Contesting ‘Integration’: Personal-Experience Narratives of Scotland’s Immigrants

Abstract

This chapter unpacks ‘integration’ by problematizing the term’s nebulous usage in political contexts and by re-examining it through the personal-experience narratives of immigrants in North-East Scotland. By focusing on three emergent narrative themes, the chapter explores how immigrants recount and make sense of their own experiences and encounters with integration. It considers the concept with relation to other immigrants, Scottish society more generally, and British migration policy. Emphasizing the creative narrative expressions of those most affected by wider discussions of integration, the author calls for the use of ethnographic methods to better examine immigration and integration from a groundlevel perspective.