Welcome to the neighborhood

Abstract

The Netherlands has been facing a crisis in its asylum trajectory, with the overloaded application center in Ter Apel drawing attention to the country’s migration system. While a limited capacity in Ter Apel is one of the first hurdles asylum seekers face, it is only the start of a long trajectory that can take years to navigate. Although recent changes in the Civic Integration Act are seen as a step in the right direction - with a greater focus on personalized integration and municipal responsibility for guidance - critics argue that the process still lacks support for newcomers to build a social network and participate in society, leaving them struggling to fully participate in Dutch society (Frissen, 2021).It has been stated that the existing Dutch asylum procedure can frequently obstruct the formation of a sense of belonging in the new environment, thus impeding the process of integration. (Afdeling Buitengewone Zaken & OpenEmbassy, n.d.)
This project systemically researches the current Dutch asylum procedure of newcomers in the Netherlands through a social lens with the aim to explore and improve their integration process in the neighborhood by focussing on the sense of feeling at home (NL: thuisgevoel).
The research is conducted into two parts: the journey towards a new home and its conflicts and the neighborhood as a new home and its opportunities.
As the asylum chain is a trajectory with many steps, layers and stakeholders; it is a complex system and will be approached as such. A method designed to take on complex problems is the Transition Design Method (van Ael et al., n.d.) which will be used as a framework for the first part of the project. Part one includes numerous interviews with stakeholders and literature research. As an outcome, it defines ten important factors of feeling at home (referred to as building blocks) and reveals the things that happen in the asylum procedure that hinder this feeling. Seven conflicting areas (referred to as tension fields) are defined that occur during this process.The second part explores the neighborhood as a new home and investigates opportunities to enhance newcomers’ sense of feeling at home. The neighborhood Bospolder-Tussendijken (BoTu in short) is chosen as case-study due to the clients presence in this area. The client of this project is the Field Academy (NL: Veldacademie); a Rotterdam-based research platform for socio-spatial urban development. It has gathered a broad amount of knowledge on this specific neighborhood as an outcome of monitoring its activities as part of Resilient BoTu 2028, a programme that aims to drive significant improvements in the area and transform it into Rotterdam’s first resilient community within ten years. Context-specific information was gathered through a field study in the neighborhood and a participatory session with newcomers themselves. By addressing the conflicts that were found in the housing process and translating those to opportunities for newcomers in BoTu, these findings have been used as starting points to propose three design directions.
The outcome of this project is the development of Een kijk in de wijk (ENG: the Neighborhood Navigator): an interactive maquette of the neighborhood that gives newcomers insight into the offer of community centers, activities, key figures and developments of Bospolder- Tussendijken through audio stories. Leveraging existing networks of locals and initiatives, the intervention aims to promote inclusion and encourage participation among newcomers. By involving newcomers in local initiatives, it seeks to facilitate connections, collaborations, and a greater sense of community.
This research project is intended to contribute to a deeper understanding of the integration trajectory of newcomers in the Netherlands and offer practical insights and interventions to enhance their sense of feeling at home in their new neighborhoods.