From the very beginning of the war in Ukraine and caused by it the large migration of refugees from Ukraine to Poland, we observe huge involvement of private individuals and groups engaged in helping refugees from Ukraine. A similar situation of enormous social involvement of private individuals took place in Germany in 2015 and 2016 due to the increased migration of refugees from Syria. What can we learn from the experiences of the 2015 so-called migration crisis for the management of Ukrainian refugee reception 2022?
Considering this question, we provide you with an interesting article by prof. Birgit Glorius, based on her lecture at the COPOCS seminar (Watch the webinar).
Abstract of the article:
In 2015 and 2016, the peak years of the so-called European migration crisis which followed the Arab Spring and the start of the Syrian War in 2011, rounded 1.2 million asylum-seeking migrants arrived in Germany. While there was an overwhelming atmosphere of welcome and a large wave of solidarity, in the beginning, the manifold challenges and difficulties of a mass reception soon took over in public debate, and public authorities, as well as civil society, realized that refugee integration is a marathon rather than a sprint.
This article, based on a large body of research data on local reception and integration processes since 2015 in Germany, recalls the process of first and secondary reception of asylum-seeking migrants and major challenges and aims to identify the main differences, but also commonalities, between the reception situation in Germany in 2015/16 and the situation in 2022, when many EU member states such as Poland are facing a tremendous influx of Ukrainians fleeing war. The guiding question is, what we can learn from the experiences of the 2015 “migration crisis” for the management of Ukrainian refugee reception 2022?
Prof. Birgit Glorius is a human geographer and professor of human geography with a focus on European migration research at TU Chemnitz, Germany. In her research, she focuses on recent migration phenomena in Europe, notably forced migration, and their effects on social cohesion and social formation.
How to cite this article:
Glorius B. (2022). First reception, challenges and long-term effects of refugee integration. Experiences from Germany since 2015. COPOCS Blog: 1–20.
Read the whole article HERE (PDF file)
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