This article examines refugee experiences of the Danish mandatory spatial dispersal policy, which requires that individuals and families agree to live for three years in an assigned community when accepted as refugees. The policy is based on the assumption that immersion in ethnically Danish local communities will facilitate integration. Ethnographic field research carried out in two rural municipalities shows, however, that trusted relatives or co-ethnics already settled in the country can have a considerable integrative effect because they act as mediators between newly arrived refugees and Danish welfare society. They thus introduce refugees to local cultural values and everyday routines and demonstrate how to navigate them. This is particularly important in a country where, on the one hand, the welfare state and its professional workers tend to intervene deeply into the domestic sphere of its citizens, and, on the other, cultural homogeneity is emphasised and viewed as closely related to equality. Not being surrounded by a network of kinsmen nor having the opportunity to form new family-like relations with co-ethnics within one's local surroundings can therefore seriously affect the ability of refugee families to establish a new life in Danish society.
This article examines negotiations over social inclusion and exclusion that take place during everyday settlement processes among refugee families located in rural areas in Denmark. Using the case study of a Congolese household, the article shows how local codes of sociability are often concretized and materialized in domestic space in ways that turn the home sphere, with its daily routines and material culture, into a domain of vital importance for the social incorporation of refugee newcomers. This domestic domain is of particular significance in a country where, on the one hand, the integration programs of the welfare state are highly regulatory and tend to intervene deeply in refugees' private spheres and, on the other, cultural homogeneity is emphasized and regarded as closely related to equality.
This article explores the everyday experiences of resettlement among newly recognised refugee parents living in rural Denmark. Comparing two ethnographic case stories, it enquires into the ways in which the parents try to create a sense of belonging and pursue life coherence and a positive outlook on the future within the everyday sociocultural framework of the Danish welfare state. It is argued that they mostly comprehend and carry out their strivings for a better future by means of a narratively grounded, intergenerational rationale. This rationale invites them to assess the success of the family's entire act of migration in terms of what the future promises for their children. This article thus illuminates and crystallises how among newly recognised refugee families, mundane intergenerational dynamics form a crucial relational and temporal factor with regard to the parents' building of existential well-being, societal trust and aspirations for 'integration' into the Danish welfare society.
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