Being far away from what you need: the impact of dispersal on resettled refugees’ homemaking and place attachment in small to medium-sized towns in the Netherlands

Abstract

Based on semi-structured interviews with 10 families and one single person from Syria who were resettled under the EU Turkey Statement, this article looks into processes of homemaking and place attachment in small to medium-sized towns in the Netherlands. We distinguish between homemaking practices in and around the house and in the neighbourhood, and also look at the wider transnational social environment of refugees in order to understand how Syrian resettled refugees experience everyday life in the Dutch small to medium-sized towns to which they are dispersed. What constraints and opportunities do they experience in everyday life and how are resettled refugees becoming part of the community after being dispersed upon arrival? And how do resettled refugees who were identified as exceptionally vulnerable, experience the transition, upon arrival, to an integration system which relies heavily on refugees using their own agency?