The Language of (Im)mobility: time and the language politics of migrant integration

基于在柏林，德国超过15个月的民族志田野调查，我的博士论文研究了国家批准的语言整合要求对新移民的社会经济（IM）流动性的影响。在这样做的过程中，我发现，虽然这些方案的既定目标是加快新来者的社会经济融合，但在实践中，它们大大推迟了他们获得工作、高等教育、公民身份和融入感的机会。这意味着，主要是由于这些政策，大多数新移民在德国的头几年是在长期的社会经济不稳定和不稳定中度过的。鉴于从我的博士研究中获得的紧迫的学术和政策见解，拟议的研究旨在（a）开发和参与影响活动，通过这些活动影响未来的政策决定，（B）为当前欧洲移民和一体化的跨学科学术奖学金做出贡献。我广泛的实地工作揭示了只有通过民族志工作才能了解的关键问题，这些问题应该让当地行为者和决策者看到，以便（a）为决策者提供新形式的专业知识，（B）为未来的政策制定确定新的重点。因此，这一研究金将使我能够在决策者和受融合政策影响的人之间建立一个仍然缺乏但迫切需要的桥梁。(a)I将与当地非政府组织召开会议，这些非政府组织在移民和难民找工作时提供帮助和咨询，并指导他们使用语言融合系统，（B）我将与我现有的对话者网络安排一次焦点小组会议，步骤（a）和（B）将涉及与当地行为者和直接受融合政策影响的人分享我的核心研究成果，以便起草关键政策建议，传达给当地，国家和欧盟层面的政策制定者。(c)I我将与联邦难民和移民办公室（BAMF）和柏林融合部长的成员召开一次研讨会，通过该研讨会交流我的博士研究中的民族志研究成果。这将使我有机会重新审视我的研究的核心结果，并传达移民和难民在德国的生活经验，以设计和实施融合政策的国家行为者。因此，我将创建一个平台，通过该平台，通过定性研究影响当前的政策决策。(d)我与地方和国家行为者以及我现有的对话者网络的会晤将导致制定并向联邦难民和移民办公室、移民和融合委员会以及EESC移民和融合专题研究小组提交政策报告。这一计划产出将影响获得公民身份、永久居留权、高等教育和就业的方式，通过定性、跨学科的证据证明国家规定的语言学习要求对德国难民和移民的社会时间和经济后果。此外，与当地非政府组织建立联系，将使我能够为进一步的研究开辟新的调查途径。(e)I我将提交两篇基于我的博士研究的学术文章，这将填补移民，语言学习和欧洲未来建设问题的迫切经验空白。（f）接下来在国际会议上介绍我的工作，我将组织和召开一个跨学科研讨会在伦敦大学学院的语言，移民和时间的交叉点。这将不仅使我能够加强我的学术生涯，而且还将使我能够在社会科学研究中建立我现有的网络。(g)I将在面向公众的场所交流和传播我的发现。这将有助于提高人们对欧洲难民和移民经历的认识，并有助于更广泛地围绕这些问题进行公共讨论。

Based on over 15-months of ethnographic fieldwork in Berlin, Germany, my doctoral thesis examined the impacts of state-sanctioned language-integration requirements on newcomers' socioeconomic (im)mobility. In so doing, I found that while the stated aim of such programmes is to accelerate newcomers' socioeconomic incorporation, in practice, they significantly delay their access to work, higher education, citizenship and a sense of inclusion. This means that largely because of these policies, most newcomers spend their first few years in Germany in prolonged periods of socio-economic uncertainty and precarity. Given the urgent academic and policy insights gained from my PhD research, the proposed research aims to (a) develop and engage in impact activities through which to influence policy decisions going forward, and (b) contribute to current interdisciplinary academic scholarship on migration and integration in Europe. My extensive fieldwork has uncovered key issues that are only accessible through ethnographic work, and these should be made visible to local actors and policy makers in order to (a) contribute new forms of expert knowledge to policy makers and (b) identify new focus points for future policy development. This fellowship will, thus, enable me to forge a still absent, though urgently necessary bridge between policy makers and those subject to integration policies.(a)I will convene meetings with local NGOs who aid and consult migrants and refugees in their employment search and to navigate the language-integration system,(b)I will schedule a focus group meeting with my existing network of interlocutors.Steps (a) and (b) will involve sharing my core research findings with local actors and those directly subject to integration policies in order to draft key policy recommendations to be communicated to local, national and EU-level policymakers. (c)I will convene a workshop with members of the Federal Office for Refugees and Migrants (BAMF) and the Berlin Integration Minister, through which to communicate ethnographically derived findings from my PhD research. This will give me the opportunity to revisit the core findings of my research, and to communicate the lived experiences of migrants and refugees in Germany to state actors who design and implement integration policies. I will thus create a platform through which to impact current policy decision-making through qualitative research. (d) My meetings with local and state actors, as well as my existing network of interlocutors will result in the development and submission of policy reports to the Federal Office of Refugees and Migrants, the Committee on Migration and Integration, and the EESC Thematic study group on immigration and integration (IMI). This planned output will impact the ways in which access to citizenship, permanent residency, higher education, and employment is regulated, by demonstrating, through qualitative, interdisciplinary evidence, the socio-temporal and economic consequences state-mandated language learning requirements have on refugees and migrants in Germany. Building my networks with local NGOs will, furthermore, allow me to develop new avenues of inquiry for further research.(e)I will submit two academic articles based on my PhD research, which will fill urgent empirical gaps on questions of migration, language learning and future building in Europe. (f)Next to presenting my work at international conferences, I will organise and convene an interdisciplinary workshop at UCL on the intersections of language, migration and time. This will, not only allow me to bolster my academic career, but it will also allow me to build upon my existing networks in social science research. (g)I will communicate and disseminate my findings in public-facing venues. This will contribute to greater awareness around the experiences of refugees and migrants in Europe, and contribute to public discourses around these matters, more broadly.