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

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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.