From Integration to Belonging? Exploring the Trajectory of Integration for Short-term Settled Refugee Women in Berlin

Since 2015, Germany has welcomed over one million asylum seekers across its borders. While much has been written about their arrival - and the country’s initial response - there remains very little research on subsequent integration efforts. Existing literature on refugee integration in Europe too often fails to acknowledge the ways in which women refugees may benefit from or be disadvantaged by established institutional integration narratives and initiatives. This paper therefore, has three main aims: first, to provide a case study that prioritises the perspectives of refugee women living in Berlin as experts re their own experiences; second, to fill a research gap in refugee and migrant integration studies through focusing on the first five years of protracted displacement; third, to reassess the trajectory of integration in light of semi-structured interviews with nine refugee women, aged between 19 and 35. Crucially, the paper emphasises the agency of the interviewees in shaping their unique integration process and outcome. As a project with feminist foundations, this focus on the agency of women refugees, in contrast to their supposed status as vulnerable recipients of aid and sympathy, is of paramount importance.