Framing the Professional Conduct of Swedish Transport Leaders in Policy Documents: A Critical Intercultural Examination of ‘Reconciling the Irreconcilable’

Recent shifts in return policy have altered the legal reception and treatment of migrants worldwide. This article examines how policy documents from forced return operations construct human rights, authority and interculturality. Using critical discourse analysis, we investigate how language legitimises institutional power in documents from the Swedish Prison and Probation Service (SPPS) and the European Union Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). The analysis reveals that SPPS frames returnees as ‘clients’ within a rehabilitative model, whereas Frontex employs a legalistic, enforcement‑driven discourse. Although claiming to support human rights, these texts often reproduce power structures and a weak form of interculturality (understood as the situated, power‑sensitive negotiation of difference and similarity). Interculturality matters because these policies script cross‑border encounters by categorising actors and setting rules, thereby shaping whose voice is heard. This discussion is timely given policy shifts in Sweden and the EU that increasingly seem to prioritise security over humanitarian concerns.