Inside the Black Box
Tracing Interactions Between Stratified Reintegration Trajectories and Street‐Level Implementation of Reintegration Assistance
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9952653 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ruth Vollmer (0009-0002-9386-4379, BICC (Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies) Bonn Germany, corresponding author), Clara Schmitz‐Pranghe (0009-0009-9381-2991, BICC (Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies) Bonn Germany) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Publication date | 2025-07-02 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Migration (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7985 • E-ISSN: 1468-2435 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/imig.70061 |
| OpenAlex | W4411961261 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 29 |
This article analyses the interactions between inequalities and reintegration assistance, looking at the examples of Serbia and Kosovo. It proposes an approach for examining the reintegration assistance practices of frontline providers by (a) viewing them through the lens of street‐level bureaucracy acting mainly on behalf of the returning state and (b) as locally situated agents within the networks of their own distributive relations and embodying their own social positioning. Street‐level implementers play an active role in shaping outreach, effectiveness, and sustainability of reintegration assistance, not always in the intended ways. This article traces their navigation of institutional, organisational, and relational contexts, internalised social norms, and perceptions of social divisions, as well as the micro‐dynamics of asymmetrical interactions during service delivery. It finds that strategies applied by street‐level assistance providers have ambivalent but rather minor effects on pre‐existing inequalities. Even though they often naturalise prevalent social divisions, the interactions and allocation of assistance are determined more by their practical experiences, availability and type of support, as well as general programme design and working conditions. The inability to bridge the mismatch between available support and needs can even endorse inequality‐normalising perceptions
Black box · Geography · Meteorology · Political science · Sociology · Stratified flow · Stratified flows · Tracing · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Homelessness and Social Issues · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare
Street-Level Bureaucracy
Recontextualizing street‐level bureaucracy in the developing world
Street‐level bureaucrats in a relational state
Informality in the Western Balkans
Handbook of Return Migration
Street-level bureaucracy in weak state institutions
Assisted “voluntary” return of women to Kosovo
Informality, Inequality and Social Reintegration in Post-War Transition
Conceptualising the Role of Deservingness in Migrants’ Access to Social Services
A Comparative Welfare Regime Approach to Global Social Policy
A qualitative study into the reintegration of vulnerable migrant children and families after return to Kosovo
Hegemonic Relationships
The Usefulness of Reintegration Support
Contextualizing and conceptualizing reintegration processes in the context of return
Translating EUrope’s Return Migration Regime to The Gambia
On the Frontline of Global Inequalities
The Political Context in Everyday Social Work Practice
The Geopolitics of Return Migration in the International System
The Concept of 'Social Division' and Theorising Social Stratification
| Highly cited | No |
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