Manoeuvring as an integration strategy among immigrants

Abstract

The analysis of the integration strategies followed by migrants provides a good insight into this process in order to understand better the interaction between the migrants and the receiving society. This perspective integrates the micro, the mezzo and the macro level of social scientific analysis, because migrants face directly problems related to the different levels of social life, so their surviving strategies are reactions to this whole intertwined complex. I propose to approach the integration of the migrants by investigating their manoeuvring technique. Most migrants make huge efforts for making contacts with the receiving community. Even those who live in ethnic enclaves need to have some basic contacts with the surrounding world.

In my paper I analyse narrative and semi-structured interviews conducted with third country immigrants living in Hungary, and I focus on the slalom techniques they follow trying to avoid the traps of integration in the bureaucratic processes, the labour market and the social life in general.