Is integration as straightforward as institutions like to perceive it?

Terrorist attacks have been stirring public debates within Western Europe for the past months. The attack in Paris in November 2015 and the recent attacks in Brussels in March 2016, both claimed responsibility for by Islamic State, have left Europe in mourning and gave rise to discourses on national security. As a result, security measures throughout Western Europe have been intensified, also in The Netherlands. During lunch time at work it became clear that the attacks created a general feeling of fear. Fear of these same things happening in The Netherlands and uncertainty with regards to a peaceful future.  

These attacks also offer room for new critiques on the floods of refugees that have been entering Europe the past years. The refugee crisis is often blamed for the increase in terrorism, as media suggest that Islamic State sends their terrorists to Europe, disguised as refugees. The attacks also lead to the public debate refocussing on integration, questioning how to deal with the high influx of immigrants and how to ensure they integrate into Dutch society well. However, critical notes should be posed to this notion of integration. When is someone fully integrated? When does someone know a language well enough? When has someone adopted the prevailing norms and values sufficiently? Moreover, integration is generally viewed as a homogenous process for all refugees, while individual cases are not considered sufficiently. Additionally, integration is merely considered from the point of view of the host government, but the way in which the refugee himself personally understands integration is not considered at all.

In October 2015 I was privileged to get acquainted to a woman from Iran, called Azar. She applied for a refugee status in The Netherlands around four years ago. I did ethnographic research with her for my Master’s thesis, in which I tried to understand what it means to do asylum seeking in an age of globalization.

Perhaps according to the perception of the Dutch government, Azar was not integrated sufficiently, as she spoke broken Dutch and strongly identified herself as being Iranian, which does not match the assimilationist approach to integration prevalent in The Netherlands. Moreover, she was subjected to policies of social exclusion, as she was forced to live in an asylum seeking center for four years, segregated from Dutch society and finding voluntary work to positively contribute her energy proved to be more than difficult as well. Thus, when considering Azar’s situation from the government’s perspective, we could conclude that perhaps she was not integrated sufficiently, as her Dutch was broken and sometimes difficult to understand and she self-identified as Iranian. However, when examining her situation in more detail, I clearly noticed personal attempts to integration, to creating a sense of belonging, despite her situation of social exclusion. Through her discourse, it becomes clear that Azar is very eager to take part in and belong to Dutch society, as she often states that she wants to find a job and ‘wants to do as the Dutch people do’. Moreover, since she arrived in The Netherlands she has been making considerable efforts to learn the Dutch language, to try and find voluntary work, helps others in the asylum seeking center who find it hard to adjust to ‘the Dutch way of living’, and has been building a social network in a church community which she attends faithfully. These are a few examples of how Azar, an Iranian woman, tries to create meaning and belonging for herself in a society which tells her that she does not belong.

Clearly a discrepancy exists between institutional perceptions of what integration should be like and the personal experiences and perceptions on integration of refugees themselves. This shows that integration is a troublesome concept to come to grips with, and almost never provides clear-cut answers to difficult questions. Moreover, it shows that before we judge someone by their label, for example ‘refugee’, we should always consider the personal experiences of human beings. Finally, instead of imposing homogeneous institutional structures, such as integration, on a diverse group of human beings, personal thoughts and perceptions on what integration means to them should be considered.