Abstract
In this chapter, I argue that the focus on specific phases in migration and the lives of refugees might limit the understanding of refugees’ struggles in their efforts to integrate. Refugee integration, as a process, is highly individual and thus the beginning of integration might be different for each refugee. To put it simply, refugee integration has multiple beginnings. Hence, to have a more comprehensive view, one needs to look at refugee integration as a flow of chained events that occur at various places and times. Doing so would not only provide a more comprehensive understanding of the organising practices refugees go through, but it would also illuminate certain power struggles and vulnerabilities that refugees face when trying to settle in a new country. Most importantly, providing a different understanding of the beginning of refugee integration could have implications for practice and policy, and contribute to a construction of more humane and sustainable refugee integration practices.
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Notes
- 1.
Hungary was the EU member state that received the highest number of first-time applicants (Eurostat, 2016). Eventually, however, the hostile attitude towards refugees forced almost all of them to use Hungary just as a “transit”—a country that refugees pass through along the way to their preferred country of asylum.
- 2.
Ordering (aligning) and coordination are both called organising in the vocabulary of management and organisation studies (Czarniawska, 2016).
- 3.
Mol did not explicitly name her second sub-mode of addition, except to point out that it is “with no worries about discrepancies” (Mol, 2002, p. 84). I understand it as a sub-mode where discrepancies are tolerated or ignored. Hence, I called it “addition ignoring discrepancies”.
- 4.
- 5.
Denmark and Sweden are connected via the Öresund Bridge—a long road and railway bridge-tunnel.
- 6.
An unaccompanied minor is a person who is younger than 18 and has no legal guardian present.
- 7.
“The country through which migratory flows (regular or irregular) move. This is taken to mean the country (or countries), different from the country of origin, through which a [refugee] passes in order to enter a country of destination”—International Organization for Migration.
- 8.
Destination country refers to a country which attracts asylum seekers.
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I would like to thank Tommy Jensen for a conversation we had before I started writing this chapter, and the editors of this book for their attentive guidance.
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Mahmud, Y. (2023). Organising (Refugee) Integration in Sweden: How It Begins. In: Diedrich, A., Czarniawska, B. (eds) Organising Immigrants' Integration. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26821-2_3
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