On placemaking and wellbeing: Practitioner perspectives on third sector support for refugees and asylum seekers

Abstract

Migration studies foreground ‘placemaking’ as key to the wellbeing of refugees and asylum seekers. In the absence of state support, third sector organisations play a significant role in supporting refugee placemaking and wellbeing. Yet very little is known about how third sector practitioners themselves conceptualise and support refugee placemaking and wellbeing on the basis of their own experiences in the field. This article responds to the gap in the literature by drawing on five semi-structured interviews with third sector practitioners who work with refugees and asylum seekers in southeast England. The research found that third sector practitioners conceptualise (and support) refugee placemaking and wellbeing in terms of ‘belonging’, ‘knowing’, ‘contributing’, ‘connecting’, and ‘remembering’. In sharing the perspectives of third sector practitioners, this research makes an original contribution to scholarship on placemaking and wellbeing in contexts of forced displacement.