Settling refugees in the city: the role of entrepreneurs and street-level bureaucrats in arrival broking practices

Low, Carolynn (2025) Settling refugees in the city: the role of entrepreneurs and street-level bureaucrats in arrival broking practices. 22nd IMISCOE Annual Conference: Decentering migration studies, Paris–Aubervilliers & online. 01 - 04 Jul 2025.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Other)

Abstract

This paper examines the role played by different types of ‘arrival brokers’ supporting refugee newcomers. It considers the activities of migrant and non-migrant brokers, who facilitate opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship and other settlement support for refugees in a regional city in the UK. Through in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs from a refugee background and street-level bureaucrats (local authority and voluntary sector professionals) conducted over 3 years, it explores the degrees of formality and informality in these brokers’ activities as they sit inside, outside or alongside the organisational structures of the formalised (refugee) arrival infrastructure. Tensions are evident in constraints on activities imposed by the formalised structures, particularly related to funding which can obstruct the longevity of support initiatives and restrict activities to favoured groups of refugees, creating a hierarchy of support. However, at the same time, the arrival brokers operationalise agency in offering arrival and settlement support, navigating around these limitations. This is seen in their creation of new modes of operation, such as formalised new services or organisations, and/or in their engagement in informal arrival brokering activities. Thus, the paper contributes to an approach that decentres the conventional idea of the (non-migrant) ‘facilitator’ of integration, positioned apart from the beneficiaries, by focussing attention on actors in the broad arrival infrastructure, who challenge both the formal/informal and the non-migrant/migrant dichotomies.

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