Aspirational place-making and digital practices of refugees in the Netherlands

Abstract

While much has been written about the experience of human displacement and the trauma of exile, our understanding of how refugees (re)build a sense of place is underemphasised. The literature on refugee integration has mainly focused on the outcomes of integration policies as well as on the perspectives of host societies regarding what is expected of refugees in the integration process. In this article, we propose the notion of aspirational place-making to analyze the agency of refugees in negotiations of possible futures and aspirational places in the face of structural challenges of integration within the host community. We argue that refugees turn to digital practices to conceive aspirational places and create their own pathways to belong. The outcomes presented in this study derived from in-depth case study examinations of refugees’ lived experiences and aspirations in the Netherlands. In this study, aspirational place-making is outlined into three themed categories of digital practices among refugees: (1) digital learning, (2) digital social participation, and (3) digital social support. The empirical findings provide a new understanding of the different strategies refugees employ to construct plans for their lives that can potentially enable them to fulfil aspirations in the host country.