From Acts of Care to Practice-Based Resistance

Refugee-Sector Service Provision and Its Impact(s) on Integration

Bibliographic Data

ID5935600
AuthorsEmmaleena Käkelä (0000-0001-9658-1548, Queen Margaret University, corresponding author), Helen Baillot (0000-0003-2848-023X, Queen Margaret University), Leyla Kerlaff (0000-0003-0191-1511, Queen Margaret University), Marcia Vera Espinoza (0000-0001-6238-7683, Queen Margaret University)
Year2023
Volume12
Issue1
Pages39
Publication date2023-01-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2076-0760 • E-ISSN: 2076-0760
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/socsci12010039
OpenAlexW4315647407
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited41

The UK refugee sector encompasses welfare provision, systems advocacy, capacity development and research. However, to date there has been little attention on refugees' experiences of the support provided by these services or on the views of the practitioners who deliver them. This paper draws from interviews and workshops with thirty refugee beneficiaries of an integration service in Scotland and twenty practitioners to shed light on how refugees and practitioners perceive and provide meaning to the work of the refugee sector. We identify refugee sector organisations as crucial nodes in refugees' social networks and explore the multiple roles they play in the integration process. Firstly, we confirm that refugee organisations act as connectors, linking refugees with wider networks of support. Secondly, we demonstrate that the work of the refugee sector involves acts of care that are of intrinsic value to refugees, over and above the achievement of tangible integration outcomes. Finally, we demonstrate that this care also involves acts that seek to overcome and subvert statutory system barriers. We propose to understand these acts as forms of "practice-based resistance" necessitated by a hostile policy environment. The findings expand on understandings of the refugee sector, its role in integration and the multi-faceted nature of integration processes

Business · Meaning (existential · Political science · Public relations · Refugee · Resistance (ecology · Service (business · Sociology · Statutory law · Welfare · Law · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Marketing