Young Refugees’ Integration Trajectories—The Critical Role of Local Resources in Germany

Abstract

Though it is a global phenomenon, migration results in a variety of local outcomes. Depending on migrants’ specific arrival contexts, countries of origin and migration motives, they are channelled into different categories. As a result, they encounter unequal access to different domains at the local level. This paper analyses how young migrants in vulnerable conditions are able to access and use local or localised resources and to what extend these resources enable them to overcome structural barriers over time. Our analysis builds on empirical findings from a case study in Dortmund, Germany, conducted through the EU-funded MIMY project. Drawing on narrative interviews with young refugees (aged 18–29), it highlights three specific cases where temporal and spatial factors shape individual integration pathways. The narratives highlight the barriers encountered by young refugees, most of which are related to migrant policy categories implemented at national or supra-national levels. In the arrival context, the young migrants are able—to varying degrees—to mobilise localised resources helping them overcome (at least partially) such mainly structural barriers. Focusing on the emergence and evolution of local integration landscapes thus reveals the importance of time and the difference time makes in terms of the availability of resources and legal frameworks.