| dc.description.abstract | This paper analyzes the role of the environmental image in the process of integration for refugees living in Stockholm, Sweden. The research uses techniques that the urbanist Kevin Lynch developed to question residents of Boston, Jersey City, and Los Angeles regarding their “image of the city” in the late 1950s. While integration is generally measured in terms of quantitative successes—especially the percentage of refugees entering the Swedish labor market and at what level—this study uses Lynch’s qualitative methods, a combination of in-depth interviewing and mental mapping, to elicit personal feelings about a new existence in Stockholm, which is a highly segregated city. These interviews were conducted with participants in the Red Cross Refugee Introduction Program, a small-scale alternative to the City of Stockholm Integration Agency program but funded by the city. Additional information was gathered using more traditional interviews, held with government and Red Cross officials, and through analysis of the Swedish media coverage of integration issues. Naming three kinds of spaces where refugees participate in urban life with lesser degrees of social, psychological, and physical exclusion, this paper expands upon the context, methods, and findings, and then suggests some possible new directions for practice. | en_US |
