Jolanta Drzewiecka

Current funded research project: Relational integration in place: affect and power in everyday practices (SNSF)

The project advances the understanding of migrant integration by focusing on social relations in concrete places. In distinction from prior studies of how specific groups of migrants achieve ‘integration,’ we examine ‘relational integration’ as processual, mundane, varied and diffused across various practices and relations among people of varying lengths of residence. Recent research shows that exclusions at national and local levels lead migrants to search for belonging in online places. Other studies show how migrants develop attachment and engage in homemaking in local places where they might feel belonging in the face of national exclusions. However their claims to place lead to conflicting emotions from long term residents. Studies show that intercultural contact in various places can lead to conviviality and inclusion as well as avoidance, exclusions and negative feelings. This project brings together these different research strands and aims to shed light on their conflicting results by examining how emotional attachments and senses of belonging in neighbourhoods are negotiated through everyday practices and social relations. Instead of focusing on any particular group or a local project, we take a neighbourhood wide approach and examine patterning of relations, practices and emotions. The project is multidisciplinary and based in theories of affect, emotion regulation, intercultural contact, and everyday practices. Few studies address intercultural contact in ‘smaller’ cities where forms of diversity are more limited. We will thus focus on neighbourhoods in ‘smaller' locations in Ticino, Switzerland. This project employs qualitative ethnographic and affective methods.

PhD student and Research Assistant Position call

https://content.usi.ch/sites/default/files/storage/attachments/icpp/icpp-phd-2024.pdf

Current SNSF Agora project: Fostering inclusion of refugees (SNSF)

Completed funded project: Migrant belonging: identity, affect and capital (SNSF)