POST-ARRIVAL GEOGRAPHIES OF SYRIAN AND IRAQI REFUGEES IN BELGIUM: LOCAL REFUGEE REGIMES, RESIDENTIAL TRAJECTORIES, AND SOCIAL MOBILITY

In the past two years, cities in Europe have become more salient as spaces of arrival for refugees fleeing harsh conditions at home. The arrival of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Belgium has raised considerable questions about their integration in the society. Nonetheless, their lived experiences are still largely understudied, as the refugee perspective is largely absent in scholarship. Therefore, the aim of this project is to unveil the conditions of Syrian and Iraqi refugees post-arrival in Belgium. More specifically, the objectives are (1) to reconstruct the residential trajectories of Syrian and Iraqi refugees who have arrived in Belgium between 2013 and 2015, (2) to understand their patterns of social mobility and (3) to grasp the context that conditions these trajectories. The assumption is that these trajectories do not only hinge on the individual characteristics of refugees, but also on the interplay between national and local state policies, migrant networks and civil society support networks in different places of residence. These three components constitute local refugee regimes which the project aims to chart by interviewing a sample of refugees a couple of times in the run of the project. This will help us to understand the particularity of the Belgian context in the production of post-arrival geographies (residential trajectories and social mobility) of Syrian and Iraqi refugees.