Uneven geographies of asylum accommodation: Conceptualizing the impact of spatial, material, and institutional differences on (un)familiarity between asylum seekers and local residents

Abstract

Asylum accommodation is held to isolate asylum seekers spatially and socially from the majority population in host societies. Little attention has been devoted to variation in asylum accommodation at the level of the everyday. Central to this paper is the argument that variation between localities, as well as variation on the level of the built environment creates 'uneven geographies of asylum accommodation'. The paper theorizes that more 'open' forms of asylum accommodation may foster familiarity between asylum seekers and local residents through the development of closer everyday social relations, and more 'closed' forms of asylum accommodation may enforce feelings of unfamiliarity by strengthening processes of categorization and everyday bordering. In so doing, we propose to differentiate between 'spatial', 'material' and 'institutional' dimensions of openness of asylum accommodation and aim to understand '(un)familiarity' as expression of people's experiences, knowledge and perceptions of social distance. We further argue that feelings of (un)familiarity are connected to processes of belonging and estrangement.