Identities Journal Blog
  • Home
  • About
    • About Identities
    • Identities Collection
    • Latest Articles
    • Special Issues
    • Open Access Articles
    • Most Read Articles
    • Most Cited Articles
  • Identities Blog
    • Blog Collection
    • About Our Blog
    • Blog Categories >
      • Anti-racism
      • Culture
      • Decoloniality
      • Ethnicity
      • Migration
      • Race
      • Commentaries
      • COVID-19 Blog Series
      • COVID-19 Symposium
      • More Blogs
    • Blog Series >
      • COVID-19 Blog Collection
      • Call for COVID-19 Commentaries
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events >
      • Fireside Chat with Prof Nicola Rollock
    • Past Events >
      • Race and Class
      • W. E. B. Du Bois and his Strange Synthesis of Spirituality and Sociology
      • Decolonizing Politics Symposium
      • The Subject of Decolonization: Literary Critical Insights
  • Contact
    • Subscribe for Updates
  • Home
  • About
    • About Identities
    • Identities Collection
    • Latest Articles
    • Special Issues
    • Open Access Articles
    • Most Read Articles
    • Most Cited Articles
  • Identities Blog
    • Blog Collection
    • About Our Blog
    • Blog Categories >
      • Anti-racism
      • Culture
      • Decoloniality
      • Ethnicity
      • Migration
      • Race
      • Commentaries
      • COVID-19 Blog Series
      • COVID-19 Symposium
      • More Blogs
    • Blog Series >
      • COVID-19 Blog Collection
      • Call for COVID-19 Commentaries
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events >
      • Fireside Chat with Prof Nicola Rollock
    • Past Events >
      • Race and Class
      • W. E. B. Du Bois and his Strange Synthesis of Spirituality and Sociology
      • Decolonizing Politics Symposium
      • The Subject of Decolonization: Literary Critical Insights
  • Contact
    • Subscribe for Updates

What can we learn from responses to the accommodation of asylum seekers about superdiversity, integration and the mainstream?

11/8/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Superdiversity and integration are prominent yet contested terms to capture increasing population heterogeneity due to migration and participation by, and inclusion of, migrants in the arrival context. These terms have been criticised for ignoring the implication of established residents in processes of integration and their contestation of migration-based diversity. Yet, to date, limited research has shown how established residents differ in responding to superdiversity and how they conceive of integration.
 
My Identities article, ‘Towards a differentiated notion of the mainstream: superdiversity and residents’ conceptions of immigrant integration’, sets out to explore variations in established residents’ responses to diversity and the extent to which they consider themselves as playing a role in integrating newcomers. It draws on fieldwork that captured the reactions to the installation of a large asylum seeker reception centre on the outskirts of a large German city. Interviewing residents of the neighbourhood and participating in meetings of the 'local partnership', the article counters the common assumption in the literature that migration-related diversity is either contested or seen as a banal aspect of everyday urban life.
​The article presents three main findings:

  • Economic concerns loom large in established residents’ reactions to superdiversity; they are negotiating their emplacement in cities alongside newcomers. Experiences with past immigration and its association with neighbourhood decline can have a sticky effect over time, and a discourse of immigrants as economic burden can be re-activated in response to the accommodation of newcomers.
  • The discourse of integration is mobilised by established residents themselves. Whilst integration has been often used by governments as well as by scholars, it also has become an emic concept that established residents draw on and use to assess the risks posed by the accommodation of newcomers and to define what has to be done, how and by whom. 
  • There are not one or two mainstream positions with regard to the integration of newcomers, but established residents conceive of integration in more ways. One group of residents considers the integration of newcomers as too much of a burden for the neighbourhood because of the already high share of immigrants, and requests the state to compensate them for the accommodation of newcomers. Another group of residents asks for integration measures by the state to address the risks of accommodating newcomers and ensuring their integration. A third group of ‘keep calm and do it yourself integrationists’ challenges that the newcomers pose a problem and engage in integration activities themselves. A more differentiated view of the mainstream should consider different positions taken regarding the possibility of integration and the responsibilities in promoting it. 
 
In summary, my article provides a more differentiated account of residents’ reactions to superdiversity and conceptions of integration. Instead of ignoring the contestation of superdiversity by residents, this research identified the economic concerns residents have in view of increasing migration-based diversity and the strategies of emplacement they employ alongside immigrants in superdiverse urban contexts. Other than posited in critiques of the term integration, this research establishes that integration is not only a policy and scholarly term, but also a term that is mobilised by residents themselves. Surprisingly, established residents do not conceive integration solely as the responsibility of newcomers, but highlight the role of the state and those falling under the category of 'keep calm and do it yourselves integrationists' of established residents themselves.

Image credit: Photo by Jonathan Brinkhorst on Unsplash​

Blog post by Maria Schiller, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Read the ​Identities article: 
Schiller, Maria. Towards a differentiated notion of the mainstream: superdiversity and residents’ conceptions of immigrant integration. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, DOI: ​10.1080/1070289X.2021.1909358

Picture
Explore other relevant Identities articles:

Super-diversity and the bio-politics of migrant worker exclusion in Singapore

Diversity as discourse and diversity as practice: critical reflections on migrant women’s experiences of accessing mental health support in London​

Integration, transnationalism and transnational Islam
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.


    Blog Categories

    All
    Activism
    Anti-racism
    Asylum Seekers
    Belonging
    Black Lives Matter
    Blackness
    Borders
    Boundary Work
    Cities
    Citizenship
    Colonialism
    Commentaries
    Conflict
    Cosmopolitanism
    Covid-19
    Cultural Memory
    Culture
    Decoloniality
    Diaspora
    Discrimination
    Displacement
    Diversity
    Ethnic Boundaries
    Ethnic Identity
    Ethnicity
    Exile
    Far Right
    Gender
    Global South
    Identity
    Immigration
    Indigenous
    Integration
    Intersectionality
    Islamophobia
    Justice
    Kinship
    Marginalisation
    Migration
    Multiculturalism
    National Identity
    Nationalism
    Nationhood
    Nativism
    Othering
    Policing
    Populism
    Postcolonial
    Race
    Racial Identity
    Racialisation
    Racism
    Radicalism
    Refugees
    Religion
    Resistance
    State Racism
    Stereotyping
    Stigmatisation
    Subjectivity
    Transnationalism
    Victimhood
    Whiteness


    Blog Collection

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019

Explore Identities at tandfonline.com/GIDE