WholeCOMM: Exploring the Integration of Post-2014 Migrants in Small and Medium-Sized Towns and Rural Areas from a Whole of Community Perspective

In the context of the ‘European migration and refugee crisis’, between 2014 and 2015 SMsTRA in Europe have been confronted with increasing arrivals of migrants from areas of political and humanitarian crisis either spontaneously or through the operating of national redistribution policies. In this context, local communities which had been only marginally (if at all) affected by the settlement of migrants seeking asylum, are being confronted with new challenges, often adding to already complex situations characterised by austerity policies, diminishing social cohesion and political polarization. Understanding what shapes, affects or enables the integration of post-2014 migrants in SMsTRA is more crucial than ever if policies are, in the spirit of the Urban Agenda for the EU, ‘to manage integration of incoming migrants (extra-EU) and to provide a framework for their inclusion based on willingness and integration capacity of local communities’ (Pact of Amsterdam, iii)

Whole-COMM proposes an innovative whole-of-community (WoC) approach to the analysis of the integration of post-2014 migrants in small and medium-sized towns and rural areas (SMsTRA).

Building upon and reaching beyond definitions of immigrant integration as a two- or three-way process the WoC perspective conceives of integration as a process of community-making:

• that takes place in specific local contexts characterised by distinct configurations of structural factors in terms of i) local economy and the labour market, ii) demographic composition and trends, and iii) levels of socio-cultural diversity and historical relations with migrant-related groups;

• that is brought about by the interactions of the multiple actors – individuals, organisations, institutions and/or corporate entities – that shape the local community with their multilevel and multi-situated relations, networks, interests and resources;

• whose outcomes are open-ended and can result in either more cohesive or more fragmented social relations.