Becoming Part of Welfare Scandinavia: Integration through the Spatial Dispersal of Newly Arrived Refugees in Denmark

Abstract

This article examines refugee experiences of the Danish mandatory spatial dispersal policy, which requires that individuals and families agree to live for three years in an assigned community when accepted as refugees. The policy is based on the assumption that immersion in ethnically Danish local communities will facilitate integration. Ethnographic field research carried out in two rural municipalities shows, however, that trusted relatives or co-ethnics already settled in the country can have a considerable integrative effect because they act as mediators between newly arrived refugees and Danish welfare society. They thus introduce refugees to local cultural values and everyday routines and demonstrate how to navigate them. This is particularly important in a country where, on the one hand, the welfare state and its professional workers tend to intervene deeply into the domestic sphere of its citizens, and, on the other, cultural homogeneity is emphasised and viewed as closely related to equality. Not being surrounded by a network of kinsmen nor having the opportunity to form new family-like relations with co-ethnics within one's local surroundings can therefore seriously affect the ability of refugee families to establish a new life in Danish society.