Biographies and the doubleness of inclusion and exclusion

Abstract

Integration is often considered to be comprised of different dimensions which can influence each other in a linear fashion. For instance, if one becomes more proficient in the host country's language, one's labor market participation should also increase. In the Netherlands, this assumption has led to a plethora of policies (like mandatory integration courses) having targeted especially 'Muslim' women of Moroccan and Turkish descent, who are perceived as most isolated in society. Obliging them to learn Dutch was believed to increase their economic integration and their sense of home, the latter being considered pivotal for overall successful integration. However, the question is whether dimensions of integration really influence each other in this linear fashionunder all circumstances. With the help of biographical research conducted with first-and second-generation women of Moroccan and Turkish descent in the Netherlands and focusing on both linguistic and economic integration and their effects on sense of belonging, this study shows that mastering the new language and increasing labor market participation can actually have paradoxical non-linear, even curvilinear effects, leading to a decrease in sense of belonging. We try to capture this paradoxical phenomenon with the term doubleness of inclusion and exclusion.

Identification Paradoxes and Multiple Belongings: The Narratives of Italian Migrants in the Netherlands

“…There are many similarities in the paradoxes (of language and socioeconomic integration) present in the narratives of this research with those found in other studies on various generations of migrants and refugees with Islamic backgrounds (e.g., Eijberts & Ghorashi, 2016). We hope, with the results of this study, to weaken the "culturalist" foundation of the present discourse on integration.…”

“…For the second-wave migrants, we found that those who had succeeded in learning fluent Dutch, who worked, and could be considered successfully integrated, as defined by Esser's (2003) first three dimensions of integration, indicated that they felt neither Dutch nor at home in the Netherlands. Knowledge of the Dutch language and active participation in the workforce led to exposure to the exclusionary aspects of not being Dutch, which had a negative impact on their sense of belonging (see also Eijberts & Ghorashi, 2016).…”

Home experiences and homemaking practices of single Syrian refugees in an innovative housing project in Amsterdam

“…Home captures both material and immaterial aspects. The material aspects are associated with physical, tangible and visible elements such as furniture and food (Buitelaar and Stock, 2010; Duruz, 2010), whereas the immaterial aspects are associated with intangible, emotional and social elements such as language and culture (Eijberts and Ghorashi, 2016; Kusenbach and Paulsen, 2013: 8–9). Elements of home also include material (object-centred) and immaterial (people- or relational-centred) characteristics, and all of these elements help make up the functions of one’s home.…”

Conviviality and parallax in David Olusoga’sBlack and British: A Forgotten History

“…That is, while civic integration is predicated on ‘inclusion’ through ‘respecting diversity’ it can also exclude by ‘problematising integration deficits’ (Duemmler, 2015: 393). Similarly, Eijberts and Ghorashi (2017) highlight how ‘integration strategies might have both positive and paradoxically negative effects at the same time, by heightening a sense of inclusion and exclusion, belonging and non-belonging’ (p. 165).…”