Sophie Hinger - Politics of (Dis)Integration

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This book is the outcome of a collective endeavour to make sense of migration and integration processes and their management in contemporary Europe and beyond, which started within the framework of the Marie Skodowska-Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) Integration and International Migration: Pathways and Integration Policies (INTEGRIM). From the outset, this volume was primarily meant to constitute a project deliverable of the INTEGRIM network and, more precisely, of the working group on labour and social integration, in which several contributors to this volume were involved. However, we decided to put significantly more time and work into this book project than would have been necessary in order to tick a box on the deliverables list. We wanted to use the financial resources at our disposal and our existing network of both young and senior migration scholars to bring together insights from different European and other contexts in order to contribute to the heated debates around migration and integration.

Just after the Brexit decision, and in parallel with the ongoing conflict over refugee migration to and within Europe, we invited scholars from the INTEGRIM network to contribute to a collective volume under the working title Managing (Dis)Integration . We also extended the call to selected participants of the ITN Changing Employment, which brought together young scholars working on contemporary labour-market issues in Europe, some of whom were focusing on the intersection of employment and migration. In February 2017, we organised a first meeting at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, to which all potential contributors were invited. The CEU, which provided us with an excellent venue for exchanging our viewpoints and ideas, has recently been threatened with closure by the Hungarian government. It is with great concern that we follow the latest political developments in Hungary which, amongst other things, have led to the suspension of programmes for refugee education as well as crucial research on migration and migrant solidarity an outcome which directly affects some of the contributors to this volume. The fact that we, as somewhat privileged young scholars, are also affected by the rise of nationalist and authoritarian forces in and beyond Europe in fact strengthens the very argument of this collective volume.

Our early discussions hugely benefited from the fact that each participant contributed specific knowledge and could draw on recent research experience in various landscapes of (dis)integration, both within and beyond Europe. Apart from varying geographical contexts, the proposed chapters also focus on a diverse range of groups or categories of people and scales of observation. A second meeting and dedicated workshop were held in April 2018 at the University of Sussex in conjunction with the Annual SCMR/JEMS and Graduate Migration conference. On this occasion, every author presented someone elses chapter in order to foster further engagement with and debates between the various contributions, arguments and perspectives.

The initial plan was to produce a truly collective publication, and to share the editing work between all contributors. Since this turned out to be impractical in terms of both internal and external communication as well as logistics, not least because the contributors were spread across many different countries and time zones, we ultimately took on the role as editors. This said, the whole process was still largely collaborative. For example, each author acted as a reviewer of at least two other chapters during the early stages of the writing process. Several rounds of reviews and discussions helped us to find a clear focus and solid collective argument to underpin the volume as a whole and to highlight and refine the connections between the individual chapters. Editing the book was a time-consuming and sometimes challenging task, but we are grateful to the author-collective for entrusting it to us. We certainly learned a lot in the process, especially because we could rely on the help and support of a whole range of other people.