Panel: Specifics of refugee reception in non-metropolitan areas and consequences for theory development

Abstract

For a long time, research on migrant and refugee arrival focused on metropolitan areas, analyzing migration-related phenomena such as ethnic segregation, diversity management, or super-diversity – all those phenomena, that need a significant share of immigrants to emerge. However, during the last years, research on small towns and rural regions as arrival spaces has come to the fore, and it was strongly pushed by forced migration research. This is because it is primarily refugees and asylum seekers who are settled in small towns and rural regions based on national or regional distribution keys, while voluntary migrants continue to head primarily for the large urban regions. Refugee reception challenges non-metropolitan communities, which are rarely experienced in diversity management and might have a rather static population structure with conservative worldviews. But in the absence of differentiated professional infrastructures, there might also be room for social innovation in reception governance, which could positively influence other fields of local governance and community development.

The goal of this session is to critically reflect on established theoretical approaches in the field of (forced) migration, integration, and community development can catch and explain those processes in non-metropolitan areas, or if we need to expand our conceptual or disciplinary perspectives. Papers can either take a conceptual focus, present new empirical evidence, or discuss innovative approaches to reception governance in non-metropolitan areas throughout the world.

in-person or hybrid will be announced