The MigraFam research project (funded by the Academy of Finland 2017–2021) draws on a collective ethnographic approach to examine institutional power and migrant citizenization in the Helsinki capital region and tackle the politicized social category of the ‘migrant family’. The multidisciplinary base of the research team is used to advance the theoretization of the power asymmetry work – citizenization nexus in the context of (1) institutional practice, (2) professional knowledge base, and (3) public discourse. Furthermore, the research pays specific attention to how the managerialist individualization of society at large is redefining the normative basis of Nordic social work and its encounters with human complexity.