Similar History and Different Strategies of ‘Arrival’: Female Yazidi Survivors of the Islamic State in Germany

Abstract

Border crossing migration always includes (re-)negotiation of world views, home and the meaning of arrival. This negotiation of arrival takes place within the broader societal contexts of the countries of origin and of arrival but is also a mediation with oneself and with social networks. This holds true especially for refugees and émigrés who have to leave their habitual places of living involuntarily. This paper examines the lives of Yazidi women, who survived captivity and sexual enslavement by the self-declared Islamic State and subsequently decided to resettle from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to Germany. First, the study addresses the complex processes of managing and re-establishing social belongings with a sociological concept of arrival and outlines some lessons from historical forced migration research. It then presents the findings and analysis of five face-to-face narrative interviews with Yazidi survivors. What similarities and differences exist between these individuals and historical cases of forced migrants and their arrival? Are there different patterns of coping with their individual and collective experiences and of developing new life projects? Our findings show how Yazidi émigrés continue to experience and negotiate the complexities of migration between weak and strong belonging to social spaces of origin and of arrival.

The Art of Arriving: A New Methodological Approach to Reframing “Refugee Integration”

“…Arrival also deals with cognitive frames and negotiated belongings as group constructions of 'us' and 'them.' (Masadeh & Pries, 2021;p. 4) Hence, arrival goes beyond just landing somewhere, it is also about getting recognized and heard-in German Anklang finden (Pries, 2016, p. 131).…”

“…In order to simultaneously take the refugees’ experiences seriously and avoid reproducing the normatively charged understanding of integration, Ludger Pries introduces the concept of arrival into the sociological discussion on (forced) migration (Masadeh & Pries, 2021; Pries, 2018). He conceives it as an open-ended and interactive process, which is characterized by reciprocity between those who arrive (newcomers) and those who already live there (established) (Pries, 2018, p. 150).…”

“…Arrival refers to the individual’s ability to navigate their way to socio-cultural and physical resources. Arrival also deals with cognitive frames and negotiated belongings as group constructions of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ (Masadeh & Pries, 2021; p. 4)…”