Reorienting integration: Family-to-family as a model in Congolese UN-quota refugees’ settlement and orientation towards a new life in Denmark

For the first time since 2015, the Danish government has decided to accept UN-quota refugees. In late 2021, approximately 60-70 Congolese families (200 individuals) will arrive in Denmark. A similar number will arrive during 2022. The families consist of single women with children and will be allocated to municipalities across the country. The refugees have lived under harsh conditions in camps in Rwanda since the 1990s; they have survived mainly on UN subsidies, speak local languages and many suffer from trauma and PTSD. They thus constitute an extremely vulnerable group.
The project explores the experiences, difficulties and potentialities of settlement. We will follow the refugee families’ ongoing encounters with different representatives of the state, the municipality and civil society who each promote different ‘integration projects’ in an attempt to further the families’ socio-cultural, economic and political inclusion into Danish society. Based on previous expertise in The Danish Refugee Council, we will develop a “family-to-family” model, where Congolese families are matched with volunteer Danish families. Our hypothesis is that the deliberate directionality involved in support, network and caring relationships can ease the chaotic disorientation and bewilderment that the refugee families will most likely face as they arrive, settle in and start building a new life in Denmark. The results will be used to educate municipalities and NGOs to secure the best possible reception of UN-quota refugees in the future.

The project is a collaboration between the Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University, VIVE - The Danish Center for Social Science Research, Danish Refugee Council (DRC), and selected municipalities in Denmark. The ambition is twofold: 1) to develop a research- and practice-based “family-to-family” model as a tool to ease and improve the settlement of UN-quota refugees arriving in Denmark, 2) to initiate a conversation between state representatives, civil society and researchers about urgent issues of ethics and representation when working with refugees – our theoretical ambition is to start ‘reorienting integration’.