Migrants In Belgium Research Articles

Minority, collectivity, and the short story cycle. Identity and difference in Chika Unigwe’s Better Never Than Late

This essay expands the politics of minor literature that, in the influential work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, rests on the identification between the individual and the collective, by drawing on the affordances of the genre of the short story cycle. While highlighting the relational dynamics between the minor and the major that underlies Deleuze and Guattari's account, I show how a focus on genre offers the critical tools to articulate the enclosure of community with the pluralities of subjective belonging. The short story (cycle) has often been considered to have close affinities with minor literature due to its fairly low reputation, its interest in marginal characters, and its typical narratives of community. The essay complicates this equation through a discussion of Chika Unigwe’s Better Never Than Late (2019), a series of interconnected stories illuminating the shared struggles of a group of Nigerian migrants in Belgium. While the cycle as a whole conveys a sense of belonging in which linguistic difference provides the very ground of group formation, the individual stories reveal the gaps within the collective and illustrate the ways in which identity and migration are affected by divergent intersectional subject positions marked by class and gender. By examining how political and aesthetic concerns go hand in hand in Unigwe’s short story cycle, the essay argues that minorities’ political struggles for emancipation do not necessarily require internal cohesion, but can also be enhanced through social diversification and multiple literary practices that shift with new contexts of linguistic production and global circulation.

Turkish Newcomers’ Experience of the Belgian Labour Market: A Qualitative Study

This study explored the integration process of Turkish-speaking migrants in Belgium from a phenomenological perspective. In collaboration with Antwerp’s ATLAS integration hub, we conducted six focus groups comprising 59 Turkish-speaking newcomers with diverse religious, national, and regional backgrounds to examine Turkish integration in Belgium. Participants told their stories and deconstructed their knowledge of the local people, particularly the cultural distinctive subjective beliefs and prejudices. Focus group members discussed their expectations, problem, ambitions, and cultural differences in Belgium’s multicultural society. Group composition was designed to be informal and diverse and promote peer support. Each group included some participants who were socially integrated, employed, and fluent in an official language. Although qualitative analysis revealed factors limit Turkish-speaking migrants’ opportunities in the labour market, group exchanges yielded solutions for building social capital and bridging differences, highlighting the importance of open-minded migrant integration course organisers and a kind and empathetic approach to the process.

Food hospitality and the negotiation of subjectivities through meals in the context of migration: case studies from Belgium

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the ways in which food enables undocumented migrants to find a place in the context of forced displacement, transit mobility and unstable settlement. The analysis is based on qualitative data collected within the framework of two research projects studying different forms of mobilization involving undocumented migrants in Belgium. In both fieldworks, hospitality dynamics were observed to develop through food. In one case, undocumented migrants hosted by Belgian citizens cooked meals to thank them for their hospitality as well as to eat something they like and to regain some power of action in their everyday life. In the other case, a group of undocumented migrant women living in a collective housing prepared “African food” for Belgian people to create spaces of intercultural encounter, to sensitize to the cause of undocumented people and to gain some money. Relying on the literature on food and hospitality crossed with migration (and gender) issues, and focusing on the relationship between hosts and guests, we aim at highlighting how migrants’ subjectivities and agency are negotiated through food practices in different hospitality situations involving undocumented migrants and local people.

Editorial: Transformative Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Higher Education

Welcome to this second issue of Transnational Education Review (TER) in 2023. In this editorial, we also would like to reflect on an emerging phenomenon: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its impact on higher education. We would like to invite colleagues to submit their research, commentaries, debates and viewpoints in coming issues to share views and shape the agenda regarding AI and the future of learning and teaching in higher education. In this second issue of Transnational Education Review (TER) in 2023, we have a set of interesting articles from around the world. In the opening article, Görsev Sönmez and Serkan Gürkan examine the perceptions of pre-service teachers regarding the refugee students in the education faculty of a private university in Istanbul, Turkey. Second paper by Emel Kiliç explores the socio-cultural integration of Turkish-speaking migrants in Belgium. As Emel explains migration can be a challenging but rewarding experience, in Belgium, integration courses are available to provide essential support for migrants so that they adapt to their new environment. In Betül Dilara Şeker and Ibrahim Sirkeci’s insightful article, they argue that language proficiency was the most critical variable in education and adaptation to the host culture, and their findings indicate the importance of schools in the acculturation and adaptation of the Syrian refugee students. We hope you will find these contributions useful. Finally, once again, we extend an open invitation to all researchers, practitioners and scholars to join us in this debate with their research, views, comments and reviews.

Social-integration courses serve as a bridging function for migrants by increasing peer support and life learning opportunities

Although migration and people’s encounters with other cultures are significant life events, factors that influence migrants’ relationships with host countries remain understudied. This study examined the socio-cultural integration of Turkish-speaking migrants in Belgium from their perspective, using a holistic approach for participants to share their stories. Fifty-nine Turkish-speaking migrants with different religious, national, and regional backgrounds who attended common classes in a (mixed) social integration course in Antwerp participated in the study. They were subdivided into six focus groups for interviews, which allowed participants to deconstruct their knowledge of local people, their subjective beliefs, and prejudices that separated them from other cultures. We found the focus-group interviews to be valuable interventions in the integration process. The study recommends that those who organise integration courses for migrants should approach this process with kindness, empathy, and an open mind.

Irregular migrants and work in Belgium: a case study

Abstract Although not allowed to work legally in Belgium, irregular migrants benefit from a range of rights, including a minimum wage, a limit on the number of hours they can work per week and access to health care. Alongside “traditional” sectors of irregular work (building, domestic staff, hotel and catering, cleaning), there are a growing number of irregular migrants employed as bicycle delivery riders. In order to benefit from access to healthcare, migrants must undergo a social investigation by the public authorities: this investigation assesses, among other things, whether the person has an income. This is a paradox: the migrant is entitled to the minimum wage but having an income may prevent him or her from receiving care as an irregular resident. During this presentation, we will explore the current situation facing irregular migrants in Belgium and the role of professional unions and health care professionals.

Post-migration journey: Asylum, trauma and resilience, different trajectories - A comparison of the mental health and post-migration living difficulties of documented and undocumented migrants in Belgium.

Research on the impact of post-migration experiences on the mental health of migrant populations has shown a predictive link between post-migration living difficulties and psychological distress. While many studies have focussed on refugees and asylum seekers, there is a considerable gap in the literature concerning undocumented migrants. The aim of this study was to assess the differences in mental health between documented and undocumented migrants in Belgium. It identified the post-migration difficulties encountered by these two groups and measured their impact on their levels of trauma, resilience, anxiety, depression and their assumptive world. This study involved 69 participants, aged 18 to 68 years, who were either documented or undocumented resident in Belgium. Our data collection included the Post-Migration Living Difficulties Checklist for the measurement of post-migration difficulties, the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist - DSM-V version for the measurement of trauma, the World Assumptions Questionnaire for the measurement of the assumptive world, the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 for the measurement of depressive and anxiety disorders and the Adult Resilience Measure - Revised for the measurement of resilience. Our analyses showed that the mental health of undocumented migrants was poorer than that of documented migrants, with higher levels of trauma, anxiety and depression, a more negative assumptive world, a lower sense of control and lower total and personal resilience. Our results also revealed that post-migration living difficulties were more severe and more numerous for undocumented migrants, and that they were associated to different themes in both groups. The fact that post-migration experience plays such an important role in the mental health of migrant populations raises significant clinical, political and societal considerations. Furthermore, it would appear that undocumented migrants represent a distinct migratory group with their own specificities in terms of migration journey and mental health.

CIRCULAR MIGRATION EXPERIENCES OF THE ELDERLY TURKISH MIGRANTS IN BELGIUM: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

The Turkish migrants in Belgium is one of the largest migrant population in Belgium and Europe. For the Turkish community in Belgium, maintaining social and emotional ties with the homeland is still of great importance, and their life in Belgium is not completely disconnected from Turkey. On the contrary, most of the Turkish population in Belgium, especially elderly Turkish migrants, have a circular migration dynamic in which they spend almost half of the year in Turkey and the rest of the time in the country of immigration. This circular migration dynamic has some social and economic benefits for the first and second generation Turkish migrants in Belgium, who are mostly in their aging process nowadays. Besides these benefits, experiencing to be an elderly circular migrant between Belgium and Turkey may also cause some challenges. This study aims to explore the experiences of elderly Turkish migrants regarding being circular migrants. Consistent with the purpose of the study, 14 elderly Turkish migrants, who have a circular migration dynamic between Belgium and Turkey, participated in the study. The qualitative interviews of the study were carried out in the Emirdağ district of the Afyon province of Turkey, where the Turkish population migrated to Belgium in the 1960s reside heavily. The findings of the study show that, despite some challenges encountered, circular migration occurs as an effective strategy for the elderly Turkish migrants in Emirdağ in terms of benefiting the resources of both countries in the aging process.

A capital theory approach to migrants' views and engagement with climate adaptation in the region of origin: A qualitative study in Belgium

AbstractCombining insights from migration and climate adaptation studies, this study examines how migrants living in Belgium contribute to climate adaptation in their region of origin, based on 29 qualitative interviews with migrants in Belgium. The findings varied considerably, depending on the region of origin, the main driver of migration and the possibility of returning. The results show that both the knowledge and capacity to contribute to climate adaptation in the region of origin depends on the forms and degrees of capital individuals have, both in the immigrant country and region of origin. Migrants with more cultural capital in the region of origin had more transnational bonding and bridging ties, resulting in more opportunities to contribute to the development of the region. However, as many of the interviewees originated from urban areas, their actions were oriented more towards waste, pollution and life domains other than climate adaptation. This contrasts with migrants with less formal cultural capital. Due to specific living conditions, they were more familiar with local climate impacts. Their transnational bonding social ties increased this knowledge and familiarity with the need for climate adaptation. Nevertheless, the high costs of integration into the immigrant society and a lack of cultural and economic capital limits this group's capacity to contribute to climate adaptation initiatives in the region of origin. Bringing the concept of ‘migrant capital’ into the study of climate adaptation fills a gap in the literature on environmental migration, and especially engages with discourses that frame migration as an adaptation strategy.

Are we really going to get out of COVID-19 together? Secured legal status and trust among refugees and migrants

Building up on pre-existing vulnerabilities and social exclusions, refugees and migrants are disproportionately suffering from the negative effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. Insecure legal status is an additional stressor that may accentuate social cleavages and ultimately impair their trust in host society and institutions. Based on a diverse sample of refugees and migrants in Belgium (N = 355), the present study investigates direct and indirect effects of legal status—measured as the type of residence permit held by participants—on social and political trust during the COVID-19 outbreak. Secured legal status was positively associated with social and political trust directly, and indirectly via a serial mediation composed by two cumulative stages. First, participants with a more secured legal status experienced less material difficulties to cope with the pandemic (i.e., first material stage). Second, participant who experienced less material difficulties identified more with the host society (i.e., second symbolic stage). In turn, reduced material difficulties and increased identification with the host society were both positively associated with social and political trust. Our findings advocate for securing legal status of refugees and migrants to help societies cope cohesively with the long-lasting effects of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Explanatory Models of (Mental) Health Among Sub-Saharan African Migrants in Belgium: A Qualitative Study of Healthcare Professionals' Perceptions and Practices.

Culturally differing approaches to the distinction between physical and mental health contribute to cultural differences in explanatory models of what we call "mental" health in a Western context. For this reason, we use "(mental) health" in this study when referring to these models or differences in understanding. This interpretative, interview-based qualitative study focuses on Belgian mental health professionals' perceptions of the (mental) health explanatory models held by their patients of sub-Saharan African (SSA) descent. The study goals were threefold: first, to assess professionals' perceptions of the explanatory models of their patients of SSA descent; second, to examine how these perceptions influence treatment practices; and third, to investigate the role of the professionals' cultural backgrounds, comparing the results between professionals with and without an SSA background. Twenty-two in-depth interviews with mental health professionals were thematically analyzed, with ten of the participants of SSA descent. Results show that all professionals perceived differences between Western and SSA explanatory models of (mental) health. Causal beliefs were mentioned as the most important difference, including their influence on coping strategies and health-seeking behavior among patients of SSA descent. Professionals' perceptions and familiarity with SSA explanatory models of (mental) health affected their treatment practices. Language and conceptual interpretation difficulties were encountered less frequently by professionals of SSA descent. Those with a Western background applied "culturally sensitive" practices, while professionals of SSA descent implemented an integrated approach. These results contribute to ongoing discussions about what is considered "cultural competency."

Walking the Tightrope: Populist Radical Right Parties’ Framing of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Migrants in Belgium and Switzerland

Walking the Tightrope: Populist Radical Right Parties’ Framing of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Migrants in Belgium and Switzerland

Compulsory Voting and Electoral Participation of Latin American Migrants in Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands

Compulsory Voting and Electoral Participation of Latin American Migrants in Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands

The role of environmental factors and other migration drivers from the perspective of Moroccan and Congolese migrants in Belgium

This manuscript describes findings from 53 interviews conducted with Moroccan and migrants from The Democratic Republique of the Congo living in Belgium, with an emphasis on discussing the extent to which environmental factors in the migrants’ home countries may or may not have influenced their migration decisions. A comparative approach clarifies and disentangles the relationship between natural environmental factors and other drivers of migration in two distinct contexts. Applying a comparative approach and having extensive biographical accounts of each interviewee’s migration trajectory and history enables us to understand how individual migration aspirations develop gradually and how the importance of environmental factors changes during different stages. Conceiving of migration as a multi-stage process, this study demonstrates how environmental factors are closely linked to other factors and play different roles during a migration trajectory.

Dual‐career Spanish couples in Europe: Work‐family balance in childcare

AbstractThe article explores the childcare arrangements made by Spanish migrants in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. The research is based on semi‐structured interviews conducted after an exploratory survey. The respondents, mostly women with university degrees, had engaged in intra‐European mobility between the economic recession of 2008 and the health crisis of 2020. In the narratives, women in dual‐career couples with young children reflect on how approaching work‐family balance depends on receiving social, institutional and family support. In addition, gender expectations affect negotiations around the sharing of roles and responsibilities in different‐sex couples. Interviewees underline that the gender divide persists or is even reinforced in relation to employment and technological change. Non‐standard and ‐flexible jobs, little access to services or incompatible teleworking with children at home reveal the fragility of care and welfare regimes and, consequently, the limited ability of couples to find satisfaction in the search for a work–family balance.

Novel highly-multiplexed AmpliSeq targeted assay for Plasmodium vivax genetic surveillance use cases at multiple geographical scales.

Although the power of genetic surveillance tools has been acknowledged widely, there is an urgent need in malaria endemic countries for feasible and cost-effective tools to implement in national malaria control programs (NMCPs) that can generate evidence to guide malaria control and elimination strategies, especially in the case of Plasmodium vivax. Several genetic surveillance applications (‘use cases’) have been identified to align research, technology development, and public health efforts, requiring different types of molecular markers. Here we present a new highly-multiplexed deep sequencing assay (Pv AmpliSeq). The assay targets the 33-SNP vivaxGEN-geo panel for country-level classification, and a newly designed 42-SNP within-country barcode for analysis of parasite dynamics in Vietnam and 11 putative drug resistance genes in a highly multiplexed NGS protocol with easy workflow, applicable for many different genetic surveillance use cases. The Pv AmpliSeq assay was validated using: 1) isolates from travelers and migrants in Belgium, and 2) routine collections of the national malaria control program at sentinel sites in Vietnam. The assay targets 229 amplicons and achieved a high depth of coverage (mean 595.7 ± 481) and high accuracy (mean error-rate of 0.013 ± 0.007). P. vivax parasites could be characterized from dried blood spots with a minimum of 5 parasites/µL and 10% of minority-clones. The assay achieved good spatial specificity for between-country prediction of origin using the 33-SNP vivaxGEN-geo panel that targets rare alleles specific for certain countries and regions. A high resolution for within-country diversity in Vietnam was achieved using the designed 42-SNP within-country barcode that targets common alleles (median MAF 0.34, range 0.01-0.49. Many variants were detected in (putative) drug resistance genes, with different predominant haplotypes in the pvmdr1 and pvcrt genes in different provinces in Vietnam. The capacity of the assay for high resolution identity-by-descent (IBD) analysis was demonstrated and identified a high rate of shared ancestry within Gia Lai Province in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, as well as between the coastal province of Binh Thuan and Lam Dong. Our approach performed well in geographically differentiating isolates at multiple spatial scales, detecting variants in putative resistance genes, and can be easily adjusted to suit the needs in other settings in a country or region. We prioritize making this tool available to researchers and NMCPs in endemic countries to increase ownership and ensure data usage for decision-making and malaria policy.

Beyond Derrida: Fragments of feminist hospitality in residents hosting illegalized migrants in Belgium

In the context of migration, hospitality is often analysed as a vertical power relation, in which hosts impose conditions and demands upon their guests. While acknowledging the drastically unequal structural power relations in which hospitality takes place, this article explores how these power relations can be mitigated and developed towards more reciprocal relationalities. To do so, it focuses on a specific form of hospitality: urban residents providing shelter to migrants who are illegalized by the state. Drawing on in-depth interviews with residents affiliated with the Brussels-based Citizens Platform for Support of Refugees, I argue that their discourses and practices of hospitality – while being limited and imperfect – constitute alternative spaces of inclusion and affirmation, circumventing the Belgian State’s exclusionary stance. Combining Derridian hospitality framework with the feminist ethics of care lens, the article casts inquiry into the complexity and ambivalence of hospitality practices, seeing them not only as sites of power struggle but also as potential microcosms of social transformation. First of all, it illustrates how the feminist lens allows us to see hospitality acts as subjective practices, enabling a positive relationality towards the other. Secondly, it deliberates the potential for reciprocal exchange and resident hosts’ strategies to resist the verticality of hospitality relationships. Finally, it challenges the notion of regarding such practices as naïve by showcasing these practices’ political dimension.

Sexualities and class in transnational family practices of LGB migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands

The present paper focuses on transnational families of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) migrants and addresses their peculiar absence in sociological and geographical perspectives across migrations, families and sexualities research. It draws from a study of middle-class LGB migrants who are married or raising children with a same-sex partner in Belgium and the Netherlands and their parents still residing in select Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries with constitutional protection of heterosexual marriage. The goal of the study is to examine how intersections of class and sexualities shape CEE LGB migrants’ trajectories and transnational family practices. The analysis is based on one life story, situated in a comparative framework. The present study approaches the middle-class experiences and non-normative sexualities of CEE migrants as continuously reappearing and disappearing privileges and disadvantages. From this viewpoint, the study highlights class advantages as consistently alleviating the disadvantages of non-normative sexualities, but also simultaneously bringing both further restrictions and additional benefits to the married CEE LGB migrants, particularly those with children. These restrictions are best reflected in the limits to further mobilities that stem from the risk of losing extensive legal protection of same-sex partnership and parenting. The benefits further extending class advantages are identifiable in the intensification of transnational family practices following planned same-sex parenthood. These not only transform and strengthen the intimacies of CEE LGB migrants with their families-of-origin, but they also contribute to shifting assumptions of ‘normal’ familyhood, particularly in relation to technology-assisted reproduction, social parenthood and the nurturer roles.

In the interest of family: An investigation of the home-making and social anchors of young migrants in Belgium

Cet article étudie la création d’un sens du “chez soi” par le biais de la parenté volontaire et de l’ancrage social. Plus précisément, il explore comment les jeunes migrants de première génération et de génération 1.5 créent des liens de parenté et des espaces d'appartenance dans la ville de Bruxelles, en utilisant les données d’entretiens ethnographiques. Les résultats montrent que si la stabilité et la sécu­rité sont des facteurs clés du sens du chez soi, et qu’elles peuvent être offertes, dans une certaine mesure, par un statut migratoire sûr, il existe de nombreux éléments du chez soi et de la parenté que le statut migratoire ne peut fournir. Les expériences de vide et d’isolement peuvent être très fortes, même pour ceux qui ont la nationalité belge et ont vécu dans le pays pendant la majeure partie de leur vie. En même temps, ceux qui ont migré récemment et sont dans une situation plus précaire en termes de statut migratoire dans le pays, comme les sans-papiers, se sentent parfois ancrés en Belgique et souhaitent y rester même sans la présence de parents biologiques. En outre, les relations autres que la parenté biologique et légale peuvent être tout aussi, voire plus, importantes dans la construction du chez soi des participants. Les enfants et les jeunes peuvent préférer la proximité de parents volontaires qui sont devenus des points d’ancrage sociaux, plutôt que la proximité de leurs parents biologiques ou légaux. Les éléments structurels de la politique et des lois peuvent toutefois ne pas leur permettre ce choix.

Writing an(Other) Europe: Challenging peripheries in Chika Unigwe’s fiction on Belgium

ABSTRACT Nigerian-born author Chika Unigwe situates a substantial part of her oeuvre in contemporary, multicultural Belgium, a location rarely explored in postcolonial literatures despite its colonial history and sizable migrant communities. This article demonstrates how, in her short fiction and her novels The Phoenix (2007) and On Black Sisters’ Street (2009), Unigwe’s literary portraits of the country, based on the perceptions and experiences of Nigerian migrants living there, challenge traditional centre/periphery dichotomies. Her characters, who are mainly young Nigerian women, move across boundaries between Africa and Europe, the big city and the provincial town, the city centre and the suburbs, the touristic historic centre and the red-light district, their mobilities characteristic of contemporary globalized societies. The fictions are analysed to highlight the equivocality of centres and peripheries and the permeability of the borders that separate them, as well as the resilient mobility of Nigerian migrants in Belgium.