Who is “us”, who is “them”?

Who is “us”, who is “them”? Civic integration policies and the production of belonging in multinational and polyethnic Brussels

Following large-scale post-war migration, European governments have adopted a variety of migrant integration policies. Since the 2000s, so-called civic integration courses have gained popularity aiming to acquaint migrants with the knowledge essential for becoming active or model citizens in
their adopted nation. Despite their professed inclusivity, these policies face criticism from scholars who argue that they often exclude certain migrants and ways of life, deeming them as nonbelonging. However, our academic understanding of their effects on belonging remains limited, with existing research primarily focusing on policy texts or discourse as elements of analysis. Moreover, there is a dearth of research on multinational, multilingual contexts where the discourses on identity and belonging are intricate and multi-layered. This project innovates on two significant fronts: firstly, by adopting a novel, holistic, and multi-methods framework to study integration policy effects. This approach encompasses scrutiny of: 1) policy on paper (document analysis), 2) its concrete implementation (ethnography), and 3) the perceived and 4) desired effects by migrants themselves (interviews and participatory methods). Second, the project pioneers by investigating the production of hierarchies of belonging within civic integration policies in the multinational context of Brussels, where two parallel (Flemish and Francophone) integration programs co-exist within the same geographic space.