Abstract
This article explores the notion of arrival spaces in the recent urban studies literature, and it outlines three emerging perspectives on their role and the associated processes and complexities. Recently, within changing migratory trajectories, the dimension of arrival has gained increasing relevance, and scholars have discussed the growing complexity underpinning it. Within this framework, some contributions reflect on the role of arrival spaces, which currently represent a rapidly changing research subject. However, by the term ‘arrival space,’ authors refer to various types of space, and the article argues that a clearer reference to the spatial dimension of arrival is needed. Spaces are contexts where different actors interact and intervene in the city, and their understanding represents a preliminary step for future research. In this sense, this contribution aims to unpack the previous decade’s debate on arrival spaces. It outlines three main perspectives: The first discusses the role of trans-local contexts, working as nodes in international migration networks; the second follows the debate on arrival neighborhoods; the third suggests that arrival spaces may be defined as all those parts of the urban fabric with which newcomers interact at the moment of arrival. Finally, drawing from this review, the article underlines that arrival spaces are not only specialized areas with migrant newcomers’ concentration, but they may also be ordinary urban spaces that temporarily work for arrival. Hence, future research should further deepen this perspective and more explicitly investigate the relation of arrival spaces to the city and its actors.
Highlights
Since the beginning of this century, migration and urban studies research have highlighted the changing nature of migration processes by stressing their diverse geographical patterns (Black, Engbersen, Okólski, & Panţîru, 2010) and the multiple temporalities (Collins, 2017) and subjectivities (Khosravi, 2010) of migrants
Building on the work on temporary migration (Collins, 2011, 2017; Vosko, Preston, & Latham, 2014), scholars have recently begun to focus on the part of the arrival process that is not oriented toward a permanent settlement per se, but rather toward further transit
Within the debate on arrival, many contributions have discussed the role of spaces, and arrival spaces are described as the parts of the urban fabric that play a crucial role for migrants during the arrival process
Summary
Since the beginning of this century, migration and urban studies research have highlighted the changing nature of migration processes by stressing their diverse geographical patterns (Black, Engbersen, Okólski, & Panţîru, 2010) and the multiple temporalities (Collins, 2017) and subjectivities (Khosravi, 2010) of migrants. Urban studies research is taken as the main framework; the work builds on relevant contributions in the field of migration studies, which significantly contributes to the debate, especially since the ‘local’ and ‘spatial turn’ (Glick Schiller & Çağlar, 2015; Scholten, 2014) With this focus, the article highlights three perspectives on arrival spaces and their features. Only with specialized urban areas and introduces the notion of more diversified ‘arrival infrastructures’ (Meeus et al, 2018)
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