Embedded integration and organisational change in housing providers in the UK

The arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers in the UK, many of whom subsequently become refugees, has been an important contributor to the emergence of new migration. Integration policy and initiatives have placed a great deal of focus on securing housing for refugees and enhancing their employability. While academics stress that integration should be a two-way process, and highlight the need for institutions to adapt to meet migrant need, the vast majority of policy attention has focused on supporting refugees to adapt to life in the UK. Few initiatives and even less research attention has been paid to encouraging or exploring institutional adaptation. This article looks at the experiences of UK housing providers involved in the HACT Reach In initiative. The project was unusual in that it sought to encourage housing providers to adapt their approaches to service provision by embedding refugees into their everyday work. Using data collected via qualitative longitudinal methods, the article examines the ways in which institutions changed their cultures and approaches to service delivery. It finds that initiatives that enable hosts and migrants to access new social fields create the opportunity for embedded integration that moves beyond the individual to impact upon institutions, and argues that shifting our attention to institutions has much to offer in conceptual, empirical and policy terms.</jats:p

Introduction: rethinking integration. New perspectives on adaptation and settlement in the era of super-diversity

This article outlines key arguments and contributions pertaining to new perspectives on the adaptation and settlement of migrants under conditions of super diversification and ongoing migration ‘crisis’. We seek to re-ignite interest in the conceptual the development of the concept of integration and to stimulate theoretical and research advancement beyond the normative integration paradigm. Given the growing complexity, acceleration of changes and increased interconnectedness across societies as well as diversification of migrants, patterns of migration and modes of operation we argue that the concept of integration, and the ideas that underpin thinking around migrants’ adaptation and settlement more generally, need to be reconsidered. Highlighting a number of different ways of thinking about migrant adaptation and settlement we account not only for the multi-dimensionality of integration processes, but also for the diverse nature of migrants and how their multiple characteristics of individuals shape integration opportunities and challenges. Using perspectives from multiple countries in relation to both voluntary and forced migrants within and outside of the EU, this paper offers a range of theoretical and methodological insights into how the complexity associated with super-diversity might be captured and outlines new ways of conceptualising integration. The article It also sets up new research agenda around notions lying behind the concept of integration such as the integration of transnational or transit populations, integration within fluid and super-diverse communities or the relationship between integration and intersectionality with the focus on multi dimensions dimensionality, relativeness and modalities of social relations

Reciprocity for new migrant integration: resource conservation, investment and exchange

In this paper we bring a new perspective to the understanding of migrant integration. We focus on how new migrants use reciprocity to make and sustain connections. In turn, we identify integration resources accessed through those connections and associated acts of reciprocal exchange. Using qualitative data collected in retrospective interviews from a maximum variation sample of new migrants arriving in the UK up to two years before interview we identify five interconnected sub-types of reciprocity and explore how these are used to replace or substitute resources lost through the act of migration. We argue that, contrary to Hobfoll’s (2011) ideas about conservation of resources in crisis, migrants use resource exchange strategies to develop social networks which may form important buffers against migratory stress and aid access to functional, psychological and affective resources that can further integration. The paper concludes by highlighting the significance of reciprocity in moving the theorisation of integration in new a new direction