Jenny KUNHARDT, University of Applied Sciences, Erfurt, Germany
At least since 2014, several large families from Romania have been living in Halle (Saale) under very difficult conditions. After the first, partly openly racist, neighbourhood conflicts occurred in 2014, the city administration reacted with counselling, support services and conflict moderation involving social actors. But, as a result of the neighbourhood conflicts and difficulties with landlords and state authorities, the families were forced to move to another part of town. Up to the present day, this process has been repeated several times. The support from the municipality and social agencies often came too late or is too limited to enable long-term housing for the families, because they react to acute conflicts – while the landlord had already terminated the contract and the families had to move again. In this context precarious intra-EU migrants become exiled persons in the arrival city.
The presentation focuses on empirical material from interviews with state and intermediary actors in Halle (Saale) and traces the reception strategies for supporting families, controlling intra-EU migration and dealing with neighbourhood conflicts since 2014. In particular, a perspective on the temporal and spatial dimension of the reactions is taken, which allows for a better understanding of the complex policies in terms of motivation, goals, competences, resources and interdependencies of different local (and regional) actors. The results open the discussion on the inertia and/or (intentional) limitation to implement long-term policies to welcome intra-EU migrants and to improve their living conditions.
The presentation is a result of the project “AIM - Analysis of Institutional Action in Governing Mobility of People in Europe. Conditions for Promoting European Cohesion” funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Mots clés : precarious intra-EU migrants|welcoming policies|local actors|temporalities of policies
A103525JK