Boundaries and Belonging Among Settled Minorities and Refugees in Bulgaria

Abstract

The importance of settled minorities for facilitating refugee belonging is seldom discussed in research on refugee integration. Drawing on scholarship on belonging, boundary-making, and bordering, this study investigates how boundaries are drawn between settled minorities and refugees in Bulgaria. Based on interviews with integration workers and organizations of settled minorities in a state with the largest historically present Muslim minority in the EU, an Arabic-speaking diaspora settled decades ago, and with minimal state involvement in refugee integration, the study shows how spatial, linguistic, and religious boundaries separate settled minorities from newly arrived refugees. Arabic-speaking diasporas are nevertheless witnessed to overcome the boundaries through geographical proximity, a shared language, and shared countries of origin, whereby they have functioned as facilitators of refugee belonging and inclusion. Furthermore, Muslim institutions led by Bulgarian Turks have functioned as spaces for refugee belonging. The study finds that settled minority communities have, despite multiple boundaries and some assimilatory discourses, contributed to refugee belonging in ways that in part has compensated for the state absence. The study calls for further research investigating the role of settled minorities in inclusionary processes in society.