On the Importance of Playing House: Belonging Work and the Making of Relational Citizens in Finnish Immigrant Integration Policies

As participatory immigrant integration policies proliferate in Europe, it has become urgent to analyze the dynamics of citizenship these policies produce. This article forges the notion of belonging--work to explore the practices that frontline social workers use to manage relations between immigrant women and their native neighbors. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Helsinki, Finland, the article accounts for belonging as a socially situated phenomenon--as an interactive process that takes place in concrete institutional settings. It attracts attention to the domestic mode of belonging toward which welfare professionals channel immigrant women's local participation by constructing collective identities as local mothers, cultivating extended practices of care, and orchestrating feelings of hominess between the mobilized women. A pragmatic solution to preventing social isolation in inactive migrant women, participatory integration measures--if practiced alone--appear to hold weak potential for producing equal citizenship.

Automated summary

This article analyzes the dynamics of citizenship in Europe through the lens of participatory immigrant integration policies, examining how frontline social workers manage relationships between immigrant women and their native neighbors. The study, based on extensive fieldwork in Helsinki, Finland, highlights the importance of belonging as a socially situated phenomenon and the role of welfare professionals in promoting local participation among immigrant women to prevent social isolation. By constructing collective identities, cultivating care practices, and fostering feelings of hominess, social workers facilitate the integration process and promote equal citizenship outcomes.