‘Devout, profane and hard’, – chasing integration policy in Northern Ireland

Abstract

This paper considers the experience of asylum seekers and refugees in Northern Ireland against the background of different periods of non-governance, arguing that consociationalism is hindering the implementation of an integration strategy. Northern Ireland is one of the only regions in the UK without a dedicated refugee integration strategy, in spite of one existing in draft form. As a devolved region, it sits outside the UK policy of asylum dispersal, but has to adhere to UK immigration legal policy. Northern Ireland has, however, the power to create and embed refugee integration policies and strategies as a devolved region. We seek to problematize the notion of refugee ‘integration’ within the context of a divided society, thereby questioning what it is asylum seekers and refugees are being asked to do within this discourse of integration. In a context where sectarianism continues to shape the spatial and social infrastructures, this is even more complex an aspiration.