On the 7th of November another Refugee Academy meeting took place at the Aurora room at VU Amsterdam. Together with the audience and a panel we talked about the reception of refugees and what influence this has on the integration.
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Crisis governanceor governance crisis:
A modelfor long term refugee receptionand integration?
Report on the VU Refugee Academy Meeting. November 7th, 2017. Location: VU Amsterdam.
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Introduction
The increased refugee flow in the past years has brought specific challenges to the relation
between different governmental and non-governmental actors. In the Dutch context, the
refugee crisis had a governmental response structure with a reduced understanding of how
to integrate bottom-up citizens’ initiatives and know-how from NGOs. Although there are
several organizational actors with different aims and objectives, they are all dealing with the
same issues that many times find operational, logistics or policy challenges. In this meeting
various of these organizational actors shared what they learned from the crisis and where
we should move from here onwards. The meeting was divided in two parts, first
presentations by VU researchers and then a panel discussion with civil society and state
organizations.
Refugee Academy:finding a sharedspace betweenthe extremes of negative stories and the “tyranny of the
good practice”
We aim to be a space for encounter betw een research and practice, in w hich w e can tackle different themes that are
crucial for reception, inclusion, and professional development of people that arrive in the Netherland as refugees.
To w ork tow ards inclusion, it is important to look at both sides: investing in individuals and their potential to contribute,
and investing in the context and its potential to enable and to include. Within the Refugee Academy, w e try to look at this
tension and reflect on how it unfolds in our society, to reflect together on the societalcontext in w hich w e are operating in
this moment, and to challenge each other to look beyond the taken for granted, to understand how some w ays to think, to
talk, to act can limit our effort to create inclusion and connection.
What has struck us, as a team of researchers, in this period, is the fact that w e seem somehow caught betw een tw o
extreme discourses (dominant images and stories) about refugees, that are opposed to each other, leaving little room for
w hat is in betw een. At the one side, there is a fixation on lack and shortcomings, one that as w e know from research has
a longer history in the Netherlands, but that in the last years has developed in an extremer negative version: Refugees
(and migrants) are portrayed as a big societalproblem, integration doomed to fail, etc. a lot of fear and negative feelings.
At the other side, there is also a strong resistance to this negative discourse. But w hat you see is that there is a strong
tendency to balance this negative stance w ith extreme positive examples: The big success stories, the positive side of
integration. People desperately w ant to see the counterexamples, the examples of those people that can show that
refugees are a w in for society, that they integrate perfectly and quickly. This is to balance the negativity in society, but
many organisations and initiatives that support refugees are dependent on these positive stories to show that they are
successful, to show their project is a ‘good practice’, because their very existence is insecure and dependent on the
approval of others (municipality, other funding parties). We could call this The tyranny of the ‘good practice’.
Of course, these success stories exist and it is great to make them visible. But the point is w e also need a space, a
shared space to talk about w hat lies in betw een this scary negative and extreme positive stories. About the small, every
day challenges, the small steps tow ards inclusion that both the individual and the context (be this an organisation, the
municipality, the community) can take.
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Presentations
After a welcome and short introduction by Refugee Academy researcher Robert Larruina,
three different presentations were held by VU research staff.
Anita van Hoof, assistant professor at the department of Communication Sciences, started
with an overview of the public debate on refugees as expressed in online public media
(social media, news media, blogs ...) during the crisis. She used data from the website
Coosto. From 2009-2014 there was not much interest for refugees. But after the summer of
2015 the topic become present in any media outlets. This was permanent for a long period,
but at the moment (Autumn 2017) it appears much less. The presentation also focused on
the current debate in three different municipalities Amsterdam, Utrecht and Zaandam. The
debate in Amsterdam is much bigger than in the other two municipalities. This has clear
peaks, that can be traced to specific incidents with national impact that generate high
presence on social media.
Younes Younes, researcher at the department of Sociology and founder of Yalla
Foundation gave a presentation on the need for online communities connecting refugees
and Dutch citizens, on the basis of the Yalla case. Before Yalla, Younes started the
Facebook-page ‘Refugees in Nijmegen’, which had the primary function to provide clear and
easy information to newcomers and answering their most diverse questions. “All those
people [refugees from 2015, red.] came with basically nothing: new country, a lot of hopes
but also new disappointments and questions like: ‘What is IND?’, ‘How can we communicate
with COA?’”. All information was only provided in Dutch. After this Facebook-page, Younes
founded The Yalla Foundation: An open platform for communication and connection
between people living within the AZC and people living the its surroundings and answering
small and big questions. The platform is there to assist refugees to solve problems.
Arjen Schmidt, PhD researcher at the Department of Organization Sciences, discussed the
dynamics of crisis governance. In his presentation, he focused on the role of citizens in crisis
governance, and the difficulties formal response agencies encounter when interacting with
citizens. Often, governments want to ‘control’ citizen behavior and find it hard to build upon
the capacities of communities to organize themselves.
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Discussion
Panel-members: Fronnie Biesma (Ondertussenonderweg, former Vrolijkheid), Renne
Frissen (Open Embassy), Bakri Helani (New Bees), Frans Lelie (took part in different
initiative during 2015-2016), Roswhita Weiler (Dutch Council for Refugees), Mika Yemane
(COA) & Eveline Zeeman (Gemeente Zaanstad), Fleur Bakker (Refugee Company)
(absent).
We asked the panel two questions:
What have you and/or your organization learnt about interacting with other organizational
actors, in the refugee reception, in the period of increased refugee arrivals of 2015-2016?
Formal organizations learnt a great deal by going into the field and work with initiatives and
municipalities. This is a process that had started before the refugee crisis, but was
developed further and faster during this period. On the other hand, it was highlighted that the
good intentions of local governments can lead to unintended (negative) results. For instance,
the actions of local governments often foment the competition between initiatives.
While society was taken by surprise with the high refugee influx, the war in Syria had been
going on for few years. Certain events portrayed in the media stared the public opinion and
influenced the amount of volunteer willing to help and often starting initiatives, local
community organisations and projects. Established NGO/charity organisations perceived the
high number of volunteers and new initiatives as sometimes interfering with their work. This
was also observed as lacking any connection with the long experience and knowledge built
within the NGOs themselves. At the other side, there was also consensus that the positive
energy that broke loose at that time and the great amount of people prepared to contribute
should be seen as the big win of the crisis. Thus, it appears crucial to rethink and re-design
the relation between established NGO’s like Vluchtelingenwerk and more ‘fluid’ community
initiatives, so that the positive potential of the latter is realized and interconnected with the
work of the first.
Another important element emphasised was related to the type of people working in the
refugee reception. Regardless of the (type) of organisation, there are always people that you
can connect with, who can make a difference. Working together towards an inclusive system
boils down to finding those people and keep in touch with the network one establishes. We
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should invest in creating structures in which people can find each other and build durable
networks.
It was also mentioned that in the Dutch domain of care and social support, we are working
towards individual approaches, tailoring as much as possible towards individuals. However,
when it comes to refugees we design collective approaches (based on refugee identity and
categories) instead of individual methods. Another thing noticed is that we tend to organise
initiatives for refugees and not with refugees. We need a great deal more of reflection on
this. During the past years there was a tendency to talk about refugees but not to talk to
them and that was something that all participants agreed.
Considering the first question, how would you create/suggest the creation of some form or
inter-organizational structure involving different types of actors, that could be activated in the
event of another radical increase in the number of refugee arrivals?
Organizations need to network better and establish contexts so that they can easily find
each other. Another important point she is that there is a lack of tracking and monitoring, of
anchoring the lessons of the past. Where is what we all have learned and built? The first
thing that should happen after the crisis is the building of a more resilient system to host
people in the asylum procedure. Organizations should facilitate it.
When organizations come together, they can learn directly from each other. By crating
spaces of collaboration stakeholders’ s roles could be identified and assigned. In this
manner, it was mentioned the relevance of connecting people earlier with the municipality in
which they will eventually have to integrate. The transition from COA to the realm of a
municipality is big and challenging. This is a step in the integration process, which does not
get enough attention in spite of it importance for status holders.
It is crucial to interact with organisations and initiatives that emerged during 2015-2016. To
do this two elements should be taken into consideration. Firstly, interact with the positive
people (people that are enthusiast and have positive energy). Secondly, the municipality
should facilitate a network of spontaneous interactions. There are a lot of organisations who
try to help refugees, but who don’t have all information and connection. There must be a way
to share all information. Currently, if you ask a question to three different stakeholders, you
get three different answers
After the above questions were discussed Halleh Ghorashi, founder of the Refugee
Academy, emphasised that interconnecting spaces is what we try to create with the Refugee
Academy. Putting different voices together and then from there go further to find common
grounds. For the latter it is important to be aware of the dominance in the debate of ‘usual
suspects’, to create more space for professionals with a refugee background in the
discussion, to stop sharing only successes and dare to share what is challenging and, lastly,
to invest in monitoring and research. “Going beyond of what you’re doing is wonderful. Be
critical about yourself, use the Refugee Academy as a platform to make connections and
help each other.”
The empirical material collected during the discussion will be employed in the Refugee
Academy learning path “Crisis governance or governance crisis”. In case you would like to
contribute (further) to this path, please contact r.l.larruina@vu.nl
