Re-Envisioning Immigrant Integration: Toward Multidirectional Conceptual Flows

Abdelhady, Dalia; Norocel, Ov Cristian

doi:10.1080/15562948.2023.2168097

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…From these analytical efforts, we argue that domains of integration is a useful framework to understanding processes of integration for displaced people in Somalia, yet we agree with recent critical research that integration in the Global South blurs and collapses across Ager and Strang's (2008) integration categories. This requires a renewed understanding of the relationship between citizen and state (Landau and Bakewell, 2018;Abdelhady and Norocel, 2023). While Somalia is often epitomized for state failure or collapse, Kismayo and Garowe have experienced relative stability and state building progress.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The highly contested idea of integration requires additional unpacking to fit the Somali context, which has been shaped by conflict, natural disasters, and the resultant migrations, urbanization, and transformations of the state over the last three decades. To contribute to the integration debates, we recognize that the Global South cannot be approached with the state-centric focus we encounter in North America and Europe (Landau and Bakewell, 2018;Abdelhady and Norocel, 2023). At the same time, we caution against lurching in the other direction, portraying African states generally, and the Somali state specifically, as mere exceptions, oddities, or failures that cannot reflect on processes of integration in the Global North and beyond (Vigneswaran and Quirk, 2015;Boeyink and Turner, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rethinking (local) integration: domains of integration and their durability in Kismayo and Garowe, Somalia

Bile,

Boeyink,

Ali-Salad

et al. 2024

Front. Hum. Dyn.

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Amidst the ever-expanding debates in various academic and policy fields around migrant and refugee integration and local integration, we bring these two concepts in conversation with one another. Until very recently, theories of integration have had a state-centric focus in the Global North. This article expands and complicates this literature to focus on displaced Somalis within Somalia and its borderlands living in the cities of Kismayo and Garowe using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods in five displacement settlements. Toward this end, we use the often- engaged term “domains of integration” to frame integration. In our conceptualization, however, we incorporate the concept of “local integration” as a durable solution. In brief, we see the domains of integration as a productive concept in the Somali context. However, in Somalia, where clans are interwoven into the state, which lacks resources and power, clan affiliation represents social connections domains, yet also influences the state's role in the foundational domain of rights and citizenship and makers and means (employment, housing, education, health). International donors and NGOs, as well as international capitalist urban expansion also have a large role in these processes. As such, we argue that the ten domains of integration (discussed in detail below) intersect and blur to an even greater extent than in European and North American contexts, particularly around crucial issues such as housing, land, and property; a key factor in people's decisions to remain or leave.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking (local) integration: domains of integration and their durability in Kismayo and Garowe, Somalia

Bile,

Boeyink,

Ali-Salad

et al. 2024

Front. Hum. Dyn.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Over the last decade, the concept of immigrant integration has been vigorously critiqued by a number of scholars in diverse disciplines (Wieviorka 2014;Korteweg 2017;Schinkel 2017Schinkel , 2018Favell 2019;Penninx 2019;Abdelhady & Norocel 2023). In many respects, however, immigrant integration still remains a dominant way of framing the manner in which migrants are perceived to become part of a national society.…”

Section: Immigrant Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The focus of immigrant integration is almost always on the society or social system as seen from above, rather than on the actions, everyday practices, experiences, and subjectivity formation of migrants themselves (Wieviorka 2014). While primarily a demographic project at core, it is nevertheless also an exercise in neocolonial power, using tools of measurement that quickly become problematic in how they define and establish categories, especially those involving racialized communities (Schinkel 2017;Abdelhady & Norocel 2023). These definitions and categorizations are important to consider because they often have negative material effects for immigrants, through the formation of discourses, flow of resources, establishment of systems of governance, and subjection to violence.…”

Section: Immigrant Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migrant agency and embodiment in space – commentary to van Liempt

Mitchell¹

2023

Fennia

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In this reflection, I use van Liempt's analysis of emplacement as a helpful instigation to challenge and nuance three current theoretical debates in migration studies and geography. Focusing on the spaces of embodied migrant agency I counter the legacy of static concepts such as ‘immigrant integration’, refine ideas about the city and public space, and explore the contemporary politics of refusal. In each of these conversations, bringing in ideas of the spatial agency of migrants helps us to contest received ideas and categories and open up new ways of thinking about scale, society, public space, and refusal.

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“We Never Say We Are Integrating People!” Interpretative Repertoires of Integration Among Local Stakeholders in Sweden

Hemmaty,

Lind,

Hansen

et al. 2024

Int. Migration & Integration

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This article examines how local stakeholders in Scania, the southernmost county of Sweden, talk about integration. Drawing on 28 qualitative interviews, we use the theoretical concept of interpretative repertoires to analyze perceptions and conceptualizations among those who work closely with migrant integration. We identify two interpretative repertoires that stakeholders draw upon to make sense of the concept on the ground: the separation and de-migranticization repertoires. The repertoires display a shared understanding among the stakeholders of integration as a failure, although they do not agree on the extent or cause of the perceived failures of integration, or even how the problems should be defined or tackled locally. Within the separation repertoire, integration is failing in terms of processes where primarily migrants are seen as accountable and responsible for their (in)ability to adapt to the Swedish society. Within the de-migranticization repertoire, integration is differently perceived as something that is plagued with misdirected or even false boundaries between groups (in this case “migrants” and “non-migrants”), and authorities are held accountable for problems beyond migrants and migration, such as inequality, racism, and discrimination. The findings reflect the contested field of integration on the ground and contribute to ongoing critical debates on the concept of integration within migration research, by providing snapshots from a bottom-up perspective of local stakeholders’ acceptance of, or resistance to, present-day integration discourses.

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Re-Envisioning Immigrant Integration: Toward Multidirectional Conceptual Flows

Cited by 8 publications

References 73 publications

Rethinking (local) integration: domains of integration and their durability in Kismayo and Garowe, Somalia

Rethinking (local) integration: domains of integration and their durability in Kismayo and Garowe, Somalia

Migrant agency and embodiment in space – commentary to van Liempt

“We Never Say We Are Integrating People!” Interpretative Repertoires of Integration Among Local Stakeholders in Sweden

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