Introduction

Many rural communities in the Nordic countries have seen international migration as an appealing solution to the decline and ageing of the population (Hudson & Sandberg, 2021; Søholt et al., 2018). To make rural areas thrive, the emphasis has been on immigrants’ effective integration. However, the concept of integration implies an imbalance between the people who have to integrate and those who do not (Rytter, 2019). It has been argued that integration should instead be understood as a relational process between insiders and outsiders, not something that only immigrants are obliged to perform (Klarenbeek, 2021). For this reason, in this study, I shift the focus onto belonging, which is produced in the context of integration work. I examine how the most crucial actors in integration in rural communities, namely migration coordinators, project employees and volunteers, produce belonging to immigrants. In this article, I call them local integration workers (a similar term is also used by Vitus & Jarlby, 2021). These workers implement national integration policies at the local level in a very practical way; their jobs obligate them to promote immigrants’ integration. At the same time, however, they also produce frames for immigrants’ belonging.

This is noteworthy because several scholars have argued that despite national integration policies, the local level is important in integration practices (e.g. Borkert & Caponio, 2010; Scholten & Penninx, 2016). Different structures, as well as multiple intercultural encounters with local communities, authorities and ordinary people, shape immigrants’ experiences of belonging (Arora-Jonsson & Larsson, 2021; Herslund, 2021; Radford, 2017; Simonsen, 2016). Thus, other people participate in a person’s subjective belonging when they ‘dynamically interact with the individual’s character, experiences, culture, identity and perceptions’, (Allen et al., 2021, 88). Local integration workers stand in the gap between immigrants, employers, schools and the rest of the local community, and participate in the belonging process not only by establishing, but also by renegotiating various boundaries. The very fact that there is a need for local integration workers and different integration projects reveals a presumptive boundary between people: there are people who are on the outside, and someone has to help them to become insiders.

Previous studies have examined integration practices in rural communities from several perspectives, such as local governance (Arora-Jonsson & Larsson, 2021), civil society institutions (McAreavey & Argent, 2018), housing (Emilsson & Öberg, 2022), social services (Sampedro & Camarero, 2018), specific integration projects (Cvetkovic, 2009) and by taken immigrants’ viewpoints into account in the process (Morén-Alegret, 2008). However, less attention has been paid to how belonging is built into the rural context, where national integration policy frames belonging locally. The rural perspective is important because the experience of immigration may not be very extensive in every local communities, and structural and social patterns to help immigrants settle may be lacking (McAreavey & Argent, 2018). Furthermore, in rural contexts, immigrants are often perceived as a solution to the population decline or labour shortage, giving them a predetermined position, which also influences their sense of belonging (Hudson & Sandberg, 2021; Søholt et al., 2018). Moreover, the strong social relations and normative uniformity of rural areas may lead to mistrust of immigrants, positioning them as strangers and leaving them outside local social networks (Larsen, 2011; Stenbacka, 2012; Välimaa, 2021; Zahl-Thanem & Haugen, 2019).

Local integration workers, embedded in the local communities, contribute to the negotiations of immigrants’ experiences of belonging by using their personal connections and authority. On the other hand, immigrants’ experience of belonging can be highly dependent on these workers. Despite their local importance, we know little about how these workers are intertwined in the process of belonging. In this article, I examine how local integration workers in Finnish rural areas frame and create belonging for immigrants through different discursive boundaries. My research questions are (1) What symbolic boundaries do local integration workers, (migrant coordinators, project employees and volunteers) build when they speak about immigrants and their integration? and (2) What kind of belonging do they (re)produce for immigrants through these boundaries? I examine these questions by using the concept of symbolic boundaries, which are ‘conceptual distinctions by which social actors categorise objects, people, practices, space and time’ (Lamont & Molnár, 2002, 168). I argue that local integration workers established belonging as something that follows the official, national integration policies related to language, employment, an active membership of society and immigrants’ adaptation. However, at the same time, they expanded the boundaries of belonging by highlighting the responsibility of the local community in the process, and emphasising immigrants’ personal desires, individuality and personal experiences of feeling at home.

The aim of this article is to offer insights into this issue by contributing to the discussion on migration and integration from the perspective of local integration workers, and how they participate in the processes of belonging at the local level. I do not claim that rural communities are free from national citizenship-building, neither do I try to replace the concept of integration with the concept of belonging. Instead, by examining belonging at the local level, my aim is to add a complementary perspective to the integration discussion. I suggest that the concept of belonging can deepen our understanding of the dynamics of integration on a local level, but also on a national level.

In what follows, in the next section, I introduce the study context, which is followed by the theoretical background. After this, I present the methodology I used in this study, which is followed by my empirical findings and lastly, I discuss my findings.

Finnish Integration Policies: History and Context

In Nordic countries, integration is driven by the idea of a strong welfare state, equality, state-distributed benefits and public involvement (Brochmann & Hagelund, 2011; Crul & Schneider, 2010). This means that the state is involved in integration processes in various ways. In Finland, integration legislation was developed during the 1990s, when the 1999 Act on the Integration of Immigrants and Reception of Asylum Seekers was established. Traditionally, Finnish integration policies have contained the idea of integration as a two-way process that reaches the whole of society and requires adaptation not only from immigrants but also from other citizens (Saukkonen, 2013). Today, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment is responsible for the integration of immigrants and the related legislation. In 2010, the Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration replaced the former act. The purpose of the new Act ‘is to support and promote integration and make it easier for immigrants to play an active role in Finnish society’ (Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration, 1386/2010, §1). Its aim is ‘to provide immigrants with the knowledge and skills required in society and working life and to provide them with support, so that they can maintain their culture and language’, (Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration, 1386/2010, §3). The focus is the individual immigrant who has to integrate, while society’s role in the process remains in the background (Saukkonen, 2020). In other words, even though the legislation frames integration as a two-way process that includes society at large, the aims and ideals are not necessarily reached in practice, as immigrants remain the main targets of integration policies.

In Finland, municipalities are part of public administration and manage the responsibilities appointed to them by law, but they are also self-governed and autonomous to some extent, which makes them independent actors to some extent (Uoti et al., 2022). Municipalities carry the main responsibility for integration efforts in Finland (OECD, 2017). According to law, local authorities have to support internationalisation, gender equality, non-discrimination and positive interaction between groups, and promote good ethnic relations (Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration, 1386/2010, § 29). However, the practical implementations differ between municipalities because local resources and attitudes vary in how and what services are offered to immigrants (OECD, 2018; Saukkonen, 2013). This means that the quality and accessibility of local services vary depending on, for example, whether there is a full-time local integration worker in the area. Local integration workers’ jobs include sharing information about Finnish society, the services available to immigrants, employment, education and leisure activities. Their work also consists of developing local intercultural relations, networking with other local actors such as employers and authorities and sharing information about international recruitment.

As regards the funding of integration practices, in Finland, the state pays municipalities for receiving refugees and promoting integration. Municipalities and other local actors can also apply for project funding, which is temporary but an important tool for enabling different local integration projects. Integration projects are funded by, for instance, the European Social Fund, the European Regional Development Fund and Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. Through this project funding mechanism, the European Union’s integration policies intertwine with local integration practices (Coletti & Pasini, 2023). All these above-mentioned features demonstrate how several aspects, such as national legislation, municipalities and project funding, provide a framework for local integration workers’ encounters with immigrants and the content of their work.

Belonging and Boundaries: Theoretical Framework

International migration research is entangled to the question of how societies or communities are organised in terms of mobility, when people with different backgrounds and histories come together in the same place. This phenomenon was first examined in the US, through the concept of assimilation (Alba & Nee, 1997; Waters & Jiménez 2005), and later on, integration (Crul & Schneider, 2010; de Graauw & Bloemraad 2017; Ager & Strang, 2008). Integration can be understood as access to employment, housing, education and health; citizenship and rights; and includes social relations and institutional aspects such as language and culture (Ager & Strang, 2008). Nevertheless, the concept of integration has also received critique. Korteweg (2017) argues that focusing on ‘immigrant integration’ prevents recognising the different political, social and economic issues that influence not only immigrants, but all the members of the same society. It has similarly been argued that migration demands new perspectives of citizenship and participation (Bloemraad, 2000). For this reason, I suggest that the concept of belonging, especially when highlighting social elements, brings a complementary perspective to the discussion on integration.

Belonging is a widely used concept in the social sciences (Lähdesmäki et al., 2016). In the context of rural communities, belonging has been examined in relation to immigrants’ experiences of strangeness (Hayfield & Schug, 2019), marginalisation and othering (Moris, 2021; Spiliopoulos et al., 2021), temporariness (Basok & George, 2021) and the perspectives of young refugees (Wernesjö, 2015). In this article, I understand belonging as an emotional attachment, a feeling of being ‘at home’ and safe (Yuval-Davis, 2006), and as experiences of being ‘needed, important, integral, valued, respected or feeling in harmony with the group or system’ (Mahar et al., 2012, 4). Belonging is also ‘a sense of ease with oneself and one’s surroundings’ (May, 2011, 368). More importantly, belonging is not created in isolation, but through social relations: it requires being accepted as part of a community both now and in the future (Anthias, 2006; May, 2013). For their part, local integration workers try to promote immigrants’ personal feeling of home when they familiarise immigrants with new systems and practices and try to include them in local social networks. The strength of the concept of belonging is that it takes into account the idea of subjective experiences of feeling at home and social aspects, which is not emphasised in the concept of integration.

Because of its flexible nature, the concept of belonging also takes into consideration the political aspects and norms that affect it (Lähdesmäki et al., 2016). This leads to the next dimension of belonging, namely belonging as a political act. Social actors implement the politics of belonging when they divide people into ‘us’ and ‘them’, which produces belonging in a certain way (Yuval-Davis, 2006). Similarly, the politics of belonging is the sphere in which a struggle takes place over the meaning of belonging and the requirements for membership (Yuval-Davis, 2006). Belonging can also be defined as ‘a discursive resource which constructs, claims, justifies or resists forms of socio-spatial inclusion/exclusion (politics of belonging)’ (Antonsich, 2010, 645). The local integration workers are part of these negotiations as well as simultaneously being representatives of the state and its integration policies. As a last point, it is important to notice that belonging is an ongoing process, not a linear path to a predetermined destination (Moris, 2021).

The process of belonging involves different boundaries. Recent migration studies have used the concept of ethnic boundaries with various themes, such as life satisfaction (Heizmann & Böhnke, 2019), the labour market (McAreavey & Krivokapic-Skoko, 2019), language and well-being (Beier & Kroneberg, 2013), language and religion (Zolberg & Long, 1999), racialisation (Papadantonakis, 2020), cultural trauma (Klvaňová, 2019) and integration policies (Heizmann, 2016). They have also compared the boundaries within different European countries (Bail, 2008). Boundaries can be divided into two types, symbolic and social. Symbolic boundaries are conceptual distinctions by which other people are categorised and defined (Lamont & Molnár, 2002), whereas social boundaries are ‘forms of social differences manifested in unequal access to and unequal distribution of resources (material and nonmaterial) and social opportunities’ (Lamont & Molnár, 2002, 168). These two types of boundaries intertwine, because when there is an agreement between symbolic boundaries, they become institutionalised as social boundaries. Nevertheless, although they are used to maintain and normalise, symbolic boundaries can also contest social boundaries (Lamont & Molnár, 2002).

In this article, I use symbolic boundaries as a theoretical tool for grasping the multilevel dimensions of belonging. Boundaries can be created in several different ways, for instance by crossing, shifting and modifying, which is called boundary work. According to Zolberg and Long (1999), boundaries can be produced by crossing, blurring and shifting. Alba (2005) divides boundaries into bright and blurred: a boundary is bright when people know where they stand in relation to it. When boundaries are blurred, the individual’s position in relation to it remains vague, and the person’s membership changes between the boundary lines. The different forms of boundaries also influence how people are able to utilise the opportunities that are available to the majority (Alba, 2005). Wimmer (2008a, 2008b) has developed the concept of ethnic boundaries further, arguing that ethnic boundaries are produced and maintained by certain boundary strategies. First, boundaries can be shifted by expanding or limiting those to whom they include. Second, boundaries can be modified when people change their own position in relation to these boundaries. This requires a positional move on the individual’s part, a boundary crossing, which means a person’s adaptation to the mainstream lifestyle. Third, boundary modification is possible also by blurring boundaries which emphasises non-ethnic categorisation, such as universal humanism. In this article, I apply and combine all the above-mentioned definitions of boundary work, which provides versatile tool approaching my research topic. My starting point is that boundaries are produced and reproduced when local integration workers speak about integration, thus simultaneously framing immigrants’ belonging.

Methods and Data Analysis

The data for this study were collected in Finland, which is one of the most ‘rural’ areas in Europe when defined in terms of rural territory and population in these areas (OECD 2008). The data was based on fourteen semi-structured interviews of local integration workers, namely immigrant coordinators, project employees and volunteers, who work in rural municipalities. The rural areas in this study are defined by using the Finnish national urban–rural classification. This classification covers the whole country and recognises four out of seven classes as rural areas: rural heartland areas, sparsely populated rural areas, local centres in rural areas and rural areas close to urban areas (Finland’s Environmental Administration, 2019). For this study, I chose to interview local integration workers who worked in these classified rural areas.

I interviewed fourteen people including six migrant coordinators, six project workers, one migrant worker, and one person who operated exclusively as a volunteer. It is difficult to draw any clear distinction between the interviewees, because even though their titles varied, in practice, their work appeared to be very similar. The person who worked exclusively as a volunteer in the local Red Cross was not paid at all, and similarly, some interviewees who were employed as integration workers were also involved in voluntary work in addition to their official integration work. These interviewees reflected integration in terms of both their official and voluntary position. One aspect in which voluntary work differs from paid work is that it might enable closer relationships as people can meet each other on a more personal level. Similarly, it is impossible to categorise the immigrants these local integration workers encounter, because as many of them highlighted during the interview, they offer advice and services to all the immigrants living in the area and who come to meet them. All the interviewees were women, which reflects the female dominance of the field in Finland. Although the number of interviews was quite small, it has been argued that data saturation is also possible in a small sample (Guest et al., 2006). I noticed this during data gathering, as the main themes started to repeat themselves before I had completed the fourteen interviews.

The interviews were conducted in the spring and autumn of 2022 in six regions (South Ostrobothnia, North Ostrobothnia, Southwest Finland, Pirkanmaa, Uusimaa and Satakunta) and twelve municipalities. I found the interviewees with the Google search engine, by using keywords such as ‘integration project’ and ‘immigrant coordinator’, and contacted them either by email or phone. Six of the interviews were conducted at the interviewees’ workplaces, eight were conducted on MS Teams. At the beginning of the interviews, I explained the meaning and topic of my research to the interviewees. I also explained that the participating to interview is voluntary and could be terminated at any point, without any consequences. All the interviewees agreed with this. In Finland, The Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK) defines the ethical frames of data gathering. According to TENK, in this type of study where all the interviewees were adults and the data gathering method was an interview, no ethical approval is needed. The interviews were semi-structured, and the questions dealt with, e.g. the interviewees’ everyday work with immigrants, the interaction between immigrants and local communities, the purpose of integration, both the good and difficult issues that immigrants face in rural areas, and immigrants’ employment opportunities. The study method of qualitative interviews gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in the subject deeply, as was essential in order to understand the meanings that these workers have concerning immigrants and their integration in rural areas (see e.g. Patton, 2002). The interviews lasted approximately one hour, were conducted in Finnish, and were recorded and transcribed. The translations of the excerpts in this article from Finnish to English are my own.

I used qualitative content analysis to analyse my data, which is ‘a research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns’ (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, 1278). Boundary construction also requires categorisation (Van Eijk, 2011), and my aim was to scrutinise the meanings of belonging behind the boundary categories. In the first phase of data analysis, I read all the interviews loosely from the perspective of symbolic boundaries. My aim was to find the boundaries by which the interviewees produced similarities and differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ when they spoke about immigrants and integration. I coded these findings by using the software for qualitative data analysis, Atlas.ti. Examples of the codes I found were for example ‘language learning’, ‘social relations’ and ‘employment’. Although I approached the data through the theoretical framework of boundaries, I also made room for the interviewees’ own interpretations and meanings. After this, I further analysed the data by mirroring it against the theory of boundaries more thoroughly. I examined how different boundary strategies, modifications, shifting, expanding and blurring appeared in the data (Alba, 2005; Wimmer, 2008a). Finally, I summarised the categories I identified into main themes (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008), which I present in the result section. During the data analysis, I kept in mind the concept of belonging and how elements such as the feeling of being at home, being an accepted member of the group, and being in harmony with the environment were produced in the data. In order to maintain reliability and ethical considerations during the data analysis, I presented my findings to several colleagues. Furthermore, in the main body of the text, I use direct citations from the interviews which enable the reader to assess interpretations that I have made.

Results

Belonging that Follows Official Integration Policies

The main purpose of the Finnish integration legislation is to enable immigrants to actively participate in society and working life (Act on the Promotion Immigrant Integration, 1386/2010, §1, §3). This official aspect of integration was strongly present as the interviewees emphasised the importance of language proficiency, facilitating employment, and active participation in society. This also justifies the local integration workers’ professional positions: the purpose of their job is to facilitate immigrants’ positional moves, in other words, boundary crossing, from being outsiders to become people who have internalised the basic conditions and practices of Finnish society. As one interviewee explained: ‘the centre of the work is the immigrant’ (Int. 004).

One of the most repeated skills that was brought up in this data was language, which is one aspect of the Finnish integration law. In addition to the need to learn the host language, the interviewees highlighted the importance of employment and studying. Language proficiency is the first boundary that an immigrant has to overcome, and together with the required level of education, these form the factors that ensure an immigrant can cope in Finland:

In my opinion, basically, it [integration] includes some kind of integration training, or at least language training. And, that a person has such vocational education that they can manage in Finland. (Int. 014)

Employment was also strongly emphasised in the data. This illustrates not only integration policies, but also the short-term funding of integration projects because many integration projects are funded with the purpose of increasing immigrants’ employment. When asked what the purpose of integration is, the following interviewee first established a boundary based on whether or not a person is economically productive. After this, she strengthened her argument by saying that her children also faced this same demand for productivity. Finally, the demand for productivity was expanded to include ‘all of us’. This required boundary crossing from unproductivity to active membership of society, becoming a person who can contribute to it economically:

--- so that we get productive members of society. And now, if this sounds like, ‘that’s a terrible thing to say,’ I say the same about my own children, too. I want to raise my kids to become productive members of society. After all, that's what we all have to do, right? We can't all lie around at home. (Int. 010)

In order to provide immigrants with the required skills for work life and society, the interviewees emphasised that the services they were offering were available to all immigrants who needed help. Several interviewees highlighted this approach, saying that they do not turn anyone away from their door who comes asking for advice or help. Thus, the threshold to the sphere of official integration policies was defined as low, and the interviewees often described their interaction with immigrants as including ‘everything between heaven and earth’. In this way, integration was seen as something that required help in all aspects of the immigrants’ lives.

Besides promoting language and employment, finding ‘one’s own place in the community’ was also an element mentioned in the data. From this perspective, successful integration is not only about fulfilling basic needs such as housing, but also about participation in the local lifestyle. This echoes integration policies of which one of the main goals is immigrants’ active participation in society. In the next quote, the interviewee draws boundaries between normality and abnormality. Achieving a certain norm requires immigrants to be the ones who cross the boundaries. In other words, adaptation to the surrounding environment was considered key to ‘successful integration’. Distinctions were made between the desirable outcomes of integration, which are connected to personal life satisfaction, and less successful integration, which is connected to restlessness and unhappiness:

A successfully integrated person is one who is happy where they are. That is, whether it’s big or small, that person has found their place in that community, and have an apartment, hopefully a job or somewhere to study, and there is no endless nagging in mind, that “I have to get out of here no matter what”. Someone who participates in different things, no matter what their hobbies are, but are, like, involved in the community in which they live. That, in my opinion is successful integration. And also that the person is part of people’s ordinary lives. (Int. 013)

Some of the symbols used to illustrate that the immigrants were part of Finnish society were the immigrants and their children having hobbies, their participation in voluntary work, having clean homes and having books and toys for children in their homes (Int. 007). All these were indications that ‘the person is involved in this Finnish system, completely’ (Int. 007). The interviewees also mentioned that the purpose of their work was to help immigrants be able to ‘act independently in Finnish society’, ‘use personal resources’, and ‘make independent decisions’.

As Alba (2005, 25) notes, boundary blurring requires that ‘the mainstream culture and identity are relatively porous and allow for the incorporation of cultural elements brought by immigrant groups’. Generally, immigrants’ culture and language remained a less emphasised topic in this data, and the interviewees rarely addressed these issues. However, the next quote addresses practising one’s own culture in the Finnish context. First, the interviewee draws a boundary between ‘their culture’ and its aspects that contradict Finnish rules and laws. Then she continues to define the positive sides of culture, which include food, clothes and music. Violations against Finnish law are seen as a sign of not-belonging. Diversity is allowed, as long as it is within the frames of Finnish laws:

We often talk about preserving immigrants’ own culture, but I think we should talk more clearly about what can be preserved. --- That from this culture of yours you’re not allowed to bring this or that here to Finland, it’s illegal. But you can bring your own food and clothes and your own music and folk dance, that’s what we in Finland mean by culture when we talk about it. But they [immigrants] think culture means how their society works. Bribes or a lack of a receipt or things like that. Not this. (Int. 007)

As this section shows, belonging was produced in a way that followed official integration legislation quite faithfully. The interviewees emphasised integration targeted at individual immigrants. This required them to cross boundary from being outsiders to becoming insiders: the responsibility was the immigrants, not the host society’s. Thus, when the interviewees described the purpose of integration, they were also framing belonging that was mainly based on Finnish norms.

Belonging that Requires Efforts from the Local Community

In this theme, the interviewees extended the responsibility for integration beyond immigrants to employers and the local community. Feeling ‘at home’ and comfortable were not understood as something immigrants could create by themselves; the interviewees described the local community’s and employers’ role in the process as irreplaceable. Finnish integration legislation justifies this perspective, because its purpose is to improve the interaction between immigrants and society (Act on the Promotion Immigrant Integration, 1386/2010, § 3) and to promote interaction, good ethnic relations and immigrants’ participation (Act on the Promotion Immigrant Integration, 1386/2010, § 29). All these elements directed local integration workers towards the local community and away from merely trying to facilitate immigrants’ boundary crossing, as seen in the previous chapter.

One aspect that was regularly repeated in the data was local employers’ reluctance to employ immigrants. The main narrative was that cooperation with some local employers worked well, but at the same time, a common emphasis was that ‘there is a lot of work to be done’ in order to change employers’ attitudes, discrimination and perceptions of hiring people with an immigrant background and to offer them opportunities in local enterprises. Employment in local enterprises was not portrayed as easy, but as something that needed continuous effort, persuasion, reassurance, and practical help on the integration worker’s part. Thus, the interviewees produced boundary lines that placed themselves and the job-seeking immigrants on the one side, and local employers unwilling to hire immigrants on the other. To bring about change, the integration workers constructed boundaries in a way that required more change on the part of employers than immigrants. The intention was to expand the boundaries and make them more inclusive.

Some interviewees defined this part of their job by using such terms as ‘fighting’. The next quote describes a situation in which closed doors need to be opened or in which an opponent needs to overcome. It portrays the local integration worker as a crucial actor whose own authority and local reputation have meaning when boundaries are re-organised:

It’s probably the fact that I’m from [the name of the municipality] and when we’re talking about a small town, employers probably already know a little about who I am and what my job involves. A lot of jobs have been obtained [to immigrants] only because I’ve called and said employers to at least try. Take someone on for a work trial. And then decide after that. I have to kick a lot. (Int. 004)

Another boundary shifting strategy described by the interviewees required the management level of enterprises to take responsibility. In other words, employers were not pictured as merely people who offer jobs, but as actors with a role to play in the social dynamics at the workplace. The interviewees brought up the idea that if the management level demands acceptance as a rule at the workplace, it changes the overall atmosphere. It helps shift the immigrant employee from being an outsider to becoming part of the workplace’s social setting:

I also understand Finnish employees when there’s no [common language], but it also depends on the employer. If the employer says hey, we have such a situation, here’s a good colleague of yours, so try to talk to them. You don’t have to babble for hours, but even a few words an hour, that helps too. (Int. 003)

In this data, the boundaries also appeared inflexible in terms of local communities. Some interviewees criticised municipal authorities, saying that local authorities were not interested in immigrants or their well-being. Some interviewees explained how they stand on the one side of the boundary line with the immigrants, and the rest of the community or the municipal authorities stands on the other side. The main message was that changes are needed in ‘our’ thinking and practices. In other words, ‘we’ as a community have to do our part for immigrants to stay:

If we want these people to stay here, and for them to become members of the community, then that community must also do something. And the role of the state, in my opinion, is to give that community information and training and resources to receive immigrants. (Int. 003)

As they did with the employers, the interviewees categorised themselves as nodal point actors who tried to make boundaries more flexible for immigrants. However, as one interviewee mentioned: ‘We try to broaden the local worldview, which is like fighting windmills’ (Int. 004). The following quote has a similar tone: The interviewee explains how knowledge about different cultures needs to be increased, and doing her part in this respect, she tries to shift the boundaries. She also draws attention to similarities, such as shared concepts of parenthood. Having children directs the boundaries away from differences towards similarities, namely parenthood, which is established as common ground and a starting point for social interaction:

In this work, the aim is to loosen tense relationships, to make Finnish people aware that immigrants’ culture is not what they [might] think. These events [are organised for people] to see that these children are the same kind of children as yours. And that religion doesn’t interfere with being together and so on. But it’s hard to change what has been there for years, thinking patterns that are strong. Little by little, little by little. (Int. 003)

In this section, the interviewees expanded the traditional views of integration policies for which the main target of measures is the individual immigrant. Instead, they shifted the responsibility from the immigrants to local employers and the local community. In this process of positioning boundaries differently, local integration workers positioned themselves as people who play a significant role.

Belonging as a Personal Feeling of Being at Home

Part of belonging is emotional attachment, a feeling of being at home, understood and safe (Ignatieff, 1995; Yuval-Davis, 2006). In this section, the interviewees increasingly shifted the emphasis from official integration policies to belonging, which was based on a personal experience of comfort and acceptance. By doing this, the interviewees extended the meaning of belonging in a way that questioned the predetermined, instrumental nature of how immigrants’ lives should be organised in rural areas. In this section, the emphasis was on the immigrants’ individuality and personal desires and wishes. The interviewees dissipated the dimensions of official integration, and instead described the importance of immigrants’ personal experiences of familiarity, comfort and feeling at home. In other words, the interviewees spoke less about integration and more about belonging.

One interviewee illustrated this when she reflected on the experience of being abroad and the feeling of ‘being lost’. The interviewee frames her own experiences when abroad as being similar to immigrants’ experiences in Finland, and by finding a common ground between these experiences, identifies with the immigrants and creates a sense of ‘usness’. The established boundary is between a person who is lost and those who know how to live as part of the community. However, the interviewee did not explicitly indicate how this deeper sense of belonging and home is created or whether it derives from personal or societal efforts. Nevertheless, it is something that is experienced personally and not something that comes from outside:

The most important thing about integration is that people feel they are at home. --- I myself have lived abroad ---, I know what it’s like when you come to another country and you don’t know anything, you don’t know how to sign a paper or where to get a bank account or go to the doctor, or where to find the nearest store. I know that pain. Then, at some point in the countries to which I had moved, I felt that now I’m part of this community and I know how to act in this community. It came because I could take someone else and tell them, now we do [here] like this and like this and this. That I’m not the one who’s lost. (Int. 004)

Becoming part of ‘us’ was also portrayed through immigrants’ personal experiences of satisfaction with life. This indicates the idea of equality, when immigrants are not understood as an isolated ‘other’ but as people who should be able to experience a similar feeling of well-being as ‘us’. A distinction was drawn between one’s country of origin and Finland, where ideally, Finnish society can enable not only native-born Finns to feel satisfied with life but immigrants as well. In this way, belonging was connected to Finnish society and its resources. The burden of creating the feeling of belonging was upon society, and an individual can only feel satisfied with life if society offers the necessary opportunities for secure living:

And that you could be as satisfied with life as we are. --- And of course, if it’s better to be here than in your country of origin, then we’ve probably succeeded quite well. That they want to stay. (Int. 013)

A clearer illustration of the shift towards belonging was when some interviewees questioned the purpose of integration policies that were narrowly defined from the majority’s perspective and which positioned immigrants economically and socially in a predestined way. In the next excerpt, the interviewee emphasises immigrants’ own desires, future plans and agency, and criticises the one-sided demand for adaptation that exploits immigrants’ individuality. According to the interviewee, this distinction, made by certain people who define what some people should or should not do, creates a boundary between these people and prevents mutual belonging based on equality. In other words, belonging is based on free individuals who are able to follow their own purposes in life:

And then, can we think in a way that we want these people to come here and that they must act like this? That this is the path, how we want them to live? Can we say and do that? That now you're here and you’re studying to be a community nurse, you’ll be taking care of the elderly for the rest of your life. We can’t. In Finland, we can’t go and say to Finnish people that this is now what you’re meant to do in your life. (Int. 011)

In addition, belonging based on a common humanity expands the boundaries to who has the right to belong. When belonging was constructed in this way, it was not dependent on an individual’s ability to fulfil certain norms or external achievements. Instead, there was demanding for modified boundaries based on the universal value of human dignity:

-- people who have never found employment for some reason can come to us. They can be pensioners or there can be any number of reasons, mental or health related, for why they can never find employment, and yet I think that such a person can be integrated. (Int. 006)

Also, thorough adaptation to the local lifestyle was not considered a desirable option. The tendency to ‘adapt as much as possible’ was described negatively, as something that makes a person unhappy. A boundary was established between those who want to adapt and become invisible. However, this is not genuine belonging, it is the opposite, and was described as faking. Instead of creating a sense of belonging, rejecting one’s own roots and history means losing yourself. Interestingly, this perspective means that immigrants are responsible for resisting complete adaptation, or in other words, personal boundary crossing when it means losing one’s own self:

I know people who want to adapt as much as possible, they’ve swept all their own roots and history under the carpet, and it's a little sad because they’re not happy then. You have to be someone else all the time, and everyone notices that. That you’re no longer yourself there, and you’re no longer yourself here either. (Int. 003)

Belonging could also include the interviewees themselves. The only interviewee who did not have a paid job position in integration work, but did voluntary work at the local Red Cross explained how this work has enabled her to create mutual friendships with immigrants. These relationships had changed her, and her experience of ‘us’ was based on mutual understanding and similar life experiences. The boundaries expanded in a way that did not require anyone to change, and belonging was based on mutual affection and sharing. The immigrants were not constructed as objects of different integration practices, but as equal adult friends who have something to offer and who can contribute to the friendship. One aspect of belonging is being accepted and being important to someone (Mahar et al., 2012), which is demonstrated in the quote below. Belonging was when the interviewee and immigrants both felt safe and accepted, which created a sense of family, or of ‘us’:

Yes, I have changed a lot. Let’s just say this has affected our whole family. --- They [immigrants] have been at our weddings, and at confirmation and graduation parties, and at my father’s funeral. They have brought so much security to our lives, and of course practical help and joy as well. And reciprocally, we’ve been able to help them in many ways. They feel I’m their mother, that’s what they say. My children are their sisters and brothers. --- They’ve had mental health problems, just like in my family, there’s been helping on both sides and understanding each other, and we’ve received support from each other. --- They have elderly parents, too. We’ve discussed how to take care of our parents and how our parents manage. All aspects of life have been shared on both sides. (Int. 012)

In this section, the interviewees modified boundaries in a way that went beyond national integration policies. They questioned the idea of how society can benefit from immigrants, as well as immigrants’ thorough adaptation to Finnish society. Furthermore, the interviewees constructed belonging as something that was not based on a person’s ability to contribute to society but instead on inherent human values and personal experiences of feeling at home.

Discussion

The aim of this article was to examine what symbolic boundaries local integration workers in Finnish rural areas build when they speak about immigrants and their integration, and what kind of belonging they (re)produced for immigrants through these boundaries. Symbolic boundaries are conceptual distinctions by which other people are categorised and defined (Lamont & Molnár, 2002), and in this article, my intention was to add a comprehensive perspective to the integration discussion and deepen the understanding of the processes of belonging at the local level. As a result, the local integration workers constructed belonging in ways that followed official integration policies, required efforts from the local communities and belonging that was a personal experience of being at home. When these local integration workers struggled between the official expectations of integration policies and their personal conviction of what creates the feeling of being at home, they used various symbolic boundaries in the process. Belonging was constructed as the outcome of individual immigrants’ personal boundary crossing, but at the same time, the interviewees wanted to expand the existing boundaries within the local community and insisted that creating belonging is not only the responsibility of the immigrants themselves, but the other people living in the rural areas are responsible for creating an atmosphere in which immigrants feel welcoming and at home.

The first level of belonging that the local integration workers produced was in line with the Finnish integration legislation, the purpose of which is to promote immigrants’ active participation in society (Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration, 1386/2010, §1). The responsibility for creating this belonging was the immigrants’. The requirement for immigrants to adapt has also been examined in other Nordic welfare contexts, when Grip (2020) for example argues that the Swedish integration policy expects immigrants to change from being outsiders to insiders, and this process targets immigrants, not other members of society. A boundary between people is bright (Alba, 2005) and belonging requires immigrants to cross personal boundaries (Zolberg & Long, 1999) from being ‘them’ to being ‘us’. The tools for personal boundary crossing were language proficiency, employment, proper education, participation in local communities, hobbies and a lifestyle that fits with Finnish norms and values. In this section, there was little room for creative ways to build belonging. Instead, frames of belonging were given and they maintained the prevalent culture.

Secondly, the interviewees constructed belonging in a way that no longer emphasised immigrants’ personal positional moves, but directed attention to wider local patterns. To do this, the interviewees tried to shift the boundaries of belonging (Wimmer, 2008a, 2008b; Zolberg & Long, 1999) from individual immigrants towards local employers and the community as a whole. The interviewees expanded the boundaries in a way that demanded local actors to take responsibility for the process of creating belonging. They highlighted the social dimensions of belonging, which include the idea that a person cannot belong alone, but needs other people to accept them belong with them (Allen, 2020; Mahar et al., 2012; Simonsen, 2018). This demand for the local community’s responsibility in the process is justified because previous studies have shown that immigrants’ satisfaction and belonging are strengthened if the whole community has a welcoming attitude, not only politicians (Kogan et al., 2018; Simonsen, 2016; Broadbent et al. 2007). Communities’ everyday practices matter (Huot et al., 2023). However, the local community is still participating in the process even if it keeps a distance, but that does not enable belonging. Thirdly, the local integration workers framed a kind of belonging that was anchored in personal and emotional attachment to having a sense of home, which is one of the core elements of belonging (Yuval-Davis, 2006). The interviewees also tried to modify boundaries in a way that emphasised immigrants’ human value (Wimmer, 2008a, 2008b). Boundaries started to become blurred (Alba, 2005) when local integration workers constructed ‘us’ in a way that was based on human dignity, which is common to all humans despite their background or other differences. In addition, the interviewees resisted the idea of positioning immigrants in a predetermined way from an economic perspective, and instead highlighted the meaning of safety, equality and immigrants’ subjective feelings of being at home. These are all crucial elements of belonging. Although the local integration workers’ professionalism is subject to different political struggles, there still seemed to be space for creativity in how the interviewees understood the purpose of their work. Previous studies have confirmed this tendency, finding that different frontline service providers (e.g. integration coaches, teachers, social workers) interpret integration not only through their professional roles, but also through their personal values, which have also caused resistance against practices that contradict these convictions (Belabas & Gerrits, 2017; James & Julian, 2021). Nevertheless, the national political context inevitably has an effect on belonging (Roberson, 2022). Renegotiating institutional structures did not necessarily override practices of exclusion, although continuous alternative practices can set exclusive boundaries in different positions (Kangas-Müller et al., 2023). Especially as their resources are limited, local integration workers find it difficult to promote alternatives to official integration practices. Presumably, solving immigrants’ urgent everyday challenges, for instance, overrides any possibilities to invest time in practices that would promote belonging in the community as a whole. If the responsibility for creating a sense of belonging is mainly placed upon local integration workers, the local community does not have to take any ownership of the process.

This study uncovered similar tendencies to those found by Hudson and Sandberg (2021), namely that immigrants’ reception in rural areas has become a short-term solution, and does not change the wider structural pattern behind the declining population declining. Moreover, understanding integration as a process that only concerns immigrants prevents rural communities from imagining alternative options for the future (Arora-Jonsson & Larsson 2021). This means that it is crucial that integration is understood as a relational process (Klarenbeek, 2021), because without this perspective, integration policies only maintain the existing understanding of integration, which is that the burden of adaptation is mainly upon the immigrants themselves (Grzymala-Kazlowska & Phillimore, 2018). This is also true at the local level. Involving the whole community in the process can create sustainable local communities for all its inhabitants (Broadbent et al. 2007).

This offers an alternative perspective for the discussion on integration and enables belonging to be reconstructed so that the emphasis is not only on immigrants’ adaptation but also on comprehensive experiences of belonging. This demands a different perspective from the whole local community. Thus, to develop this policy, I suggest that integration and its related policies should be seen more as a process that involves the whole local community. This requires a sufficient number of local integration workers, but also enough time for them to develop their work in a way that strengthens the social aspects of belonging.

This study had some limitations. I am unable to draw generalisations that would cover different countries. Moreover, my focus in this article was on local integration workers, but local communities have various actors who affect immigrants’ experiences of belonging. Further research could bring together these different actors in rural municipalities, such as employment officials, municipal authorities, social workers and teachers. Local media can also play a role by reducing negative images of local immigrants (Wickramaararchchi & Burns, 2017). Finally, examining how these different actors participate in immigrants’ experiences of belonging would widen the perspective on how belonging is created in local communities.