{"id":7029,"date":"2021-05-25T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nccr-onthemove.ch\/blog\/?p=7029"},"modified":"2025-03-09T20:16:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T19:16:17","slug":"the-importance-of-informal-interactions-in-uk-syrian-refugee-resettlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccr-onthemove.ch\/blog\/the-importance-of-informal-interactions-in-uk-syrian-refugee-resettlement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Informal Interactions in the UK Syrian Refugee Resettlement"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Syrian refugees in the UK have differing experiences of the Syrian Vulnerable Person\u2019s Resettlement Scheme (SVPRS), depending on the locality of placement. As one participant to research on community integration put it, \u2018<\/em>Other Syrian people feel more comfortable, more confident, they\u2019re living a different life.\u2019<\/em> Contrasting his experience with that in other localities points to the importance of informal interactions, or social infrastructures in the scheme\u2019s governance and refugees\u2019 lives. <\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The UK\u2019s Syrian Vulnerable Person\u2019s Resettlement Scheme (SPVRS) exemplifies an increasingly restrictionist top-down trend observed in Western Europe\u2019s refugee regime and an enduring liberal British bottom-up approach to migrant incorporation. In combination, refugees\u2019 experience of and hope for \u2018community integration\u2019 were down to luck of a locality draw; whether the locality in which they had been placed without choice, had \u2018informal social infrastructures.\u2019 Such were the findings from a qualitative \u2018community integration needs assessment\u2019 carried out in 2018 for an English administrative region or \u2018County\u2019 participating in the scheme (Blunt, 2018). This research points less to the need for more top-down or formal elements, but the importance of bottom-up informal ones to reverse the trend and provide positive experiences of resettlement.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Governance<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u2018Settlement\u2019 has been associated with top-down social engineering (Castles et al., 2002) and the UK\u2019s SVPRS would appear to support that for its measured acceptance of 20,000 refugees over a 5-year period.\u00a0 Localities volunteer to resettle small groups of refugees and the availability of low-cost housing is a significant factor despite national guidance regarding the importance of existing relevant support services (Hough, 2018). \u00a0\u00a0Refugees have no choice as to their resettlement locality and where the SVPRS funds \u2018Local Providers\u2019 (usually voluntary sector organizations) to provide casework support, \u00a0tapered over 5 years, to retain this support, refugees must remain in the locality. The County\u2019s scheme coordinator told me, \u2018it\u2019s probably the most segregationist project that the Government has ever made because there is no choice for the refugee.\u2019 At the same time, the scheme\u2019s approach to social or \u2018community integration\u2019 was described as \u2018bottom-up\u2019, \u2018community-led\u2019 as opposed to a centralized corporate model, reflecting a historic British liberal-utilitarian conception of individual-state relations for social order (Favell, 1998).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Differing Realities of Resettlement <\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The research found that refugees\u2019 experience of the SVPRS depended primarily on the locality in which they had been placed. In 2018, over 300 refugees (of whom 138 were adults) had been resettled in this English administrative region and focus groups included 52 men and 42 women across the 7 localities in which they had been placed with their families. Evaluations of up to 2 years of experience of resettlement ranged from positive to extremely negative: \u2018like zero. Is there anything less than zero?\u2019, \u2018We could stay here for 100 years and they [the locality] would still not want us \u2026\u2019 <\/em>It depended largely on the locality, as one man remarked, \u2018Other Syrian people feel more comfortable, more confident, they\u2019re living a different life.<\/em>\u2019 In some localities, refugees found themselves with welcoming places to go, visitors and things to do.\u00a0 In others, domestic existence was dominant, leading to a participant\u2019s exasperation: \u2018<\/em>Integration is about more than having a house!\u2019<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Informal Social Infrastructures<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A banal observation of the socio-geographical uniqueness of each locality could be offset by noticing similarities and\/or differences in terms of social, cultural, political, economic features and capacities. These I came to call \u2018informal social infrastructures\u2019 and accordingly, the seven localities could be distinguished as three high-resourced localities and four low-resourced localities.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

These high-resourced localities included: a settled minority ethnic and religious population (e.g. 20%); active voluntary and faith sector organizations (VFSO); a resident population available and inclined to voluntary community activity; private and public institutions (libraries, education, sports clubs) taking on community-building and a leading role in tackling marginalization; a local authority vocal in support of refugees and expressing pride in SVPRS participation; and SVPRS casework outsourced to a VFSO with extensive experience in and familiarity with global and migration issues.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The low-resourced localities included: few active VFSOs and none with a specific migrant\/refugee focused remit; a low presence of ethnic and religious minorities (less than 2%); local authority disinclined to attract attention to their participation in the SVPRS; casework taken on by personnel\/ VFSO with no experience of working with refugees, ethnic or religious minorities.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Reflective Conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The SVPRS was formally dependent upon informal bottom-up capacity. For refugees in high-resource localities, this meant a quality of sociality productive of a sense of existence as well as a viable and possible life. Their absence in low-resource localities led to observations of being uncared for or that despite legal security, \u2018life\u2019 was absent.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The findings of this study are lent additional poignancy considering top-down COVID-19 restrictions on informal interactions for all. As Boccagni (2020) remarked, \u2018Stay home\u2019 has perhaps meant little day-to-day change for some migrants for whom \u2018forced domesticity\u2019 has been the norm. With the \u2018democratized\u2019 experience of this social deprivation over the last year, perhaps policymakers and individuals will become astute to the importance of informal social interactions. Whilst they cannot be prescribed, top-down, they can be revalued and proactively supported.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Caroline Blunt<\/a> is an independent researcher and Affiliate Member of the Migration, Diaspora and Exile (MIDEX<\/a>) research Centre at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). The research from which this blog and article stem was carried out whilst Caroline was a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), commissioned and funded by an English County Council. <\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

References:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u2013 Blunt, C. (2018b). Community Integration Assessment. Story of, Window on, Tool Kit for Community Integration<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>October 2018. University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). Executive Summary.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u2013 Blunt, C. (2021). \u2018Are we an experiment?\u2019 Informality as indispensable for Syrians\u2019 resettlement in the UK<\/a>, Migration Letters<\/em> 18 (2), 215-228.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u2013 Boccagni, P. (2020). #StayHome, forced domesticity, the kids playing in my condominium garden, and some unsettling parallels between insider and outsiders<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u2013 Castles, S., Korac, M., Vasta, E. and Vertovec, S. (2001). Integration: Mapping the Field<\/em><\/a>. Centre for Migration and Policy Research and Refugee Studies Centre for the Home Office.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u2013 Favell, A. (1998). Philosophies of integration: immigration and the idea of citizenship in France and Britain<\/em>. Second Edition. Basingstoke: Macmillan in association with Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

– Hough, C. (2018) T<\/a>he UK Government\u2019s Approach to Evaluating the Vulnerable Person\u2019s and Vulnerable Children\u2019s Resettlement Schemes<\/a>. <\/em>Home Office Research Report 106.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Syrian refugees in the UK have differing experiences of the Syrian Vulnerable Person\u2019s Resettlement Scheme (SVPRS), depending on the locality of placement. As one participant to research on community integration put it, \u2018Other Syrian people feel more comfortable, more confident, they\u2019re living a different life.\u2019 Contrasting his experience with that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":6875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[930,212,220,226,633],"coauthors":[931],"class_list":["post-7029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobility-informality","tag-asylum-and-refugees","tag-civil-society","tag-exclusion","tag-integration","tag-policy-and-research"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t