A whole-of-community approach: local community responses to refugee settlement–integration in rural Australia

Humanitarian migrants are moving to rural areas in Australia increasing numbers, where it is often local communities who take responsibility for their settlement–integration. Current models acknowledge that settlement–integration a two-way process between humanitarian and the community but remain overly focused on actions of while neglecting conditions communities. This article discusses case study Australian town migrants, Hazaras from Afghanistan, have settled over past decade. We draw Jenny Phillimore’s ‘Five domains opportunity structures’ model settlement-integration – locality, discourse, relations, structure initiatives support explore how government, mayor volunteer refugee/migrant groups facilitate welcoming community. The provides evidence ‘opportunity as effective positive migrant context. Through lens structures, we operationalise Whole-of-Community concept context