Migrant belonging, social location and the neighbourhood: Recent migrants in East London and Birmingham

Abstract

Scholars examining different aspects of migrant settlement have long recognized the importance of questions around how newcomers forge a sense of connectedness to the society in which they settle. This article contributes new knowledge by focussing on three factors which shape migrants' sense of belonging: firstly, the immigrationrelated diversity of the neighbourhood in which they settle; secondly, the migrants' social location in regards to race, gender, religion and language; and thirdly, migrants' previous experiences of migration-related diversity. Drawing on theories around civility, cosmopolitanism and migrant 'place making', and by comparing recent migrants in Birmingham and East London, the article focuses on the role of social interactions and encounters in public space. While migrants who had little previous experiences of diversity go through a process of multicultural adaptation when settling in ethnically diverse areas, others stressed the need to live in areas characterized by visible diversity because of fear of racism. Furthermore, their sense of belonging was also shaped by previous experiences of exclusion in countries of transit migration. The findings highlight that it is not necessarily the ethnic make-up of a city overall which impacts on a migrants' sense of belonging, but it is the neighbourhood, the immediate locality in which migrants live, and the nature of social interactions with other residents in such areas, which crucially impacts on their sense of inclusion or exclusion.

Social Network Analysis for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH): Application in Governance of Decentralized Wastewater Treatment in India Using a Novel Validation Methodology

“…One plausible explanation from experts for this, is the higher amount of migrants venturing into mega cities for job opportunities, who have a significantly lesser connection with the governance of the cities, when compared to the residents who have spent a majority of their lives in secondary cities, and the latter have a greater motivation for better governance and infrastructure. Studies have suggested that the sense of belonging among migrants toward a new city, their past experiences, and the broader narrative in place, affect their involvement in urban governance (McDuie-Ra, 2012;Scholten et al, 2017;Wessendorf, 2017). This aspect is not clearly deductible from the present network graphs, since the quality of the relations were not accounted for in this analysis.…”

The Sociability of West African Migrants among Russians in Moscow

“…To build a strong bond in Moscow, migrants need to interact with the locals. Being incorporated into the larger ethnic group is not only about acceptance and being noticeable but also about interacting in public places (Wessendorf 2019). All the categories of migrants in this research project have close relationships with other Africans.…”

Cosmopolitanism beyond the city: discourses and experiences of young migrants in post-suburban Netherlands

“…As a result, the presence of this kind of migrants may get hindered in the city, often becoming more plausible in post-suburbia. The practice, parlance and experiences that manifest among them resemble less the somewhat romanticized "cosmopolitan competences" that migrants are implicitly expected to develop (Vertovec, 2009;Wessendorf, 2019) and are rather the indications of the effects of constantly shrinking and expanding opportunity of (European) capitalism in crisis.…”