Integration Otherwise Inspiration Kit: A Guide for Practitioners, Policymakers, and Community Builders

This Integration Otherwise Inspiration Kit invites us to move beyond the polarised debate on integration – one that either portrays newcomers as failing to integrate or blames society as insufficiently welcoming. Using a bottom-up approach, it offers a new perspective that highlights how integration is already taking place in everyday life.

The authors introduce the concept of "arrival infrastructuring:" the interactive process through which newcomers, together with others, actively shape and transform their arrival situations.

Through stories from the ground with concise takeaways, alongside tools for reflection and action, this guide equips practitioners, policymakers and community builders with a deeper understanding of the diverse forms of arrival infrastructuring, as well as the successes and challenges of everyday integration processes. It aims to inspire future policies and practices.

This book complements Infrastructuring Arrival: Envisioning the Migration-Integration Nexus Beyond Crisis, edited by Karel Arnaut, Luce Beeckmans, and Bruno Meeus (Leuven University Press, 2026).

Contributing authors: Shila Hadji Heydari Anaraki (KU Leuven), Karel Arnaut (KU Leuven), Paschalis Arvanitidis (University of Thessaly), Kristen Biehl (Sabancı University), Márton Bisztrai (Menedék Hungarian Association for Migrants), Gideon Bolt (Utrecht University), György Csepeli (Menedék Hungarian Association for Migrants), Athina Zoe Desli (University of Thessaly), Laura Guérin (Ecole d'Architecture de Paris-Val-de-Seine), Tina Gudrun Jensen (Malmö University), Heike Hanhörster (TU Berlin), András Kováts (Menedék Hungarian Association for Migrants), Emma Krasznahorkai (Menedék Hungarian Association for Migrants), Zsuzsa László (Menedék Hungarian Association for Migrants), Carolien Lubberhuizen (Utrecht University), Sarah Makar (Menedék Hungarian Association for Migrants), Bruno Meeus (Hogeschool Utrecht), Tamlyn Monson (Coventry University), Antal Örkeny (Menedék Hungarian Association for Migrants), George Papagiannitsis (University of Thessaly), Lucie Revilla (CNRS), Marhabo Saparova (Sabancı University), Reiner Staubach (Planerladen), Cornelia Tippel (ILS Research), Charalampos Tsavdaroglou (University of Amsterdam), Ilse van Liempt (Utrecht University), Susanne Wessendorf (Coventry University), Zacharias Valiantzas (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Penelope Vergou (University of Thessaly), Aimilia Voulvouli (University of Thessaly), Dennis Zilske (Planerladen).

Luce Beeckmans is a research professor at the Department of Architecture of KU Leuven and vice-director of the Leuven Urban Studies Institute (LUSI).

Dounia Salamé is a social worker and PhD researcher at the Department of Architecture of KU Leuven.

Martina Bovo is a post-doctoral researcher at IUAV University of Venice and a contract professor at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano.

Mary Hogan is a scientific collaborator at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Department of Architecture of KU Leuven.