Integration, urban citizenship, and spatial aspects of (new) mobilities: Greek migrants' constructions of integration in European cities

Abstract

This study aims at casting light on the ways in which spatial aspects of mobility and belonging serve as social-psychological discursive resources used by Intra-European Greek immigrants in order to account for integration. For the purposes of the study, 17 virtual interviews with Greek migrants in European cities were analysed. Interview discussion was facilitated by photographs of participants' meaningful places. In the analysis, accounts of belonging to the community ‘in general’ were juxtaposed to accounts of bonding with specific places. Participants, using spatial discursive resources and constituting complex relationships between political participation, citizenship and place, developed competing arguments and positioned themselves as integrated or excluded from local, national or supranational communities. Accounts of attachment to private and public places mobilized constructions of citizenship based on place appropriation and people–environment relations and constructed spatial or symbolic boundaries. The conclusions underscore the benefits of understanding migrant integration through multilevel (local, national and supranational) constructions of political participation and urban and localized perspectives of citizenship.