Interviews with Refugees

Although newcomers have regularly been among us for years, citizens, politicians and policymakers often have little idea of the personal backgrounds of these people. This causes not only loneliness, misunderstanding and antagonism. A consequence is also that integration is unnecessarily hampered and that policies aimed at this are less effective than they could be. To gain more insight into backgrounds, we conducted a large number of in-depth interviews with newcomers. This is done in the context of our project in Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg in which we investigate the living situation of more than a thousand refugees and try to improve this situation with all stakeholders involved. We asked many questions: why did the people come, what was their life like before, what expectations did they have, what do they want to achieve in Germany, what are their experiences so far, what problems do they face, what solutions do they see for this? The names of those involved have been changed, as well as some place names. The interviews have been conducted in German, English, Farsi, Arabic and French and are published with the consent of those involved. In November 2023 Hans Blokland published Migrationspolitik auf der Flucht (Migration Policy on the Run) at Transcript Publishers in Bielefeld. In this book the interviews are analyzed, qualitative data are presented, and policy recommendations are formulated. Information about the book in English, as well as the Foreword, Introduction and Epilog you can find here.