Integration and intersectionality: boundaries and belonging “from above” and “from below”. Introduction to the special issue

Abstract

This introduction bridges the often-separated bodies of research on institutional boundary work in the policy field of “integration” and on migrant minorities’ responses to these boundaries. We engage with the contributions to this Special Issue and demonstrate the relevance of an intersectional analysis in studies on state “integration” policies and the boundaries they draw between communities and on migrant minorities’ strategies to navigate and respond to them. Through engaging with issues of “integration”, boundary-making, and intersectionality, we show how the Special Issue contributes to debates on “integration” and boundary work by presenting analyses of which subjectivities are accepted in “integration” policies’ reproduction of an (imagined) national community and how conditions of national membership do not apply equally to all individuals of migrant origins, nor to all social spaces. We advocate for research that is attentive to the relevant socio-political context, and where possible, responsive to self-identified needs of the affected communities.