Author:

Keywords:

Arrival infrastructures, Arrival neighbourhoods

Abstract:

Research on urban arrival infrastructures often mainly focuses on governmental programmes such as integration courses or asylum centres and on public welfare agencies. This paper examines the position of more ‘hidden’ arrival infrastructures, which, although they are generally overlooked as a means of ‘plugging’ newcomers in the urban fabric, in fact provide much needed, essential support to newcomers and, thus, play an important role in supporting newcomers to ‘integrate’ in their new living environment. What’s more, many newcomers even refer to these invisible welfare providers as the arrival infrastructure they most commonly address when experiencing welfare difficulties related to their migration experience. The paper focuses on migrant communities on the social network site Facebook as a hidden urban arrival infrastructure and discusses how this arrival infrastructure came into being in Brussels, how newcomers come across it and what role it plays in assisting newcomers in their migratory transition to Brussels. In the second part of the paper, we describe the possible role of the Insjalet, a mobile cinema built by researchers of Odisee, as an object than might provide support to newcomers in the Anneessens neighbourhood, where it is currently being used as a flexible urban infrastructure. This paper is based on three research projects, on (1) transmigration and urban social work in Brussels (2013-2015), (2) Brazilian migrants in Belgium (2009-2015), and (3) the use of restorative justice in intercultural settings (2013-2015). These research projects made use of a multi-method approach, combining digital storytelling, in-depth-interviews and ethnographic research in neighbourhoods of arrival in Brussels.