Space, time, and urban citizenship: Reconsidering migrant integration in critical social psychological research

During the last decade critical social psychologists have developed an interest in studying locational dimensions of intergroup relations and temporal aspects of social identity. At the same time critical social psychological research on acculturation has emphatically stressed the dynamic and situated nature of the processes of migrant integration and/or exclusion. Building on these strands of research, the present paper argues that spatial/temporal aspects of migrant integration need to be further explored and their critical social psychological study could benefit by insights from the interdisciplinary field of urban studies. Specifically, the notion of urban citizenship can enable an actor-centered, bottom-up perspective in the research of integration, considering it as part of the process of “becoming local” rather than as a process of interaction between homogenous ethnic groups. Furthermore, emphasis on the local and temporal dimensions of appropriating (or being excluded from) urban/community resources can contribute to a multifaceted and situated dynamic approach to migration, to avoid reified conceptualizations of integration, to highlight the discontinuities and disruptions that characterize new mobilities and to question binary oppositions between receiving and sending societies and host and guest populations.