Refugee dispersal in Denmark: from macro- to micro-scale analysis

Immigration and asylum has become a highly politicised policy area in Western Europe, where discourses resting on refugees as a ‘burden’ have prompted policy measures to disperse them. This paper examines the operation of refugee dispersal in Denmark using an integrated mixed-method approach. Macro-scale patterns are examined using statistical data, revealing that, at a national scale, the objectives of dispersal have been achieved, and refugees have been dispersed relatively evenly between regions, but at a regional scale, the reality has been different. In direct contradiction to the stated aims of the policy, dispersal has primarily been housing-led, and has occurred mainly in areas of relative social deprivation. Dispersal has effectively constituted a process of socio-spatial ethnic segregation. Micro-scale processes are elucidated through the use of in-depth interviews with a small number of refugees, which reveal significant isolation and social exclusion among dispersed refugees. There is also evidence that the policy, formulated within a culturally racist discourse in the public sphere, has also contributed to this discourse through the stigmatisation of refugees, a situation exacerbated by high levels of unemployment among the ethnic minorities generally. This paper therefore warns against the social engineering inherent within the conceptualisation of dispersal which, in effect, has resulted in the spatial segregation of refugees in areas experiencing pre-existing deprivation and social exclusion, and the inherent dangers that this entails in fuelling resentment and anti-refugee hostility. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.