Between Hospitality and Inhospitality: The Janus-Faced 'Arrival Infrastructure'

Abstract

Although ‘arrival infrastructure’ is central to the experience of migrants arriving in a new city, is it sufficient to form a ‘hospitable milieu’? Our article compares newcomers’ experiences with ‘arrival infrastructure’ in two European cities: Brussels and Geneva. Based on ethnographic research with 49 migrants who arrived a few months earlier, we show that arrival infrastructure is Janus-faced. On one hand, it welcomes newcomers and contributes to making the city hospitable. On the other hand, it rejects, deceives and disappoints them, forcing them to remain mobile—to go back home, go further afield, or just move around the city—in order to satisfy their needs and compose what we will call a ‘hospitable milieu.’ The arrival infrastructure’s inhospitality is fourfold: linked firstly to its limitations and shortcomings, secondly to the trials or tests newcomers have to overcome in order to benefit from the infrastructure, thirdly to the necessary forms of closure needed to protect those who have just arrived and fourthly to those organising and managing the infrastructure, with divergent conceptions of hospitality. By using the notion of milieu and by embedding infrastructure into the broader question of hospitality, we open up an empirical exploration of its ambiguous role in the uncertain trajectories of newcomers.

The sonic framing of place: Microsociology, urban atmospheres and quiet hour shopping

“…The notion that spatial environments can feel sensorially inclusive or exclusive requires further scaffolding, as does the necessary framework for understanding the role the sonic can play in making social actors feel either emplaced or dislocated in space. Building on the earlier work of Isaac Joseph (1998), an important French interpreter of Goffman's microsociology, recently a group of European urban sociologists have sought to explain what makes for a 'hospitable milieu' (Felder et al, 2020). The central concern of this line of research is the kind of situations that make social actors feel welcomed and/or able to participate in urban life either temporarily or in the long-term:…”

“…The notion that spatial environments can feel sensorially inclusive or exclusive requires further scaffolding, as does the necessary framework for understanding the role the sonic can play in making social actors feel either emplaced or dislocated in space. Building on the earlier work of Isaac Joseph (1998), an important French interpreter of Goffman’s microsociology, recently a group of European urban sociologists have sought to explain what makes for a ‘hospitable milieu’ (Felder et al, 2020). The central concern of this line of research is the kind of situations that make social actors feel welcomed and/or able to participate in urban life either temporarily or in the long-term:The hospitality of a milieu depends on its capacity to make room for [social actors], protect them from hostility, fulfill their needs, sustain their ‘engagements’…help them realize their projects.…The milieu…is shaped by the dynamic relationship between the individual and environment.…It emerges from the transaction between the potentialities of an environment and an individual with specific characteristics, aspirations, cognitive and practical skills, resources, moral and political convictions.…”

“…The central concern of this line of research is the kind of situations that make social actors feel welcomed and/or able to participate in urban life either temporarily or in the long-term:The hospitality of a milieu depends on its capacity to make room for [social actors], protect them from hostility, fulfill their needs, sustain their ‘engagements’…help them realize their projects.…The milieu…is shaped by the dynamic relationship between the individual and environment.…It emerges from the transaction between the potentialities of an environment and an individual with specific characteristics, aspirations, cognitive and practical skills, resources, moral and political convictions. (Felder et al, 2020: 57, 63)The above reflections were made in relationship to new arrivals to a place (i.e. migrants and refugees) and whether or not they would feel able to fully participate in urban life.…”

Channelling mobilities: migrant-owned businesses as mobility infrastructures

“…In these areas, newcomers can access resources that ease the arrival and settlement process, which may include information on housing, the local labour market, language courses or processes of documentation (Hall, King, and Finlay 2017;Hanhörster and Wessendorf 2020). However, Felder et al (2020) point out that arrival infrastructure may also create inhospitable environments and enhance forms of exclusion, e.g. by directing and locking newcomers into low paid jobs (Hanhörster and Wessendorf 2020).…”

Los hijos de un dios menor: de la distancia a la llegada a la acogida por philia

“…Não sendo propósito desta reflexão dar informes sobre que infraestruturas formais a escola dispõe para apoiar à chegada os alunos estrangeiros (FELDER et al, 2020), que ali fazem a sua primeira matrícula, a nossa interrogação fixa-se num outro ponto que, distinto do anterior, não deixa de aparentar certas semelhanças. Na verdade, estas infraestruturas que existem para auxiliar o novo que chega e quer permanecer em muitas cidades e países tradicionalmente procurados por pessoas vindas de fora, a capacitação proporcionada por aqueles dispositivos a quem os procura, é aqui deslocado para as sociabilidades escolares (PASQUIER, 2005;RAYOU, 1998;RESENDE, 2019aRESENDE, , 2019bVIEIRA, 2015) entre pares, que são concebidas como um dos suportes mais disponíveis para esse acolhimento junto dos alunos estrangeiros.…”