Abstract
The economic integration of migrants has become increasingly prioritised by European governments. However, Europe’s colonial past and orientalist narratives have contributed to the inevitable othering of migrants, even in the minds of those with the best of intentions. Guided by the self-categorisation theory, we postulate that those involved in supporting migrants to integrate in European societies implicitly categorise them as an out-group, potentially leading to suboptimal integration outcomes and the (inadvertent) exclusion of the very migrants they attempt to integrate. A case study of migrant entrepreneurship support initiatives in Berlin is illustrated as a qualitative, empirical example, providing some evidence for those arguments. The paper concludes with recommendations for practitioners and suggestions for further research.
Highlights
The question of why people help people has invoked a myriad of investigations into the nature of the motivations that lead to prosocial behaviour [1,2,3]
This paper deals with this perspective in the case of migrant integration, with a closer look on recently rehomed entrepreneurs
This paper suggests the presence of European versus migrant categorisation within the European context, fuelled by the continent’s centuries-long colonial history, orientalist ideologies, and growing anti-Muslim sentiment as a result of the most recent refugee crisis [23,25], leading to a rise in populist political and media narratives [108,109,110]
Summary
The question of why people help people has invoked a myriad of investigations into the nature of the motivations that lead to prosocial behaviour [1,2,3]. Operating under the assumption that those involved in the organisation and leadership of initiatives aimed to support migrants are likely “good-intentioned” and do not necessarily consciously discriminate against or look down upon them [26,27,28,29], we focus on the examination of potential subconscious biases on their part These biases are assumed to be a result of migrant othering and group perceptions, which impacts the nature, priorities, and outcomes of migrant integration strategies, in this case those focusing on migrant entrepreneurship. Out-groups could be viewed as having more similarities than differences, which leads to less differentiated behaviours, strategies, and approaches that lack nuance and personalisation when dealing with out-groups, further contributing to biased behaviour and discrimination
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