Project

Arrival infrastructures as sites of integration for recent newcomers

Acronym

ReROOT

Code

41Z01221

Duration

01 April 2021 → 31 July 2025

Funding

European funding: framework programme

Promotor

Luce Beeckmans

Research disciplines

Social sciences
- Social and cultural anthropology not elsewhere classified

Keywords

migration

Project description

Throughout its long history, Europe has drawn numerous migration movements. Its traces are often hidden and sedimented into native society. However, several actors, such as communities and religious institutions, have records and living memories of these processes or actively participate in the integration process of new migrants. The EU-funded ReROOT project will study a vast sequence of actors consisting of previous generations of migrants and natives who co-created shops as information hubs, religious sites, local labour offices and language classes. The project will explore the interactions, knowledge transfer and resources shared between first-comers and latecomers as well as established practices through the post-2015 migration arrival processes to support sustainable immigration practices and public imaginaries.

Role of Ghent University

Prof. Dr. Luce Beeckmans is the Work Package leader of WP5: Designing tools for analysing and diagnosing integration processes, and is the supervisor of Dounia Salamé, the PhD researcher working on the project. A postdoc will be recruited in a later phase of the project. The objectives of WP5 are two-fold: (a) Designing mapping toolkits & (b) Designing platform prototypes WP5 transfers the methodological insights from the site-specific context for use in pilots and prototypes. The methodological reflection and comparative analysis of site research undertaken in WP5 will result in a 'mapping toolkit' for identifying, describing, and analysing local arrival infrastructures. This 'mapping toolkit' is a set of tools, techniques and instructive practices to be used by those (civil society actors, local authorities, migrant networks or federations) who envisage to better understand, re-engineer, or even develop relevant arrival infrastructures in different places any time in the future. Moreover, WP5 will design prototypes for interactive platforms, sensitive to local specificities and the involvement of particular stakeholders, but open enough to be implemented in other places in different circumstances.