From Integration Policies to Belonging: Local Integration Workers’ Boundary Construction Concerning Immigrants in Rural Areas

Abstract

The concept of integration implies an imbalance between people, where immigrants are those who are obligated to integrate into the society of a new country. Thus, I suggest that alongside of integration, the focus should be the process of belonging and to how different local actors participate in the belonging process. In this study, I examine how people who try to promote immigrants’ integration, namely local migration coordinators, project employees and volunteers, create immigrants’ belonging in rural Finland. The data consist of fourteen semi-structured interviews. My research questions are (1) What symbolic boundaries do local integration workers construct when they speak about immigrants and their integration? and (2) What kind of belonging do they (re)produce for immigrants through these boundaries? I argue that local integration workers establish a notion of belonging that follows the official, national integration policy on language, employment, active membership, and individual immigrants’ adaptation. However, they simultaneously expand the boundaries of belonging by highlighting the responsibility of the local community in the process, and by emphasising immigrants’ personal desires, individuality and experiences of a sense of being at home.