Across Western Europe, mass migrations have challenged the capacity of countries to manage the reception of migrants and ensure that those who stay will be prepared for life in their new host societies and become ‘good citizens.’ Processes of reception are a key part of the asylum system, laying the foundation for future integration. Yet, relatively little is known about how the lived experience of asylum-seekers, who often remain for extended periods in reception settings, affects processes important to their eventual integration, specifically processes relevant to understanding and identifying with the norms and values of the host society. This project investigates how these processes take shape in specific reception settings during the often lengthy process of waiting for asylum by directing attention to asylum reception practices in Sweden and Denmark.

Reception systems were designed with the assumption that, for the most part, the reception phase would be short, a limited emergency response to meet basic shelter, health, and education needs while awaiting asylum decisions. But, in recent years, that has not been the case. In Sweden and Denmark, as in other European countries, "reception" has become a status that for many continues, not only for months, but for years. They live, in effect, in a suspended state, not yet part of the state in which they hope to live, but also not part of the home state that they fled.

The project addresses two major research gaps. One is the tendency in migration research to focus on the beliefs and attitudes of migrants, without close attention to the specific context in which these beliefs are shaped. In contrast, the project investigates the mechanisms through which socio-cultural understandings and identification develop in specific organizational contexts. Two, migration studies do not necessarily focus on asylum-seekers. However, this is a special category of migrants whose resettlement is prompted less by choice than necessity and whose experiences are shaped by policies and organizational practices unique to them. Consider that asylum-seekers are restricted in where they can live (in asylum centers or selected community housing) and how they live (whether than can work in the regular market or must engage in unpaid labor within the asylum system, etc.), making their experience different from that of other migrant groups. The project contributes with new knowledge on how socio-cultural understandings and identification develop in this distinctive context by investigating the following two questions:

1. How do the "street-level" organizations (SLOs) - those organizations that directly provide state reception services to asylum seekers - transmit values through, not only their formal programs, but also their informal practices?
2. How do different types of street-level reception services shape the lived experience of asylum-seekers and, in the process, inform their socio-cultural understanding, identification, and eventual integration pathways?