Journal of Rural Studies 82 (2021) 233–241

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Journal of Rural Studies

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud

Everyday life as a refugee in a rural setting – What determines a sense of

belonging and what role can the local community play in generating it?
Lise Herslund
Institute of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management (IGN), University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958, Frederiksberg, Denmark

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper explores the sense of place and belonging among refugees settled in small towns in Denmark and the
Refugees role local, rural communities can play in encouraging it. The entry point for creating a sense of place and
Small towns belonging is rooted in their new everyday lives, the extent to which, and in what form, this is linked to the new
Belonging
small town in which they live, and to what factors might inhibit or promote these links and sense of belonging.
Local social relations
Community mobilisation
The paper is based on 43 interviews conducted in 2016/2017 with refugees and members of local communities in
Rural development seven small towns, as well as other key formal stakeholders. The results show that several structural factors can
have a detrimental effect on the sense of belonging in a small town; for example, a lack of cheap rented ac­
commodation, combined with a busy everyday life, affording little free time to spend in the town, and the fact
that the refugees are often originally from cities and would have preferred to be settled in one. They are un­
certain how to behave in a small-town setting and make the most of it. Their links to the local community are via
social relations with other migrants and committed local volunteers. Volunteers can play an important role in
helping refugees navigate their new everyday life and help them counter many of the problems of living in an
unfamiliar and rural environment. If refugees are to settle permanently in these communities, structural chal­
lenges such as the lack of rental accommodation must be addressed; something that local communities cannot do
on their own.

1. Introduction
International migrants are increasingly being settled in rural areas,
and rural areas are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of the na­
tionalities living in them, especially in the Nordic countries, where rural
diversity is greater than the EU average (Nørregaard, 2018; Søholt et al.,
2018). In recent decades, dispersal policies have resulted in progres­
sively more refugees being settled in regional towns and rural areas in
several western countries, including in the Nordic Region (Søholt et al.,
2018; Larsen, 2011; Schech, 2014). Many peripheral municipalities also
actively try to attract international migrants to their communities (Aure
et al., 2018; Søholt et al., 2018), seeing them as a positive contribution to
rural repopulation and enhancing diversity in rural areas (Woods, 2018;
Hedberg and Haandrikman, 2014).
In Denmark, as the influx of refugees reached its peak in 2015,
several mayors of rural municipalities were quoted in the media as
expressing a hope that a large number of refugees would be settled in
their areas because it afforded a golden opportunity for new growth and
development in their municipalities (Brandt, 2015). Unfortunately,
however, the refugees seem to want to move on. Studies show that
refugees are more likely to leave rural areas than other migrants (Skifter
Andersen, 2015; Ordemann, 2017). Considering the current increase in
the number of refugees in rural areas, and the previous findings of
out-migration from these areas, this paper focuses on the experiences
and sense of belonging of refugees recently settled in rural areas and the
prospects of them living a sustainable everyday life in rural Denmark. It
investigates what constitutes or prevents a sense of belonging, and to
what extent refugees have built one up in their new rural communities.
Dispersal policies are usually adopted to avoid concentrating refu­
gees in urban ghettos and to generate development in municipalities
outside major conurbations. Such policies are based largely on the belief
that it is easier for refugees to integrate into smaller communities. As a
result of this belief, local communities in rural and smaller towns are
implicitly entrusted a key role in successful integration. The mayors in
peripheral municipalities argued that the local communities in their
smaller towns would be better equipped to welcome refugees than urban
areas because of their more vibrant associational life (Brandt, 2015).
This means that various players are involved in the settlement and

E-mail address: lihe@ign.ku.dk.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.01.031
Received 5 July 2019; Received in revised form 9 November 2020; Accepted 10 January 2021
Available online 20 January 2021
0743-0167/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
L. Herslund
integration of refugees; the state granting asylum and distributing ref­
ugees to municipalities, the municipalities settling the refugees and
being responsible for the first three years of integration and finally, the
local small-town communities. This paper explores the local community,
including local volunteers and groups engaged in welcoming and
creating activities for the newly settled refugees.
I attempted to address these questions by interviewing 19 refugee
households, settled in seven small towns in Denmark in 2015/2016. My
objective was to find out how structural issues, discourses and local
community activities all play a part in forming a sense of belonging to
the rural town. I also interviewed 15 volunteers in the seven towns to
learn more about their level of engagement with the refugees in their
towns and nine formal key stakeholders from the local municipalities
and NGOs.
2. Theoretical background and framework
2.1. An everyday life approach to place and belonging
Human geographers were the first to put a sense of belonging to a
place on the agenda. They took a phenomenological approach to place in
order to give value to the personal experiences and emotional bonds
people could have with places (Relphs, 1976). Initially, this approach
rested on concepts of being rooted in a specific place and was seen as
fundamental to peoples’ sense of belonging in the world (Tuan, 1977).
Later, this bond became less static as it could evolve and change through
daily use; ‘routinized and social interaction’ with the physical environ­
ment and localised social relations (Seamon, 1980). The sense of
belonging to a place thus refers not only to the emotional but also the
behavioural bonds between people and places, which in recent literature
includes at least three perspectives. These perspectives, which form the
framework for this paper and guide the exploration into place and
belonging are 1) the personal dimension, in which emotional bonds to
place develop through everyday life experiences and practices in that
place, which can then be further constrained or enhanced by 2) struc­
tural and functional factors characterising the place and 3) discourses
surrounding the place and its status (Cresswell, 2004; Savage et al.,
2005; Low and Altman, 1992).
Savage et al. (2005) focus strongly on the structural and physical
characteristics that influence the functionality of everyday life in a
specific place, such as the opportunities for mobility, accessibility and
attractive housing. You can ‘elect to belong’ (Savage et al., 2005;
Haartsen and Stockdale, 2018) and in this process, it is often the physical
characteristics, i.e. accessibility and housing that influence where you
chose to settle and belong.
The status and image of a place can also play a part when choosing
places to settle and belong. People tend to choose places that fit their life
stories and preferred lifestyles (Savage, 2005). Image and status can be
shaped by outsiders’ views; opinions and discourses presented in the
media and by politicians and people in power (Harvey, 1993) can play a
significant role in the elective attachment process. A study on belonging
to place as experienced by refugees in Greece showed that refugees
constantly compared their new environment to the places they came
from and instinctively sought places that looked and felt similar (Bogac,
2009).
In recent migrant literature the everyday life is also central to
belonging, but without the strict focus on specific places. Similar to the
literature on place, Yuval-Davis (2006) finds that the sense of belonging
among migrants is connected with various practices and activities in
their everyday lives that occur in ‘different contexts’. Beck Jørgensen
(2002) also identifies everyday life as a key factor in understanding
belonging; she distinguishes between different spheres in everyday life
to which individuals can feel a sense of belonging: work life, leisure life
and home life, and belonging to the neighbourhood; all are important to
‘a meaningful everyday life’. In other words, ‘contexts’ and ‘areas’ play a
part in belonging. Olwig (2003) emphasises that migrants’ sense of
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Journal of Rural Studies 82 (2021) 233–241
belonging is also made up of national and global social relations, which
they use to create their own sense of belonging or as Olwig describes; a
‘social place of relevance’ wherever they are. Therefore, it must not be
taken for granted that migrants will automatically develop a distinct
localised belonging to the place to which they have been sent to settle.
Migrants engage in ‘trans-local practices’ – engaging in networks across
borders (local, national and international) many of which are virtual –
resulting in ‘multiple belongings’ (Olwig, 2003; Mathisen, 2020; Hed­
berg and do Carmo, 2011) that contradict the idea of belonging as
territorially bound (Yuval-Davis, 2011). Thus, to what extent belonging
is bound to place is open to discussion. Antonsich (2010) has argued that
the notions of place and people’s emotional connections to different
places are often neglected in discussions of belonging in migrant liter­
ature. Shubin and Dickey (2013) do not find place and belonging and the
trans-local networks to be mutually exclusive, as several places can be
important meeting places for migrants at different stages in their
migration.
2.2. Migrants’ belonging to rural areas
The literature on international migrants arriving in rural areas
highlights trans-local, structural and discursive perspectives as key to
how belonging develops. Taking structural factors as a starting point, a
debate has been carried on about whether it makes sense to send refu­
gees to rural areas. Wren (2003) disagrees with the discourse that be­
lieves refugees should be a catalyst for peripheral development, as their
daily wellbeing can be threatened by sending them to live in areas that
lack both the resources and services to cater adequately for their needs
in everyday life. Woods (2018) also discusses the precarious situation of
refugees; precarious both in relation to the jobs they can find and in the
limited access to the particular help and advice they need. Structural
characteristics can also include the lack of suitable housing for refugees
in rural areas. According to Doyle (2018), it is very difficult for inter­
national migrants to find a cheap place to live in rural areas and they
may even end up putting a strain on a limited private rental housing
market, driving up prices. In contrast to these viewpoints, we find dis­
courses among, in particular, the ‘rural elite’ (company owners, em­
ployers, officials) that focus solely on migration as benefitting economic
development, without delving into or acknowledging the everyday life
experiences and challenges that immigrants and local communities
encounter (Søholt et al., 2018; McAreavey and Argent, 2018).
Everyday tasks like shopping and taking children to school have also
been identified as important for developing a sense of belonging, but a
lack of rural public spaces limits the scope for these everyday life tasks
developing into belonging (Feist et al., 2015; Nørregaard, 2018). Ac­
cording to Woods (2018), the absence of public spaces limits more open
engagement and interaction between diverse groups. Studies of unac­
companied young refugees in Sweden and Norway showed that limited
local social interaction resulted in a lack of commitment and limited the
development of a sense of belonging (Brekke, 2015; Wernesjö, 2015).
Job-seeking migrants in fishing and farming villages who were unable to
establish relations to the local population also felt very detached from
their rural place of residence (Aure et al., 2018; Skaptadottir and Woj­
tynska, 2008). According to Skaptadottir and Wojtynska (2008), the
trans-local lives and international networks of migrants could coun­
teract a local sense of belonging and place as migrants felt less of a need
to expend effort in developing local networks. This is where proximity to
other immigrants in the local area becomes important in building up a
sense of place and belonging. Immigrants can act as mediators between
newly arrived refugees and the host community, helping newcomers
navigate their new everyday lives (Larsen, 2011; Schech, 2014; Wren,
2003).
2.3. The role of the local community in migrants’ belonging
Local social networks might be less important today, but in rural
L. Herslund Journal of Rural Studies 82 (2021) 233–241

studies, they are a key ‘intangible’ factor for rural development (Bryden four rural municipalities (Municipality A, see Table 1) at which local
and Hart, 2001; Bock, 2016). Local social capital is regarded as an volunteers, refugees and municipal staff shared their experiences of
endogenous feature essential for the survival of an area as it fosters the particular activities, challenges encountered, whether to continue with
ability of local communities to mobilise and organise around develop­ these activities, and if so, how.
ment. Due to centralization and funding cuts, the role of the state and of The key criteria for the selection of towns were: A) ones where ref­
municipalities has decreased in rural areas, but at the same time, there ugees had been settled following the influx of refugees in 2015 and b) to
has been a corresponding rise in the significance of local communities what extent the local community had initiated activities for them. Three
(individuals, local groups and non-governmental organisations con­ towns were selected in a municipality (municipality A) that has had a
nected to a certain area) in organising community-level activities and policy of placing refugees in smaller towns for the past two decades. In
managing infrastructure and local assets. As such, the local community order to expand the number of case studies, four other towns were
can assume agency and play a role in development by engaging in new selected, each of which had received local media attention because they
tasks. The recently coined term rural resilience also very much refers to
rural communities’ ability to mobilise. It refers to the capacity of a
community to adapt to changing economic, social or environmental Table 1
Overview of 43 interviews with refugees and local volunteers as well as other
circumstances and to their capacity to respond quickly and appropri­
actors. The figures in brackets state how long the refugees had been in the town
ately to an emergency situation (Heijman et al., 2017) such as a sudden
at the time of the interview.
influx of refugees, which can then also be part of the path to rural
Municipality/ Refugees Local volunteers Other actors
resilience (Stenbacka, 2013).
towns
There is limited research into the role the local community plays in
the belonging of immigrants. Johansen (2018) finds that community Municipality A
Town 1 (600 2 Eritrean single Group interview: 6 Municipal
organisations such as associations and churches can mediate local social
inhabitants) men – 26 and 17 volunteers and coordinator of the
integration and Wernesjö (2015) finds that local volunteers engaging in year old (5 months follow-up network of
the lives of refugees can encourage a sense of belonging. It is, however, and again after 1.5 interview with one volunteers, two
by no means the case that in all areas, locals engage actively with years). of them, 0.5 and 1 municipal
year later. coordinators of new
migrant and refugee newcomers (Johansen, 2018; Woods, 2018; Skap­
Town 2 1 Syrian family (3 Group interview: 4 co-creation
tadottir and Wojtynska, 2008). McAreavey and Argent (2018) also (1500) months), 1 Syrian volunteers and initiative on
acknowledge that local rural communities play an important role in family (1.5 year), follow-up integration, local
assisting migrants’ everyday lives. Based on cases in rural Australia and 1 Eritrean single interview with one politician head of
Northern Ireland, they find formal support services for migrants to be man (1 year and volunteer, 0.5 and the employment
again after 2 1 year later. committee
fragmented and unable to cope adequately with the scale and pace of
years) and 1
immigration; in part because international migration is new in these Syrian (1 year and
areas. In these cases, local communities felt morally obliged to fill ser­ again after 2
vice gaps, but their activities could only alleviate short-term challenges years).
Group interview:
and could not provide ‘structural remedies’ (McAreavey and Argent,
10 Eritrean single
2018). Local volunteers can help out but are the migrants better off in men (1–1.5 years).
the long term, they ask. Woods (2018) also finds that local communities Town 3 1 Syrian family (8 Group interview: 3
can do a great deal to welcome migrants but also questions whether they (4000) months), 1 Syrian volunteers and
are, in fact, keeping the immigrants in a precarious situation and family (1 year), 1 follow-up
Burmese family (5 interview with one
whether rural areas can cater for diversity in the longer term. Moreover,
years) and 1 volunteer, 0.5 and
rural groups welcoming migrants are vulnerable to over-dependence on Syrian (1 year and 1 year later.
a limited number of individuals and on short-term funding options again after 2
(Woods, 2018). According to McAreavey and Argent (2018), the field of years).
Group interview: 8
international migration is so complex, governed by a myriad of policies
Iraqi and Afghani
and with so many actors involved at various different levels that it limits refugees (2–4
the role the local communities can play. years) taking part
In summing up, the entry point for the creation of a sense of in a homework
belonging toplace is through the everyday lives of the refugees. This cafe.
MUNICIPALITY B
paper explores how structural issues, discourses and local community
Town 4 (800) Group interview: 1 Group interview: 3 Leader of Red Cross
activities all play a part in forming a sense of, or lack of, belonging to the Syrian family (1 volunteers and municipal office,
rural town. This is evaluated within the parameters of the whole year), 2 Somali follow-up Municipal
everyday life of refugees; their ‘daily activities and practices’, their families (1.5 year), interview with one integration
different ‘spheres of everyday life’ and their ‘social place of relevance’. 2 Afghan families volunteer 1 year coordinator,
(4 years). later Municipal planner
This framework is important in order to fully understand what role local Town 5 (900) Group interview: 2 Group interview. 5
place and the local community can play in a sustainable and ‘mean­ Syrian families (1 volunteers.
ingful’ everyday life, and consequently, their feeling of belonging. year).
MUNICIPALITY C
Town 6 Group interview: 2 Group interview: 2 Municipal
3. Methods (1100) Syrian single men volunteers and integration
(1–1.5 years), 3 follow up coordinator, leader
The study is as an interview-based qualitative study carried out in Syrian families (2 interview 1 year of volunteer centre.
seven small towns across four municipalities. Interviews were conducted months, 1 year, 2 later. Focus group with 8
years). members from
with a number of refugees resettled in these towns, local volunteers
network ’helping
involved in initiating activities for refugees, and key formal stake­ refugees”
holders, including integration officers and NGO representatives. Two MUNICIPALITY D
workshops were also held: an initial one at which researchers, NGO Town 7 1 Syrian family (1 Interview with 1
representatives and municipal staff were invited to discuss ‘refugees as a (4000) year and again volunteer.
after 1.5 years).
resource for rural development’ and a concluding workshop in one of the

235
L. Herslund
had been active in arranging activities for refugees. A total of seven
towns of different sizes across four rural municipalities were selected:
two towns of around 4000 inhabitants and towns of 1,500, 1,100, 900,
800 and 600 inhabitants (see Table 1). It is difficult to say to what extent
these towns are representative of how small towns, in general, react to
refugees, and how widespread the phenomenon of placing refugees in
small towns actually is at this point in time. The information I have
relied on comes in part from stories in the local media and Facebook
groups; as yet there have been no coordinated studies regarding the
placement of refugees after the influx from 2015 onwards. Of the towns
selected, two had received refugees before 2015, but not in quite the
same numbers, and 20–40 refugees had been sent to them in 2015/2016.
The snowball method was used to select refugees. The first in­
terviews took place when attending local activities (homework cafés and
other social cafés), and contacts were then made to visit other refugees
in the local area. Half of the interviews took place at local activities,
while the other half took place in refugees’ and volunteers’ homes. In
total, 19 interviews with refugees were conducted, 15 with a single
family or a single person. The rest consisted of group interviews with
5–10 people who had met for a particular activity (five interviews at
homework/social cafés, and one in a former nursing home occupied
predominately by single men) (see Table 1). Five of the interviews are
re-interviews, conducted a year after the first set with the refugees in
five of the towns. All of the interviews focused on themes such as the
refugees’ everyday life, their use and view of the town, their social re­
lations, their hopes and plans for the future. Using the snowball method
at local activities meant we were unable to make contact with all refu­
gees in the area, leading to an over-representation of those attending
local activities and those who could speak English.
Fifteen interviews were conducted with volunteers from the local
communities and included a member/head of the town civic organisa­
tion from each town. Six of the interviews were in groups. Three vol­
unteers from the three towns in municipality A, as well as two volunteers
each from towns 4 and 6, were re-interviewed a year later. During the
intervening months, the volunteers from municipality A were inter­
viewed over the phone. All interviews focused on the local activities, the
mobilisation and organisation of volunteers, and how they saw their role
in promoting integration. I joined the town Facebook groups as well as
Facebook groups for particular activities such as homework cafés,
following the sites regularly to gain an overview of the activities that
were referred to in the interviews in each town. Nine interviews were
conducted in all, with other relevant actors such as municipal staff,
NGOs, politicians and volunteers; one in the form of a group interview
(see Table 1).
All interviews lasted 1–2 h and were recorded and transcribed. In
total, 9 of the 19 interviews with refugees were conducted using an
interpreter. In a small number of cases, a professional interpreter was
used; however, the others were conducted with a fellow English-
speaking refugee acting as translator. Two group interviews took place
where some of the refugees interviewed also functioned as interpreters
for those unable to speak either English or Danish. The rest of the in­
terviews were conducted in English. I am aware that using refugees
known to the interviewees, as interpreters, may possibly have inhibited
the interviewees when discussing sensitive issues, but it also made many
of them feel more comfortable as it helped convince them that we did
not represent a formal institution intent on revoking their residence
permits, for example.
The transcribed interviews were analysed in a similar fashion to
thematic coding by searching for common subjects across the range of
interviews. Themes I looked for in the interviews included the key
perspectives outlined in the theoretical framework on place and
belonging; everyday lives, structural factors, discourses and social re­
lations. For ethical reasons, the refugees’ real names have not been used
where they are referred to in the text. Similarly, in order to ensure that
respondents could not be identified, the towns and municipalities are
referred to with numbers and letters (see Table 1).
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Journal of Rural Studies 82 (2021) 233–241
4. Empirical results; refugees’ everyday life in rural areas
4.1. Everyday life and rural discourses
The refugee respondents led busy lives and were involved in
numerous everyday activities. According to the literature, activities are
a key factor in developing a sense of place and belonging, yet many of
them-took place outside the small towns where the refugees lived. On
being granted asylum, the municipality the refugees were assigned to
offered them language classes and subsequent job training. These ac­
tivities were often centralised in the municipality’s main town or out­
sourced to a neighbouring municipality, meaning that refugees spent
their ‘work-life sphere’ outside the small town. Many of them also did
most of their grocery shopping in the larger towns where they attended
language classes because they were able to source ethnic products there;
also, as many of them pointed out in the interviews, it was far too
expensive for them to shop in their local areas, if there even was a local
shop.
Discourses surrounding disadvantaged rural areas also seemed to
play a part in belonging, as the initial attitudes of the refugees towards
being settled in the small town were mostly negative. Most of the refu­
gees described being frustrated when they discovered they were to be
settled in a small town. At the centres where they spent the first few
months until granted asylum, they heard stories from other residents
that being placed in a rural area was difficult and lonely. The reaction of
family and friends outside Denmark when they talked over the internet
was also that they would be stuck with no opportunities to find work.
Refugees from Syria stressed that they preferred to live in cities, and thus
living in rural areas did not seem to fit into their life-stories (Savage,
2005). Rural areas in their home countries were normally seen as places
to visit but not live a modern life. ”We are city people, and we only know
how to live with life around us” Ismail, a fifty-year-old family father,
explained. Some also referred to a common narrative among Danish
politicians and the media that rural areas are places with little or no
opportunities and limited public services. As an Iraqi refugee said with a
twinkle in his eye at a group interview “when I watch television, you Danes
also leave the rural and call them ‘the rotten banana’”.
4.2. Sensing the place but lacking meeting places
On finally arriving in the small town, several respondents explained
that they felt out of place and were unsure about how to behave. On the
question of how the respondents used their new town, many again
compared their new place of residence with others they had lived in and
said that a good neighbourhood was with a lively street life and places to
meet. It was literally very much about how the new town was sensed and
how it felt being in it. Ayla, a young wife and mother said: “I miss the
noises and the smells in the morning of the man selling bread underneath our
windows. It is too quiet here, and you look so out of place”. Aisha, a woman
with teenage children mentioned something similar: ”It looks strange
when we wander around. I feel very uncomfortable and often stay indoors
instead”. Thus, the uncertainty about how to behave prevents the refu­
gees from engaging in everyday activities and routines in the small town.
The busy, informal urban environment many came from is also
referred to in strong contrast to the life they encountered in their Danish
towns, where socialising takes place in more formalised clubs and as­
sociations. Amina said: ”At home, the kids just run in and out and play in the
streets after homework. Here people are not on the street but in the sports hall
and clubhouses. It was not easy to figure out. We are expected to join the
football club, or swimming classes and gymnastics, but I feel too shy and busy
for this”.
In the interviews, refugees living in social housing expressed greater
satisfaction with their homes and immediate neighbourhoods, firstly
because the buildings looked like what other people lived in, and sec­
ondly because there were common spaces around the houses where they
‘were allowed’ to sit and meet neighbours and where their children
L. Herslund
could play. This is in line with Nørregaard (2018), Woods (2018) and
Brekke (2015), who found that a lack of public spaces can limit the
development of local social relations. This study shows that a lack of
clearly defined public spaces rather than the more hidden and
half-private clubhouses and sports halls can make it difficult for the
refugees to ‘read’ the town and the behavioural norms inhibiting
belonging.
4.3. Structural challenges – transport and housing
The functionality (Savage, 2005) of the small town is also very much
an issue in the busy everyday lives of the respondents. In everyday life,
respondents became very dependent on public transport. A number of
the seven towns have train links. Others have only a few buses a day,
resulting in a time-consuming and expensive daily commute. If it was
also necessary to bring children to school in a neighbouring town,
commuting times became even longer.
In relation to housing, respondents were accommodated in different
forms of ‘surplus’ housing stock, often disused public institutions such as
kindergartens or nursing homes. In one town, a derelict nursing home
was bought by a local building contractor, who refurbished it and rented
out rooms to the refugees. Refugees were also placed in different forms
of social housing, nursing homes or housing for young people available
to the municipality. The demolition of a social housing estate of terraced
houses was postponed so they could be rented to the refugees. The rest of
the refugees (approx. 1/3) were accommodated in private rental hous­
ing: houses, rooms or holiday homes.
Much of the available housing stock, the former nursing home and
rented rooms, for instance, was best suited to single occupants; however,
some couples were also placed in them. The refugees accommodated in
the nursing home perceived it as a continuation of the asylum centre.
The young single men liked it because it helped them feel less lonely, but
they also wanted to move to bigger towns and live like ‘normal’ young
people. A local volunteer said: "Our old nursing home has become a ghetto
for those who cannot afford to move on and it is a pity. Families find it easier
to settle in, but we have no housing for them”. It is the responsibility of the
municipality to find refugees a place to live; refugees are free to move
away from the towns they have been resettled in, but then they must
cover any deposits and moving expenses themselves. According to local
volunteers, this prevents many from moving as they are living on low
refugee benefits. If a refugee is reunited with their family, the munici­
pality is obliged to find them a larger home than a single room in the
nursing home. This often results in them leaving the small town as there
is no other suitably-sized rental housing available. “When my wife got
here (as a result of family reunification), we had to move out of my rented
room in a house I was sharing with two other men to a bigger town 10 km
away,” a family father told us in a group interview at a social café in his
‘former’ town. “We still come back here to visit friends and join the social
café, and we are on the look-out for a place to live in this town”. In other
words, there are refugees who would like to remain in the area, but who
are forced to leave because of a shortage of housing. According to Savage
(2010), attractive housing is a key denominator in place and belonging,
but a more precise formulation in this study would be that housing is a
key denominator for whether the newcomers stay where they are, but
their place and belonging can develop despite access to housing and can
apparently continue after moving on. While the seven towns studied
may have attractive housing for middle-class income-earners, they do
not typically have any immediately available cheap rental housing in
which the municipality can place refugees, a phenomenon Doyle (2018)
found generally characteristic of rural areas.
4.4. Rural areas as part of refugees’ ‘social place of relevance’?
As Olwig (2003) points out, migrants have trans-local lives and
networks as do the refugee respondents in this study. On the question as
to where their closest social relations were, most refugees replied that
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Journal of Rural Studies 82 (2021) 233–241
they were in their home country, in other European countries, or even in
other locations in Denmark, as they had often established close friend­
ships in the asylum centres. The refugees were all in daily contact with
people outside their local area through SMS, Messenger, Facebook,
Skype or FaceTime, spending at least a couple of hours a day main­
taining these contacts, which according to Skaptadottir and Wojtynska
(2008), could inhibit a new sense of place and belonging. The answers
from the refugees in this study, however, showed that they managed to
maintain both local and global networks in their everyday lives and use
them for different purposes. “With our family back home, we talk about
how we can help those still left back in the homeland. When I want to talk
about our own challenges, I talk to friends from the asylum centre, but also to
other refugees in the town. If I have a bigger practical problem or need some
information or help with the language, I wait until the next local social café is
held and ask the very helpful ladies there” Samar clarified. Therefore, it
was also important to have local relations as part of your ‘social place of
relevance’ that could provide social life and help with all the new
everyday life challenges.
When the refugees were asked to describe what forms of social life
they engaged in locally, they mentioned going for a coffee and chatting
with other refugees and having more formalised encounters with local
volunteers at social and homework cafés. Most of the refugees placed
great value on the sharing of experiences with other refugees and mi­
grants, which is similar to the findings of Larsen (2011) and Schech
(2014). They found that local belonging is enhanced through local
networks with other migrants in a similar situation. The reason for this is
that these relations are initially more familiar and less formal than the
task of building social relations with Danish people. “We drink coffee
with the Danes every third week at the social café”, Ismail, the fifty-year-old
family father said. Many refugees mentioned that they felt unfamiliar
with the new ways of socialising in the towns, through sports clubs and
cultural associations, for instance, and felt more comfortable attending
local café activities set up for the new refugees. It is hardly surprising
that 18 out of the 19 respondents we talked to regularly attended local
social café activities, as our contact was primarily with those known to
the local volunteers (see Methods). According to the refugees inter­
viewed, there were also a large number of refugees in their local towns
who did not participate in any activities. In five of the towns, refugee
respondents said that most of their fellow refugees (3/4) took part in
local activities. In the other two towns, about a third or less took part.
Consequently, there was also a sizeable number of refugees who had no
contact to the local community, a fact that Brekke (2015) and Wernesjö
(2015) also found in their study of young refugees. In this study, it was,
in particular, the young single refugee men that had difficulty engaging
in local activities. At the group interview at the nursing home, a young
refugee said: “I am sure they are nice, but I feel uncomfortable and shy
because what should I say to an elderly Danish lady”?
The refugees who attended local activities said they were helped by
people at the social cafés with various practical problems. These
included moving furniture, reading letters, getting a lift to the hospital,
finding out what was wrong with the wifi or renewing commuter travel
cards. “They (referring to the refugees who did not attend local activ­
ities) miss out on so much help. I have new Danish friends who drive me to
hospital every time I have a test for my epilepsy”, Ismail said. However, a
family father Mohammed found that “there was too much ‘hygge’ (note:
the Danish word for a homely and cheerful atmosphere) at the social café, so I
did not feel like bringing up subjects like my wife’s depression and my efforts
to raise money to start up my own shop”. If the social cafés were more open
to issues such as traumas, and practical problems, such as applying for
family reunification, finding jobs and new places to live, they could play
a greater role they in the social place of relevance of the refugees. “I have
also talked to my municipal contact person about these issues, but I feel there
is not enough time to really find the good solutions. I cannot take more of her
time, but in the social café, I feel I can” another family father remarked.
L. Herslund
4.5. Facebook mobilisation; filling the gap
According to McAreavey and Argent (2018), local communities often
feel obliged to fill the gaps in formal integration efforts. In these case
towns, local volunteers also became involved because they were un­
aware of what formal efforts had been put in place, and had limited
contact with the municipalities. Local volunteers described their initial
meetings with refugees like this: “We started to see foreign-looking people
at the bus stop and around town and were not sure what to do” a female
volunteer said. Local people often did not know who to contact for more
information. “We tried to call the municipality but did not know who to ask -
somebody working with integration?” a local volunteer said, continuing
“we then contacted a person from another village that had been in the local
paper because they had started activities for refugees and invited him over to
hear about their experiences “. Interestingly, all the local volunteers had
found inspiration on the homepage of the movement Venligboerne (The
Friendly Neighbours). Venligboerne is a movement established in 2015 in a
town in northern Jutland by local people to promote friendship with
refugees and arrange social activities with them. In the space of a few
months, the movement had established local groups across the country.
All seven towns proved ‘resilient’ in that they were able to mobilise
quickly. Usually, 1–3 local people placed the initial phone enquiries to
the municipality or other organisations. They then posted information
on the town Facebook page to encourage other local people to join them.
This typically resulted in a local group of 10–15 people. They then
looked for English speakers among the refugees in order to convey in­
formation about the activities being organised. The first event that was
held, in all seven towns, was a communal meal. This was followed up by
various other activities including organised trips and collections of
clothes and furniture. Collections proved especially popular with locals,
with groups of 20–30 local people often becoming involved.
The first one or two local people to take an initiative were usually
over the age of fifty. The people they then reached out to and mobilised
in many cases described themselves as new to associational life in the
town – “not the usual suspects” - and included ‘younger’ people aged
30–50. The urgency of the cause, the coverage in the media, inspiration
from the grassroots movement Venligboerne and a more loosely struc­
tured form of engagement, seemed to attract younger locals. ”We saw
pictures on the news of refugees walking the motorways, and we had to do
something” was a common refrain concerning their motivation. None of
the mobilised locals wanted to set up new, formal associations. They
thought a Facebook group was sufficient. ”Organising collections of
clothes and Christmas presents for the children gives me great satisfaction. I
can make a difference without having to go to general assemblies or having to
meet up every week” commented one woman.
4.6. Short-term or long-term?
McAreavey and Argent (2018) and Woods (2018) questioned
whether local community efforts could serve as long-term support.
When we interviewed the volunteers a year later, organised activities
and events were still going strong in three of the towns: a large town
(town 3), a middle-sized town (town 6) and the smallest town (town 4),
in three different municipalities. These were also the towns that had the
largest number of refugees attending social cafés since they began. In the
other towns, such activities had fizzled out; in the end, “there were more
locals than refugees turning up each time”. In another town, one local
volunteer said “I found it difficult to keep up with the very complicated issues
that the refugees were struggling with. What do I know about legislation and
rules, and I did not always know how to find the information”. One said, “it
is much easier to mobilise people for collections and casual social activities
than having to feel responsible for whether a refugee gets reunited with his
family or help finding a place to live”. According to local volunteers, the
high turnover of refugees moving in and out during the first year had the
effect of discouraging some locals from engaging in activities for refu­
gees, as they felt it was a waste of effort.
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Journal of Rural Studies 82 (2021) 233–241
Characteristic for the towns where activities were still going strong
appears to be a combination of physical meeting places, e.g. social cafés,
(of which there seems to be a general shortage of in rural areas) and
ongoing contact with individual refugees. The cafés are quite profes­
sionally run, offering practical help, language training and a range of
advisory services. ”All the fun stuff like collections and cafés has to be
combined with more serious supportive efforts where we contact the refugees
personally to find out what is on their minds, even the youngsters” explained
Annie, head of the social café in the large town. Maria, who still runs the
homework café in the smallest town said: “it is not enough to put up a
poster or announce events on Facebook and expect refugees and locals to
come every week”. She continued “our homework café is open to everyone,
and we encourage people to discuss anything they feel is important”. The
volunteers in all three towns said that the issues refugees brought up had
changed over time. “They still need us. Before, we talked about a lot of the
practical matters, then it was family reunification applications, and now it is
things like a difficult job situation, finding a place to live or what kind of
education they want to take”. A common denominator for these three
towns was that refugees who had moved away (primarily due to a lack of
suitable housing) still returned to participate in the social café activities.
A common challenge acknowledged by three volunteers was
involving refugees in the wider social and civic life of the towns.
“Sometimes, we isolate ourselves with all these ‘refugee activities’. The only
way out is to get the refugees to take part in the many associations here, but I
have only managed to get the children motivated. The grown-ups do not feel
comfortable joining”, Annie said. In other words, more long-term activ­
ities often rely on just a few dedicated individuals, similar to Woods
(2018) findings, once the initial Facebook organised collection events
have passed.
4.7. Newcomers for rural development?
Refugees can be linked to rural development at a political level by
mayors and businessmen; by the ‘rural elite’ as Søholt et al. (2018) and
McAreavey and Argent (2018) define them. However, these links were
not reflected in the day-to-day dealings with refugees by municipal of­
ficers, or in the motivation felt by local communities to engage with
refugees.
The municipalities did not seem overly sensitive to the nature of the
rural and small-town contexts. They had not engaged rural consultants
or physical planners in integration work in the small towns. A major
challenge for the local volunteers had been establishing contact with the
municipalities, in relation to the many questions and issues that arose as
they instigated contact with the refugees. The volunteers ended up
engaging with the municipality in various different ways as each mu­
nicipality handled their integration effort differently. In municipality A,
the integration officer invited volunteers, mostly from formal associa­
tions already working with refugees in the municipality (and which
many small towns did not have) to information meetings twice a year.
The integration officer said: “I often do not know who to contact in the
smaller towns when there is no formal association dealing with integration”.
The local volunteer Annie (from the larger town) did not attend these
meetings; however, as she found it covered more general information
that was not suited to ‘her’ refugees’ situation. She could obtain more
suitable, specific information from colleagues at her workplace.
In municipality B, the regional Red Cross handled many of the day-
to-day integration activities for the municipality. In municipality C,
the volunteers found it difficult to find a contact person in the munici­
pality who could respond to their questions. A Facebook network for
volunteers, called “Help refugees” that had expanded across the mu­
nicipality, coordinating collections and offering advice, lobbied the
municipality to employ a ‘refugee coordinator’. This was successful, and
a coordinator was employed for 12 h a week. The network invited the
coordinator to a meeting every second month to discuss various issues
that local volunteers had been facing. Kristine, from the middle-sized
town, was part of the Facebook network group and said: “I have really
L. Herslund
used the network a lot because there is always somebody in the network who
has been in the same situation. Especially now when we’re also helping them
look for jobs”.
All of the small towns had civic organisations that dealt with regional
development issues, but the refugee question was primarily seen as a
social issue. It was an agenda item at meetings, but for the most part
merely as an announcement of activities or a request for assistance with
collections etc. Responses to the question of whether volunteers and
town civic organisations saw refugees as a resource for town develop­
ment typically took the following form: “Yes, why not. We have not really
looked at it like that before”. The head of one civic organization also said:
“Helping our refugees is an important social project we engage in, but to think
they can save us, I am not sure”. When asked whether they could see an
advantage in working more strategically with refugees, the responses
were generally positive, although most respondents pointed out that
they did not have the right type of housing for them and that they had so
many other issues to deal with that there was a need to prioritise. ”We
are busy dealing with a lot of issues to keep the community alive. Refugees are
probably not where we should be putting too much effort. Another com­
mented “We mainly get single men here, and maybe they would be better off
in the bigger towns. If we could get more families, it would be a win-win for
everyone”.
4.8. A year on – staying and leaving?
After a year, five refugee households in different towns were revis­
ited. Three of the households were still living in the same small town,
and two had moved away. The main reason for leaving, as well as for
staying, revolved around housing. One household that had left consisted
of two young cousins, who had initially been placed in an empty social
housing apartment earmarked for elderly people, and who were forced
to move out because a local elderly woman needed the apartment.
Another leaver was Olla, a young Syrian woman, and her husband, who
had lived in the nursing home for the first year. They left because they
had wanted to live in what they called a “normal home like other peo­
ple”, so when she began training as a social worker, and he found a job in
a mattress factory through the help of a local volunteer, they began
looking for rented accommodation; in the end, they were only able to
find it in another, larger town. Both these households still visited other
refugees and Danish contacts in the original towns and described them
as important in their lives; somebody they would contact– also their
Danish contacts – if they were in trouble or needed help. Thus, staying
was made more difficult by structural issues but belonging, based
around local social relations, can nonetheless be formed and continue,
despite access to more suitable housing elsewhere.
Of the three households still living in the towns, two mentioned their
good, cheap flats as a major reason for remaining. For example,
Mohammed said that although he did not have much contact with the
local community anymore, he was still in the town because “My flat is
cheap and big enough for a whole family and we can afford to save up”. The
other household who had stayed consisted of Amira, a young mother,
and her husband, who had started to commute to Esbjerg (20 km away)
to go to a carpentry college. She hoped to find a more permanent job in
the local kindergarten: “We will stay here where we have a good flat. We
have some friends here but also in other towns who we can ask for help”. The
third person simply could not find any suitable accommodation in the
larger town where he was soon going to study: “I hope to move to Esbjerg
to go to high school, so I do not have to take so many trains. It is just so
difficult to find anything cheap, so I am staying here until I find something. I
have a local woman helping me look for an affordable room”.
Four of the re-interviewed households had established relatively
strong relations to local people, both to other refugees and volunteers,
who they all still returned to meet, even those that had left town.
However, these relations could not compensate for the shortage of
suitable housing.
The volunteers in the seven towns who were interviewed a second
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Journal of Rural Studies 82 (2021) 233–241
time noted that around half of the refugees who were initially settled in
their towns had left. The first few years saw a high turnover of refugees
moving into the towns and then leaving again; mainly due to the limited
housing stock available. Housing was also one of the main issues that
refugees sought advice on from local volunteers at the social cafés; they
either sought assistance in finding a cheaper but larger place locally or
help in pressurising the municipality to let them continue living in what
originally was only supposed to be temporary accommodation. How­
ever, there were only a few instances where volunteers had succeeded in
helping the refugees stay.
5. Discussion and conclusion
What form could place and belonging take?
Belonging is formed through an ongoing process of negotiating
everyday life activities (Yuval-Davis, 2006). The question raised in this
paper is whether, and in what manner the local place of residence plays a
role in this process. Everyday life routines and activities in a place can
form a basis for belonging (Seamon, 1980; Feist et al., 2015). This study
shows that refugees settled in small towns have busy day-to-day lives
with multiple everyday activities and practices outside the local area.
The time actually spent in the local area – the leisure sphere – is char­
acterised by uncertainties around how to behave and navigate in the
town, and how to engage in the more formalised associational life. Thus,
participation in routines and local practices becomes challenging, hin­
dering the forming of a sense of belonging, at least in the initial stages.
This paper contributes to a clearer understanding of how refugees
initially perceive the small-town setting and to what extent they can
have a ‘meaningful everyday life’ (Beck Jørgensen, 2002) in the rural
setting. The more informal and lively activities in a city, which is the
type of life to which many refugees are used, can be at odds with a
small-town way of life, often with only a few people going about their
business, and ‘social and leisure life’ is more formalised, with people
tending to gather in associations and clubs. These factors, combined
with the refugees’ initially more negative discourses around the lack of
possibilities in rural areas and the lack of fit with their life stories from
an urban background (Savage, 2005), make the starting point for
belonging difficult. Here the volunteer activities can create more
accessible meeting places (social cafés) and social activities. The sharing
of experiences with other refugees and migrants, mentioned in several
studies as important (e.g. Schech, 2014) is possibly even more para­
mount for a sense of belonging to the new place of residence when most
of the rest of your surroundings feel unfamiliar.
This paper contributes insights into what refugees struggle with
when they are settled in rural areas, and it is clear that the functionality
(Savage, 2005) of the town is a key denominator. What this study
demonstrates is that creating a sense of belonging to a place is extremely
difficult owing to several structural factors such as the lack of cheap
‘normal’ rental housing. The temporary character of the housing avail­
able resulted in at least half of the refugees leaving the small town within
the first couple of years. The refugees would like to live like other local
people, not in old institutions. They also spent time worrying about their
housing situation, which may also hinder a sense of belonging. To
reiterate; the refugees have little time to establish routines and develop
everyday life practices locally and move on due to a lack of suitable
housing. The small town becomes just another place on their journey, as
Shubin and Dickey (2013) proposed.
Living in a small town presents many of the same challenges for
refugees as for Danes, but the inherent structural factors are not so easily
overcome if you are reliant on low refugee benefits and are new to rural
life in Denmark. Meeting and connecting with people requires active
help when you are unfamiliar with the ‘vibrant’ but somehow hidden
and formal, small-town social life. Therefore, it cannot be taken for
granted that the small town actually plays a significant part in their busy
lives and in their ‘social space of relevance’ (Olwig, 2003). Conse­
quently, rural diversity (Woods, 2018) seems difficult to maintain when
L. Herslund
a lack of cheap rented housing results in so many refugees leaving again
before they are in a position to develop a sense of belonging.
5.1. Can the community play a role?
This study of belonging has shown that it is a very complex issue,
subject to structural challenges inherent in rural areas and compounded
by urban backgrounds and unfamiliarity with rural associational life.
Local volunteers can help refugees navigate their busy new everyday
lives but cannot solve structural issues. The ability of the local com­
munity and volunteers to mobilise social activities is a key factor in
promoting belonging among refugees. Almost all local town commu­
nities show ‘resilience’, in the sense that they can, through ‘Facebook’ or
’pop-ups’, mobilise around an urgent problem. It is the more long-term
efforts that are difficult to maintain. Here, volunteers must source in­
formation and gain support from outside organisations, which in
particular, the still-active three town communities have achieved. One
contribution made by this study is the insights into how local commu­
nities try ‘to fill the gap’ and what gaps there are to fill. This study shows
that refugees seek help from their local host community to deal with all
the new and complex aspects of their everyday life; in other words,
getting together for social activities such as eating or drinking coffee is
not sufficient in itself. Apparently, the formal efforts do not cater for
most of the insecurities of the newcomers. There is a myriad of com­
plexities involved in arriving in a new country (e.g. different laws and
unfamiliar rules and regulations); in addition to these, living in a small
town presents its own challenges (getting lifts, finding rented housing,
learning where people get together, etc.). Over time, the nature of the
challenges that refugees face changes. They need assistance in relation
to education, jobs and legal matters; issues that are more complicated
than the initial practical daily chores they faced, and more complicated
than people in the local community can deal with. So, while interaction
with the local community can help ameliorate the drawbacks of living in
a rural setting, filling in some of the gaps in the piecemeal integration
work of formal institutions (Woods, 2018), it is questionable whether
local communities can cope on their own in the long-term.
Mayors and local elites expect local rural communities to be efficient
in handling the job; the fact that there are typically a number of clubs
and associations in small towns should facilitate this, but as outlined in
this study, the real-life tasks involved are much more complex. Unfor­
tunately, these initiatives also have to compete with numerous other
important causes in the town, so it falls to a diminishing number of
people to tackle the challenges (Woods, 2018). Enrolling refugees in the
local clubs and associations is a major challenge, and would probably
not answer or assuage the many questions and insecurities refugees
have. To play a role in belonging depends very much on whether there
are locals who have particular skill-sets, and who are prepared and
committed to working hard with engaging and helping refugees. It has
proven successful in some towns, where refugees seem to feel some sense
of belonging, to the extent that they return for visits even after they have
moved away due to housing factors. Members of the community and
local activities have become important in their ‘social place of relevance’
so they keep in touch. In other towns, housing may be available, but the
refugees have not formed relations to any local people, only to other
refugees and immigrants who – combined availability of cheap housing
– are the reason for them staying. In other words, housing is a crucial
factor for staying, while belonging can be developed despite housing
factors.
Organising activities for refugees is regarded locally as a social
project and not a development project, but they should probably be seen
as both if the larger structural problems are also to be addressed. The
same applies to the approach at municipal level. While refugees may be
linked to rural development at a political level by mayors and rural elites
(Søholt et al., 2018), this is not reflected in the municipal approach.
Municipalities seem to be at a very nascent stage in working with rural
communities and refugees and addressing diversity, as it appears there is
240
Journal of Rural Studies 82 (2021) 233–241
a lack of sensitivity to local contexts and rural settings. It is difficult for
them to work with the more locally-based Facebook voluntary groups;
instead, local communities must look to movements like Venligboerne,
Facebook groups and, to some extent the Red Cross, for support and
inspiration.
Small town communities have been given a major role to play in
ensuring the success of dispersal policies in retaining refugees in the
local area. Generally speaking, the influx of refugees into a town is not
dealt with strategically as an opportunity for local development, either
by the municipalities or by the local communities. Nonetheless, the local
communities in this study all initiated activities to welcome refugees. Of
these, some of the town communities continued the activities, eventu­
ally contributing to refugees building up a sense of belonging. However,
even these communities could not make all refugees stay.
Returning to the perspectives mentioned at the start of the paper –
the ones that guide explorations of place and belonging – several con­
clusions can be drawn. Firstly, while everyday life experiences and
practices can be both constrained or enhanced by structural factors and
discourses, the local community can help make life easier for refugees by
setting up meeting places and helping them navigate the new town in
which they find themselves living. Secondly, local people can help
challenge refugees’ negative feelings about rural life. Thirdly, local
people cannot change the housing situation for refugees. Taken
together, these three factors mean that, without outside help, the local
community does not on its own have the wherewithal to make the ref­
ugees stay in their towns.
Author statement
The paper is written by a singly author.
The local communities and respondents that have participated in the
research and data generation are informed about the paper, have agreed
to the paper content and look forward to hopefully be able to read a
published version.
Acknowledgements
Danish Ministry of Integration and Housing funded the research
project ’Refugees as a resource - integration through new partnerships’.
Project ID 2015-626.
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