A practical guide with a fresh, bottom-up perspective on integration
This Integration Otherwise Inspiration Kit invites us to move beyond the polarised debate on integration – one that either portrays newcomers as failing to integrate or blames society as insufficiently welcoming. Using a bottom-up approach, it offers a new perspective that highlights how integration is already taking place in everyday life. The authors introduce the concept of ‘arrival infrastructuring’: the interactive process through which newcomers, together with others, actively shape and transform their arrival situations. Through stories from the ground with concise takeaways, alongside tools for reflection and action, this guide equips practitioners, policymakers and community builders with a deeper understanding of the diverse forms of arrival infrastructuring, as well as the successes and challenges of everyday integration processes. It aims to inspire future policies and practices.
This book complements ‘Infrastructuring Arrival: Envisioning the Migration-Integration Nexus Beyond Crisis’, edited by Karel Arnaut, Luce Beeckmans, and Bruno Meeus (Leuven University Press, 2026).
Introduction
PART I — SEEING INTEGRATION OTHERWISE
Introduction: Arrival infrastructuring
1. Resourcing
2. Bridging
3. Coming together
4. Claiming
Reflection and advice
PART II — DOING INTEGRATION OTHERWISE
Introduction: Taking action
1. Awareness-raising
2. Coalition-building
3. Empowering
Reflection and advice
Illustration credits
Luce Beeckmans
Luce Beeckmans is Research Professor in Urbanism and Migration at the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, KU Leuven, and vice-director of the KU Leuven Urban Studies Institute (LUSI).
Dounia Salamé
Dounia Salamé is a social worker and PhD researcher at the Department of Architecture of KU Leuven.
Martina Bovo
Martina Bovo is a post-doctoral researcher at IUAV University of Venice and a contract professor at Politecnico di Milano. She held a post-doctoral position at KU Leuven’s Department of Architecture during the making of this book.
Mary Hogan
Mary Hogan is a scientific collaborator at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Department of Architecture of KU Leuven.
Shila Hadji Heydari Anaraki
Karel Arnaut
Karel Arnaut is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven. He teaches and conducts research on migration and mobility in relation to language use, diversity and inequality.
Paschalis Arvanitidis
Kristen Biehl
Márton Bisztrai
Gideon Bolt
György Csepeli
Athina Zoe Desli
Laura Guérin
Tina Gudrun Jensen
Heike Hanhörster
András Kováts
Emma Krasznahorkai
Zsuzsa László
Carolien Lubberhuizen
Sarah Makar
Bruno Meeus
Bruno Meeus is Associate Professor at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. He teaches at the Institute for Social Work and coordinates research on housing precarity within the Centre for Social Innovation.
Tamlyn Monson
Antal Örkeny
George Papagiannitsis
Lucie Revilla
Alexandra Sandor
Marhabo Saparova
Reiner Staubach
Cornelia Tippel
Charalampos Tsavdaroglou
Ilse van Liempt
Susanne Wessendorf
Zacharias Valiantzas
Penelope Vergou
Aimilia Voulvouli
Dennis Zilske
Integration Otherwise Inspiration Kit is een hoopvol boek. De auteurs houden een pleidooi voor het erkennen van steden als dynamische laboratoria van inclusie en participatie. Het is vooral een oproep aan beleidsmakers om flexibeler en contextspecifieker te denken en handelen, minder gebonden aan nationale kaders. Beleidsmakers kunnen professionals en migranten structureel betrekken in beleidsontwikkeling en evaluatie, alleen al omdat ze experten zijn vanuit het alledaagse leven. Hun bottom-up dynamieken zijn een kernvoorwaarde voor succesvolle integratie. Het beleid stelt zich graag voor als realistisch. De antipode daarvan is “idealistisch”. De worteling in de alledaagse praktijken van ‘integratie’ toont ons waar het echte realisme zit. - Pascal Debruyne, Samenleving & Politiek, Jaargang 32, 2025, nr. 7 (september), pagina 77 tot 79, https://www.sampol.be/2025/09/integration-otherwise-inspiration-kit/
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