Institut for Antropologi 2008 Integration from a grassroots-perspective: A study of the social life of the Danish Red Cross ́s integration groups

Integration from a grassroots-perspective: A study of the social life of the Danish Red Cross´s integration groups. Summary This thesis focuses on the Danish Red Cross and its integration groups in Denmark. It had as its purpose to examine the social interaction between immigrants and volunteers within the framework of voluntary integration groups. More specifically it was my wish to illustrate how integration is interpreted and played out in praxis at a grassroots level. In recent years integration has become a " lay-men's " term, commonly adopting to the political version of integration and moving away from previous associations that thought of integration as general mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion affecting all members of a society. Integration has become a term associated to the process of integrating immigrants, who are seen as a threatening element to the otherwise perceived homogeneity of the Danish population. Although officially the term integration implies a) to learn the Danish language, b) to gain an education or employment and c) to learn about Danish society, it has been criticized to use an assimilation approach to integration, where it is expected that immigrants should adapt to similar or same norms as those of the mainstream population. There has thus been a tendency to operate with different versions of integration, where the stated does not necessarily correspond to what is practiced. It is a general assumption that voluntary work can be used advantageously as an extension to the social welfare work of the government. Including citizens in the solution of social problems is seen to anticipate a stronger and enhanced cohesion of the local community. Furthermore, the interaction between the volunteers and the users of the voluntary services is said to foster the establishment of valuable social networks. This idea is reminiscent to the belief that integration is a process involving social interaction. Through asking the volunteers about their expectations towards their participation in the integration groups, it was possible to reveal the volunteers' conceptions and understandings of integration and how these influenced the premises for the social interaction between the volunteers and immigrants. I found that the fact that the voluntary work targeted immigrants had a negative outcome on the generally regarded positive effect of engaging voluntary work in the help of social problems. The associations made to the category of immigrants had a major influence on the types of context the activities were filled with. …