Seminar: Ilse van Liempt – Refugees’ Home-making in the Netherlands

The Impact of Dispersal on Resettled Refugees’ Home-making and Place Attachment in Small to Medium-Sized Towns in the Netherlands

Abstract

Based on in-depth interviews with 10 families and one single person from Syria who have been resettled under the EU Turkey Statement, this presentation looks into processes of homemaking and place attachment in small to medium-sized towns in the Netherlands. I distinguish between homemaking practices in and around the house and in the neighbourhood, and also look at the wider transnational social environment of refugees in order to understand how Syrian resettled refugees experience everyday life in the Dutch small to medium-sized towns to which they are dispersed. What constraints and opportunities do resettled refugees experience in everyday life? And how do resettled refugees who have been identified as exceptionally vulnerable experience the transition, upon arrival, to an integration system which relies heavily on refugees using their own agency and being responsible.

Keywords: small towns, sociabilities, place attachment, homemaking, refugees, resettlement, dispersal policy, the Netherlands

Dr. Ilse van Liempt, Human Geography and Planning, UU