Issues of Integration
Integration without Assimilation: Using the “Ethnoburbs” and “Chocolate Cities” Framework to Understand the Experience of Black Adults in a Racially Diverse Suburb
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alan Grigsby
From 2016 to 2018, I lived in a small apartment on the border of Cleveland, Ohio (USA) and one of its eastern suburbs, Shaker Heights. I moved to this location to conduct ethnographic research on community race relations in a suburban neighborhood that is routinely touted as one of America's first suburbs to have a racially integrated housing market. My two-year fieldwork culminated in a book-length manuscript. I present one piece of a larger analysis. This paper focuses on the existence of an African American segregated neighborhood within the larger integrated suburb. This qualitative analysis is based on interviews and observations of thirty-three African American adults that I met during my time living in Shaker Heights. I use the “ethnoburbs” (Lin and Robinson 2005) and “chocolate cities” (Hunter and Robinson 2018) theoretical frameworks to understand African American migration patterns, kinship networks, and histories of U.S. housing discrimination--factors that facilitate the formation of segregated spaces and factious social lives among adults in a racially diverse community.
Integration Processes among Immigrants and Refugees in Utah
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hayley Pierce, Jane Lilly Lopez
Utah is a unique case to enhance our understanding of immigrant and refugee integration processes in conservative America. Utah is a new immigrant destination, with significant growth over the past thirty years. Today, one of every twelve Utah residents is an immigrant, and another one of every twelve Utah residents is a US-born citizen with at least one immigrant parent. Many refugees have also resettled in Utah and compose a substantial percentage (2%) of the state population. Despite its status as a dependably politically conservative state, Utah legislators have passed a number of “immigrant friendly” policies designed to support immigrant integration and refugee resettlement. But while Utah public policy has generally encouraged a favorable environment for immigrant and refugee integration, public sentiment among Utah’s super-majority white, US-citizen population often does not align with those immigrant- and refugee-friendly policies. This mismatch between policy and public sentiment has created an ideal context for examining and disentangling the roles of social processes versus legal-political processes in shaping integration outcomes. In our analysis of questionnaires and open-ended interviews with over 150 immigrants and refugees living in Utah, we find evidence that both social and legal-political processes shape their integration experiences and sense of belonging. “Friendly” policies help facilitate immigrants’ and refugees’ economic incorporation; social, cultural, and linguistic barriers impede social integration and diminish immigrants’ and refugees’ sense of belonging. We find that, while a supportive political context can improve immigrants’ and refugees’ integration, immigrants and refugees rarely achieve full incorporation without broader community buy-in.
Market-Based Settlement Services: Critical Reflections on Migration and Integration
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mary Goitom
This paper critically explores what is meant by integration and the expectations that come with it, and how the ‘right’ kind of economic citizen (homo economicus) gets produced through social work practice with immigrants. Specifically, this paper will engage in critical reflection on a participant’s narrative from a larger study that explored the post-migration intentions of Ethiopians in Toronto by examining the evolution of immigrant selection in Canada, the policy of multiculturalism as the country’s most recognized policy as it pertains to integration, and how they all coalesce and shape settlement work with immigrants. This paper concludes with a discussion on how to begin to address concerns that surround settlement work with immigrants in particular how settlement workers can shape their practice to provide culturally appropriate services. At the center of this re-imagining of practice, is actively exposing those discursive formations that stratify the experiences and identities of the ‘other’. The process of re-imagining practice then is hinged on the unveiling of how the technologies of neoliberalism entrench themselves in the ‘mainstreaming’ or ‘integration’ of migrants to fashion the homo economicus.
Conflicting Construction of Diversity in Social Service Organizations: Migration as Both Resource and Problem
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Timo Schreiner
Social service organizations (SSO) play a fundamental role within national welfare systems. In a trans-nationalizing and globalizing society SSO and their performances are changing. But how do these organizations deal specifically with migration? Debates on these questions can be found in terms such as "intercultural opening", "diversity management" or "diversity and inclusion." It is striking that the focus of the debates is often on the clients and not the organization itself. Diversity in the field of migration in relation to organizational culture in the field of SSO is still largely unexplored. Using the current case study of my doctorate I show how social transformation processes were addressed in an SSO. The case study was based on grounded theory methodology and combined several methods to obtain empirical data. Social statistics were produced quantitatively based on a survey. Qualitative data were collected in a total of 14 expert interviews at all levels of the organization. The analysis of the interviews showed that the respondents had a contradictory picture of migration. Among colleagues, migration is seen as an additional competence for e.g. “socialized skills” such as language. At the same time, migration of the clients is seen as a problem for the organization. Migration becomes a barrier because e.g. communication problems arise due to language. I consider the background and meanings of the different assessments of migration in social service organizations.
