Rethinking Participation: Migrant Realities in Policy and Practice

Rethinking Participation is a research-to-practice project that aims to strengthen the lived experiences of newly arrived refugees and forced migrants in shaping how (labor market) integration policies and programs are designed and implemented in Germany. The project focuses on the local level, where frontline administrators translate national policies into practice and where newcomers directly encounter state institutions that influence their ability to meaningfully participate in society.

We will translate qualitative research into illustrative case stories of refugee women arriving in Germany that highlight their intersectional needs and barriers when settling, particularly in accessing the labor market. These stories will serve as the foundation for a series of interactive workshops with frontline administrators in several different regions of Germany.

The workshops should foster dialogue, empathy and reflection, encouraging administrators to engage more deeply with the lived realities of forced migrants while also sharing their own experiences as agents of integration. Insights from these exchanges will also inform a short series of audiovisual stories produced for wider engagement.

Through the workshops in local job centres or welcome centres, we want to reflect on the suitability of support programmes by means of peer-to-peer exchanges on cases, discussions of integration trajectories based on real stories, and guided reflection sessions. In doing so, questions of equal opportunity and labour force participation, as well as barriers to participation arising from care responsibilities, will be discussed alongside the institutional framework conditions shaping labour market counselling and placement.

The workshops are intended to create a space for participants to reflect on their own work and role in the integration process of their target group. Through dialogue and exchange, we aim to foster a deeper understanding of different perspectives, experiences, and needs. We will share insights from the stories, workshops and exchanges with policymakers through a policy brief and roundtable discussions, thereby informing broader policy debates.

• Local-level engagement: interactive workshops with frontline administrators in up to six German municipalities.
• Audiovisual knowledge translation: a short series of stories based on qualitative research.
• Policy dialogue: a policy brief and roundtable discussions with relevant ministries and agencies.

Initial project findings point to the tensions that have to be negotiated at the implementation level between rapid labour market integration and sustainable (re)qualification. In this context, care responsibilities and normative ideas about gender remain closely linked to the pace and efficiency of integration measures. This takes place against the backdrop of increasingly scarce resources in integration policy and of an increasingly restrictive political discourse on immigration and rights to stay.

Feedback from participants underscores the added value of curated dialogue formats for research practice and between practical knowledge and scientific findings.