Methodology

The multi-disciplinary research team will use a variety of complementary research methods to examine all aspects of our research question. The research techniques will mainly rely on qualitative research methods (as already being utilized with great effect within the current pilot project, described below in the Supplement). We will be undertaking: ethnographic observations/participant observation (in selected asylum accommodations and local events); guided and semi-structured interviews; key informant and expert interviews; group interviews/focus groups; policy and media analysis; archival work (concerning, for instance, policies, planning measures and statistics, newspaper coverage, and grey literature); various techniques of visual anthropology (especially making use of and discussing photos taken by informants); transect walks (mobile interviews with informants as they go through their everyday spaces); spatial analysis and behavioral mapping (including mapping the lives of the asylum-seekers spatially, their activities in and use of public space).

These sociological/anthropological research methods allow us to understand better, how institutional arrangements meet the basic needs and aspirations of asylum seekers and in what way this combination creates a context and a set of structural conditions that influence asylum seekers’ trajectories. The research team is comprised of post-doctoral researchers with degrees, respectively, in cultural anthropology, sociology and urban planning: their training and considerable research experience reflects the methods chosen for the project.

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