New Thinking on Integration, Employment and Language

Academics have a lot to learn from people who are on the frontline. Migration Mobilities Bristol (MMB) can, for example, learn from people who speak from their personal and organisational experiences of immigration controls and the hostile environment. We also believe that academics have something to offer in return – an analysis of patterns of experiences and how these are institutionally and historically embedded.

For example, ACH/Himilo is an organisation which has considerable knowledge of the issues confronting service provision and integration. It has grown in ten years from a small-scale housing provider to a leading provider of integration support for refugees and migrants, working with 2500 people per year. It challenges many assumptions about how newly-arrived communities should be 'integrated' and it has started to set out a new paradigm through the #rethinkingrefugee approach.

However, ACH recognises the need to test thinking more widely and to take advantage of the many academic experts in Bristol who can bring different perspectives. Furthermore, both MMB and ACH/Himilo recognise that we can learn from the talents, experiences and aspirations of newly-arrived communities and thereby benefit the individuals themselves and the wider community. It is through groups like MMB, ACH/Himilo and other key bodies such as the Mayor’s Office collaborating that we can make Bristol into a knowledge hub and make real progress in building inclusive communities.

For this reason, ACH/Himilo approached MMB suggesting we jointly organise a seminar series on the themes of integration, employment and language.

We both agreed that these would be discussion orientated, with short presentations, one from an academic and one from a practitioner. We decided on a maximum of twenty participants, ten from University of Bristol and ten non-academic interested stakeholders. We held the first of these, on integration, on 11th February 2019 in the Will Memorial Building at the University of Bristol, and we found it highly stimulating and engaging.

Of course, we were helped by having two fantastic presenters. Dr Katharine Charsley from SPAIS (Sociology, Politics and International Studies) got us off to a great start by presenting a model of integration processes that she has developed with Dr Sarah Spencer (COMPAS, University of Oxford).

This disaggregates the different types of integration that matter to an individual: the social, structural, civic/political, cultural and identity. Integration in one area does not mean integration in another and disaggregating in this way can help us design and evaluate policies better.

She was followed by Richard Thickpenny from ACH/Himilo, who discussed the ‘Invisible Line of Control’. Unreflexive policy and practice can mean that policymakers and practitioners can predetermine below optimal results for the people they want to support. For example, ACH had found that three quarters of refugees were working in entry level jobs and staying in them, not progressing to develop or adapt the skills that that they already have. In this way, interventions can end up limiting the potential of refugees to achieve full integration. Both presentations illustrated the importance of a holistic approach and attending to the unintended consequences of integration policies.

The subsequent conversations were very lively. We tackled the challenge of the basic assumptions of the language of integration – what is it that people are ‘integrating’ in to? Why is it only migrants and refugees who are targeted by integration policies? Why do we assume that the residents of Clifton ‘integrated’? It made me think that perhaps we should investigate other terms that are used to describe similar processes for different populations. For example, one of the ways to counter the exclusions faced by disabled people is to facilitate ‘accessibility’. Could it be helpful for us to learn from the struggles of disabled people and to look for parallels between integration and accessibility? Answers on a postcard please….

Blog co-authored by:

Bridget Anderson, Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship, University of Bristol.

David Jepson, Director and Policy Advisor, ACH/Himilo.