Author:

Keywords:

Social Sciences, Social Work, Arrival infrastructures, social work with displaced groups, mobilities, informal social work actors, migration studies, MIGRATION, MIGRANTS, MOBILITY, SUPERDIVERSITY, TRAJECTORIES, LANGUAGE, 1607 Social Work, 4409 Social work

Abstract:

In order to de-nationalise, de-‘ethnicise’ and de-‘migranticise’ migration studies, scholars are increasingly turning to space as a conceptual and empirical entry-point. Inspired upon the notion of the urban ‘transition zone’, initially coined by Chicago School urban sociologists in the 1930s, recent research re-focuses on the role of particular urban neighbourhoods as places of ‘arrival’ and ‘gateways’ that stimulate the social and spatial mobility of newcomers. In this paper we develop a friendly critique on the teleological and normative underpinnings of the notion of ‘arrival neighbourhood’ and propose the concept of ‘arrival infrastructures’ as an alternative. Arrival infrastructures are those parts of the broader urban fabric in which newcomers become entangled on arrival and where their future local or translocal social becomings are produced as much as negotiated. Starting from such an approach, we explore the possible role and position of social work as part of the arrival infrastructure. We argue that the concept of arrival infrastructures allows social workers to capture the broad range of actors involved in ‘arriving’ and to discuss their own position and role. Moreover, it demonstrates how arrival is always a provisional state of being, during which local or translocal futures are in preparation.