars, he quickly dresses again, shaking, almost imperceptibly.
What touches me the most is not the sight of his scars, the painfulness of what he tells, but his vibrating desperation. How can I let him go, when the café is over, out into society and back to the suburban shelter where the five of them live, when he so obviously needs help, much more help than any volunteer in a language café can provide?
After that session, I never see the youngsters again.

Analysis
On the surface, there are few differences between Zeynep and Haşim and the teenage boys; their ethnicity, age, religion, culture, and fluency in Swedish are all comparable. Both groups have been in Sweden for approximately one year and both are distinctly different in appearance from locals. Zeynep and Haşim convey a middle-class background; their fathers are journalists and the couple seem to take higher education for granted. The group of teenagers do not communicate such class markers, or at least I cannot decipher them. 9 Both groups are welcomed, assigned a table and a host, and invited to join a conversation, in a friendly manner, and both respond politely and correctly. Yet a relational lens on interactions reveals differences; Zeynep and Haşim were included in a process that can be likened to a strategy of assimilation (Bauman 1995), in which volunteers, conveying empathy, search for similarities and identify with the couple. The group of teenagers, in contrast, invoked dynamics of exclusion, centered on difference, distanciation, and disidentification. Volunteers, including myself, immediately seemed at ease with Zeynep and Haşim's 'digestible' self-presentations, and their docile, non-competitive approach made volunteers feel comfortable (and unchallenged). The couple clearly display their assimilability (Ahmed 2010); they come on time, homework done, and convey their efforts to integrate (reading books in Swedish, learning about local society). They show attentiveness to norms, and spur enthusiasm in hosts, who encourage their efforts to integrate. Zeynep and Haşim signal optimism about the future, demonstrated by their hard work to learn Swedish and their ambition to enter university, which are key features of their self-presentations. They express the intention to contribute to the local community, for example by assisting locals with learning difficulties and in their eagerness to train as psychologists. Zeynep and Haşim simultaneously downplay their own difficulties and refrain from narrating their personal backgrounds or the reasons for leaving their home country. Zeynep refers, in passing and humorously, to her crying spells, emphasizing her ability to contain difficulties (crying only with Haşim) and implying determination and a future-oriented, can-do approach. Zeynep and Haşim also show their appreciation of the advice given by volunteers; they take notes and repeat what volunteers say. 10 Respectful of volunteers' identities, optimistic with regard to their own situation, and seamlessly adapting to the pleasantries of café talk, they consolidate volunteers as knowing and benevolent. As incarnations of happy multiculturalism, Zeynep and Haşim nourish selves' enthusiasm for embracing diversity.
The group of teenagers evokes different dynamics. Notwithstanding their correctness, they come across as menacing (Bhabha 2012), and through their collectivity (what Swan 2010, refers to as 'ganging-up') may be perceived as an obstacle to harmonious co-existence, at least in the language cafés. Maria, the coordinator, must intervene to manage their difference, and splits the group, not once, but twice. 11 The youngsters make no effort to shield volunteers but, rather, expose their misfortunes, breaking with the unspoken norms of happy multiculturalism that suffering should not be told (Bell and Hartmann 2007). In contrast to Zeynep and Haşim, the group fails to convey indications of their assimilability (Ahmed 2010). The youngsters come late (disregarding instructions), appear unprepared, as if stopping by while roaming the streets (Ahmed 2013), and seem instinctively recognized as evoking danger (Ahmed 2013), or at least vigilance. Their self-presentations are geared towards the past, to injustices done to them, evoking a sense of obligations in selves (Al Ariss et al. 2014;Nicholls 2013), displaying an attachment to suffering that marks the pathological -'unproductive'migrant (Ahmed 2010). Seemingly skeptical about their opportunities in local society, the youngsters communicate no ambition to contribute, yet their non-assimilability implies a connectedness with locals (Bauman 1995). Their self-presentations lay bare the inability of volunteers to help, thereby destabilizing their roles of authority and knowingness. The wounded youngster, clinging to his past, does not respect but, rather, transgresses boundaries between selves and others. Showing his scars, he comes 'too close' (Ahmed 2013), threatening to leak his vulnerability so that it 'touches' (Ahmed 2004) locals, 12 inducing defensive reactions in the coordinator (prompting her to 'protect' the order of the cafés) and causing me to fail, as researcher, by exposing my lack of understanding. The youngster's vulnerability threatens to become ours, disintegrating 'the protective symbol wall that keep others at a proper distance' (Žižek 2008, 49), as well as boundaries around our autonomous identities (Shildrick 2002), including images of being benevolent (Romani, Holck, and Risberg 2019) and able to help. In subtle but effective terms, the youngsters evoke dynamics of exclusion that disrupt selves' ambitions of happy multiculturalism.

Discussion and conclusion
The main suggestion of this study is that an immediate 're-cognition' (Ahmed 2013) of otherhood, based on essentialist criteria, is complemented by a socially constructed view of others as includable or not. In this process, others are called upon to manifest their assimilability (Ahmed 2010), their 'achievements' (Bauman 1995), in order to prove their 'worthiness of inclusion' (Žižek 2008). Inclusion then becomes conditional, premised on compliance and desirability, and interwoven with how newcomers narrate and perform themselves (Diprose 2012), and how their performances relate to challenges of selves. Invisible, ideologically flavored criteria here function to convey a boundary respectfulness that corroborates preferred identities of selves. Interacting with Zeynep and Haşim allows a feel-good multiculturalism to flourish in the cafés, reproducing selves as selves want to be seen, and aligns with societal discourses of how diversity enriches societywithout challenging existing structures. Interacting with the group of teenagers spurs another dynamic; the teenagers present a compelling but less fashionable narrative, leaning on an outdated discourse of civil rights (Nkomo et al. 2019). They tell of the inalienable rights of the individual, and, in extension, of selves' obligations toward those whose rights have been violated (Nussbaum 2019). They appeal to human dignity, evoking their suffering, imploring selves, as fellow human beings, to see their misfortune, to acknowledge that they have been wronged, and to tryto the best of their abilitiesto assist them (ibid.). This is not a trending story. Doing something because it is 'right' is not part of happy multiculturalism; on the contrary, it reminds selves of challenges and awakens vulnerabilities, provoking tendencies of exclusion. The youngsters' self-presentations do not indicate any contributions; rather, they complicate inclusion by questioning the authority of selves and induce feelings of guilt, indignation, and painfulness in selves. 13 The performing of assimilability may then, as Bauman (1995) argues, have turned into the newcomer's own responsibility, and migrants who aim for inclusion need to persuade selves of their achievements. Zeynep and Haşim are invited to do so in the language cafés, whereas the teenage boys receive no such invitation. The differentiations that a juxtaposing of the two encounters reveals sketch a construction of otherhood that is not merely a matter of re-cognizing those who are assimilable, but also one of constructing others according to own imageries (Bauman 1995;Holmes and Castañeda 2016). Attention to these relational and politico-ideological aspects forms a more complex understanding of how others may nourishor repulseselves in reciprocal, negotiated and power-dependent processes.
The relational approach of this study is not without constraints. In my dual role as researcher-volunteer I, most likely, influenced the processes I was part of. I realize, in retrospect, that I participated in a constructing of otherhood, being supportive in the first encounter, while defensive in the second, and suspect that other volunteers might have reacted similarly. In the research process, I have striven to draw on these experiences in trying to comprehend the relational complexity of encountering others without appropriatingor devouringthem, even if with the best of intentions. I have sought to problematize differentiations inserted between beneficiaries, by zooming in on two particular encounters. Methodological shortcomings and the limited empirical base of the study make further research needed to examine how assimilability is expressed and otherhood negotiated in other situations and contexts. My aim here has been to make visible and discuss processes of differentiation in one particular organizational context.
The study contributes to diversity research by suggesting that subtle, invisible and ideologically anchored criteria complement essentialist categorizations in processes of othering, favoring beneficiaries who display boundary respectfulness, who corroborate existing norms and structures, affirming selves as knowing and benevolent. Secondly, the study contributes to critical diversity research by suggesting that an awareness of pre-reflexive tendencies is needed in order to foster self-reflections on the constructed-ness of otherhood (Janssens and Zanoni 2021;Özkazanç-Pan 2019). Viewing the identities of both others and selves as fluid, shaped and negotiated in interactions, and influenced by power-related, situational, and contextual factors (Mahadevan, Primecz, and Romani 2019;Primecz, Mahadevan, and Romani 2016), the study implies that selves may not include or exclude others in static, pre-determined ways. Volunteers may, for example, embrace some others while being cautious of other others, and enact shifting and hybrid positionings visà-vis the inclusion of others (mirroring ambiguities of the diversity discourse). Complex, discursively and ideologically flavored criteria for categorizing others, selecting those who are considered assimilable and leaving behind those who are not, suggest that constructions of otherhood may not reflect stable traits, or fixed identities, either of selves, or of others. Rather, they emerge in relational, situational and power-infused processes in which others are influenced to align with societal discourse in order to gain acceptance. 14 These criteria, as bases for differentiating between others, are harder to discern, and at times painful to become aware of, emphasizing the importance of staying alert to their constructed-ness. The findings of this study thus point to a need for reflexivity (e.g. Romani, Mahadevan, and Primecz 2018); a willingness to acknowledge the multiple forms that otherhood may take, without presuming, or hiding behind, normalizing views, hierarchical dimensions of superiority and inferiority, or societal structures of privilege. Reflexivity concerning the constructed-ness of similarity and difference, selfhood and otherhood, may then generate sensitivity, in volunteers and in researchers, to the challenges of interacting with others without re-cognizing them, and to the fact that selves, ambivalently and unwittingly, may sculpt others both as objects of desire and as objects of derision (Bhabha 2012). Reflexivity may, to paraphrase Mary Shelley, alert us to the possibility that those whom we so enthusiastically include may not be those whose story we have heard, but those who are telling the kind of story we want to hear.