Changes in the countryside: Settlement of immigrants and refugees in a rural municipality.

Changes in the countryside: settlement of immigrants and refugees in a rural municipality Helle Nørgaard ([email protected]), Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg University, CPH
The majority of the Danish population resides in large urban regions, while the population of many rural municipalities are declining as out-migration exceeds in-migration. However, due to global migration processes with settlement of immigrants and refugees, population decline has been reduced and the population is increasingly becoming multicultural and ethnically diverse.The background of this paper is a Nordic research project MultiRur which examines immigrant settlement in the perspective of integration, transnationalism, meaning of place and resilience.
The municipality of Hjørring is the Danish case in the project which is characterized by more than 100 different nationalities representing social, demographic, cultural and ethnic change.Based on interviews with internal and international migrants as well as refugees, this paper applies a biographical perspective on migrants’ moving motives, settlement and place belonging. Aspects hereof are related to civil society and whether migrants feel welcome and are part of local or other communities. Other themes are experience related to housing, workplace, local institutions and the rural setting and lastly, how migrants communicate and connect with family and friends. Thus, focus in the study are the narratives of the migrants: how they talk about, reflect upon and make sense of their settlement and everyday life in a rural area of Denmark. Keywords: Immigrant settlement, movingmotives and place belonging.