ReROOT Project

🛋️ What does a sofa have to do with integration and migration??    This is something you may have asked yourself if you were in Brussels last March when activists, newcomers, oldcomers, and journalists marched along Koning Albert II street pushing several large blue and green sofas.     Activists (including ReROOT Project Brussels site researcher Shila Anaraki) bid upon and acquired sofas auctioned by their previous owners, Fedasil (Federal Agency for the reception of Newcomers in Belgium). The furniture originated in the offices of State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor (CD&V) and Fedasil. The activists delivered the sofas on foot to the Federal Crisis Center which was at the time occupied by activists and reception seekers and under siege by federal police.     By bringing the Fedasil sofa, a symbol of abandoned comfort and conviviality, activists aimed to center the focus on those whom the reception crisis neglected. This action brought attention to the Occupy Federale protest activity already underway and highlighted the willful state abandonment of homeless protection seekers.     The event received wide coverage in the local and regional news (https://lnkd.in/e-6Pmem8). It was one of several research actions initiated by the Brussels site researcher to co-politicize, co-activate, and co-live. All the initiatives had two main goals:  📍 to improve the situation for people who are forced into homelessness due to the current Belgian and European migration politics.  📍 to pressure policy-makers and raise awareness about the problem in broader society. As it turns out, this event was part of the ReROOT participatory action research upon which we are basing our recommendations for practitioners and policymakers invested in integration and migration policy beyond crisis-mode. (Stay tuned for the news on the ReROOT Toolkit: https://lnkd.in/eXhCCXDw).    Read about the other research actions in Brussels and in all nine ReROOT sites here: https://lnkd.in/euD_HamQ 

Over the past year, #ReROOT researchers collaborated with local arrival infrastructure actors (think arrival frontline social workers, language teachers, copy shop owners, NGO employees, industrial farmers, social housing managers) in our nine pilot sites to conduct #actionresearch. This action research built upon over a year of in-depth ethnographic engagement within arrival infrastructures and appeared in various formats with the unifying aim of prototyping ways to improve collaboration between stakeholders, empower people on the move, and imagine integration work beyond crisis scenarios. In our Greek pilot site, Karditsa and Katerini, our team focused their research action on the following paradox — the concentration of newcomers in prominent #urban areas and labour demand in peripheral #rural areas. Our researchers collaborated with local stakeholders to take on this problem and develop a prototype labour-market-driven integration model. This involved: 1. Building an online job matching platform called "Find your roots in Kardista - A hospitable city for newcomers". The site provided info on the labour needs and market availabilities in the area. 2. The creation of a communication hub called "Let's build contact" worked to counter fragmentation in accommodation provision for newcomers by bringing these actors together. You can read more about this research action here: https://lnkd.in/e4YdxWEX. We will be collecting advice and findings from this research in our forthcoming ReROOT toolkit (https://lnkd.in/eXhCCXDw).

How do research findings reach public audiences? Sometimes researchers take their results to the streets! That is the case for ReROOT Project site researcher and co-Investigator Cornelia Tippel (The ILS – Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development gGmbH). Last week, on a rainy day in Dortmund (DE) Tippel took part in the city's first Science Night. She spoke with around 30 local residents about the different life worlds of ‘arriving and staying’ in the arrival neighborhood of Dortmund-Nordstadt. Tippel explained that in addition to building knowledge about this arrival situation, this research also contributes to urban strategies to help improve the arrival infrastructure. You can read the blog post about it on our website: https://lnkd.in/eRz2u4FR

Why do social infrastructures matter for migration research? How does the concept of #arrivalinfrastructures innovate the infrastructural turn? Our ReROOT Project Co-Investigator Luce Beeckmans is in New York w/KU Leuven colleagues to debate this very question. Check out the full program here: https://lnkd.in/gRwQ4fac "Over the last decades, a clear infrastructural turn has occurred across humanities and social sciences which provides a novel framework to study culture and societies. Specifically within urban studies, many scholars state that social infrastructure, i.e. networks of spaces, institutions, groups and facilities, contribute to civic urban life. Often cited examples of social infrastructure include libraries, schools, playgrounds, community centers or even sidewalks. In his seminal book Palaces for the People (2018), Eric Klinenberg defines social infrastructure as “the physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact”. Klinenberg argues that a whole range of institutional and physical infrastructure is necessary to develop and maintain social connections and ‘togetherness’ in cities, and this across differences. However, social infrastructure can also perpetuate socio-economic disparities in urban contexts, is sometimes disproportionally concentrated in particular neighborhoods, designed with a narrow urban demographic in mind, or even excessively restrictive. What role can social infrastructure take up in the development of more just cities? How can underprivileged communities be involved in the design and decision-making regarding social infrastructures that have the potential to stage meaningful encounters among a diversity of people? And whether and how can social infrastructures also disguise, if not even compound structural injustices that are hardwired into urban forms? The debate will, among other matters, zoom in on these questions."

Why do we talk about #arrival when studying migration? What is #arrival #infrastructure? And how does it relate to #material and #social #infrastructure? Why talk about minor integrations in place of #Integration? What's wrong with the word #newcomer? These are several of many questions that find their answer in our concept paper, "The Four Pillars of ReROOT" (by Karel Arnaut & Bruno Meeus) available to read on our website: https://lnkd.in/ewun3NkD. For the crib sheet or just a taste, see the infographic.

Our ReROOT Project Site Researcher Carolien Lubberhuizen (Agricultural regions of Haspengouw and Westland) is speaking about "Routines of Arrival" at the expo and book launch for "Seasonal Matters Rural Relations". If you are in #Brussels this Saturday the 14th, please join us there! https://fb.me/e/4NmcGqe3Q

#REFUFAM has opened a 📣 call for abstracts for their final conference. NAVIGATING THE POLITICS OF (DIS)INTEGRATION: REFUGEE FAMILIES’ PATHWAYS TO INCLUSION. Please share. #migration #integration #inclusion #families #refugees

See what our project manager had to say about the ReROOT Project activities at last week's Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual Conference!

📢 Our latest ReROOT Project newsletter is live! If you haven't subscribed yet, you can have a read of the latest one and sign up via this link: https://lnkd.in/eXNtYDrd. To avoid overcrowding inboxes we keep our newsletters infrequent, and brief, but loaded with key updates on our #arrival #infrastructure research. We are beginning our final project year and will therefore be sharing results, events, and invitations to collaborate. Subscribe and join our journey to revolutionise how we think about and practice #integration beyond #crisis scenarios!

Tomorrow 12:00h Brussels Time, the latest ReROOT Project newsletter goes live! Are you subscribed? https://lnkd.in/gcKVxGdR