ReROOT |
In nine pilot sites, ReROOT asks what can arrival infrastructures teach us about how newcomers settle or move on?

Arrival Infrastructure
Arrival infrastructure is a term coined by Meeus et al. in 2019. They define arrival infrastructure as those parts of the urban fabric within which newcomers become entangled on arrival, and where their future local or translocal social mobilities are produced as much as negotiated. Read more about arrival infrastructure here.
PROJECT FINDINGS
Many mainstream ideas and policies of Integration are counterproductive
Migrants often find themselves at the intersection of a ‘hostile environment’ (xenophobia, culture of suspicion) and socio‐economic scarcities (housing, jobs, school places). Integration discourses often preoccupied with the subaltern societal position of migrants rather than buttressing their dreams and struggles to overcome

See: Infrastructuring arrival: envisioning the migration‐integration nexus beyond crisis (2016, in press). Karel Arnaut, Luce Beeckmans and Bruno Meeus, editors. Leuven: Leuven University Press;
Radical rescaling to the local level breaks open the totalising and stigmatising fixations of integration work
Throughout its action research ReROOT scales back the global story of migration and integration to where it truly belongs: in the social and cultural lives of fellow people trying to weave their worlds together crossing the globe and national boundaries..

See: http://rerootproject.eu/platformbuilding;
ReROOT devises a new vocabulary to analyse and redesign the societal emplacement of people on the move
With terms like ‘infrastructure/infrastructuring’ and ‘minor integrations’ ReROOT zooms in on the fundamentals of people’s life-building. It also reframes ‘arrival as departure’ and critically engages with the notion of ‘newcomers’. These accessible and productive instruments helped are the pillars of addressing integration otherwise.

See: Four Pilars – http://rerootproject.eu/publications/tpost/2zc93pt401-the-four-pillars-of-reroot
‘Rerooting’ integration entails a double reflexive process of seeing and doing
Through the joint lenses of infrastructuring and minor integrations, ‘integration otherwise’ appears as a double reflexive and proactive processes of seeing and doing integration otherwise. These local yet multiscalar processes require practical and conceptual scaffolding and coalition‐building.

See: IOIK http://rerootproject.eu/toolkit; workshops http://rerootproject.eu/workshopscso
PROJECT RESULTS:
KEY POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Cross-level
Towards inclusive and multi-scalar integration policies

  • Recognise housing, labour, integration, and empowerment as interconnected zones of infrastructuring essential for dignified and sustainable incorporation.
  • Reframe migration from temporary mobility to long-term social participation and belonging.
Local level
  • Empower municipalities to co-design context-sensitive solutions with community actors
  • Support grassroots initiatives and informal integration mechanisms as vital infrastructures of inclusion
National level
  • Reform bureaucratic barriers and permit systems (residence, work)
  • Combine language learning with vocational training and skills recognition
  • Strengthen legal pathways for regularisation and anti-discrimination mechanisms
EU level
  • Harmonise standards on housing, labour, and integration
  • Expand funding (e.g. through AMIF and ESF+) for inclusive infrastructures

ReROOT is a Horizon2020 research project consisting of six universities, two research institutes, and two NGOS running from 2021-2025. The project uses ethnographic methods to study the challenges and opportunities migrants encounter on arrival in specific arrival situations in eight countries (Belgium, Turkey, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Greece, UK). ReROOT focuses on ‘arrival infrastructure’ - how newcomers source shelter, support and resources upon arrival in a place. From informal social connections to formal support organisations; from public spaces to libraries, shops or health centres, ‘arrival infrastructure’ shapes migrants’ pathways after arrival and affects how quickly and successfully they can achieve their goals, whether to settle or move on.

ReROOT Promotional Video
Project Updates
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