Conceptualising the social positioning of refugees reflections on socio-institutional contexts and agency with a focus on work

Abstract

Presently, European and other countries are facing public (and scholarly) discussions surrounding the possibilities of successfully integrating refugees into their respective national labour markets. Such debates often disregard the complex circumstances under which refugees are received in a given nation-state. For this conceptually oriented article, we draw on the example of Austria as a receiving state, as it shares many characteristics with other receiving nation-states in the global north. Theoretically, we base our argument on the assumption that societies are socially unequal. Such inequality is institutionally co-constructed, as we will show in this article. Yet empirical examples assist in understanding how refugees are also actors who are not only exposed to such institutional and varying social environments. Rather, they also reinforce and/or change these circumstances by their own agency.