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The Integration of Migrants and Refugees: CULTURAL INTEGRATION | Ruth Wodak. 2016

Recording during the EUI Forum on Migration, Citizenship and Demography, Conference on the Integration of Migrants and Refugees, 29 September 2016

Key issues:
• Immigrant languages in public services
• Accommodation of religious diversity and its limits
• Transformation of national identities through immigrant integration

For native populations, cultural matters are often at the core of what they understand as immigrant integration. European democracies that have received immigrants for a long time have at least officially abandoned the idea that immigrants whose cultural and religious background is distant to native traditions cannot belong and successfully integrate. Official cultural integration requirements have been reduced to learning a new language, becoming familiar with informal social norms and embracing the values officially supported by a country’s institutions. This is still not the case in the more recently democratized member states with little experience of non-European immigration where ethnic nationalism is often articulated also in public policy reactions to the current refugee inflows. Even civic models of cultural integration can, however, become obstacles for integration when specific immigrant groups are targeted because they are regarded as more foreign than others. Since most of the new arrivals hail from predominantly Muslim countries, the response to the current massive inflows is strongly shaped by a widely perceived failure to integrate previous waves of Muslim background immigrants and by the recent escalation of terrorist attacks in Europe. There are a number of issues that arise regarding cultural integration of the current immigrant populations.
 

First, what should traditionally non-immigrant societies do to increase their cultural openness towards integration? Second, what challenges for immigration arise from the ‘collective’ nature of current immigration – from the fact that immigrants are arriving and (probably) being resettled as groups rather than individuals? How should this reflect on ‘traditional’ cultural integration mechanisms, such as language teaching? Taking into account the size and collective nature of the new immigration, should one try to avoid the concentration of specific communities in urban settings where they have the capacity to reproduce much of their everyday culture of origin? Or should one rather regard these immigrant enclaves as sources of social capital for newcomers that can smooth the integration process? 

Third, in addition to targeting individuals with language courses or civic integration programs, will the size and cohesiveness of newly arriving groups necessitate integration approaches that build on cooperation with group representatives and intensive community work in order to avoid the formation of new immigrant “ghettos”? 

Fourth, how will the public culture and institutions of the host society change and how can public opinion about the current wave of immigration be made to work in favor of integration, having in mind the reasonable security concerns which arise from events such as terrorist attacks and widespread fears about rising unemployment and economic decline?