Governing Migration and Social Cohesion through Integration Requirements

This socio-legal project questions how and with what effects the notion of “integration” has become, in migration law, administrative and court practice, a decisive criterion based on which states select which migrants shall be granted or denied access to specific rights (e.g., right of abode, political rights, right to family reunification). This affects the way social cohesion is strived for and reveals how both in law and practice social cohesion is conceived of and who is considered to belong or not. Based on the analysis of legal texts, ethnographic data and documents our research contributes to understanding how state officials deal with different categories of mobile or sedentary foreign nationals (in terms of gender, class, ethnicity, religion, age, etc.) when deciding about the allocation or denial of rights based on the criterion of “being integrated”. The underlying rationales of policies and practices are to be interpreted within broader processes of social transformation, e.g., the rise of the human rights regime, of neoliberalism, and of a “culture of control”. Switzerland is at the center of the study. The study implies an inter-cantonal and an international comparison with two contrasting European welfare states: Germany and Sweden.本社会法研究项目旨在探究：在移民法、行政及司法实践中，“融合（integration）”这一概念如何演变为国家甄别移民资格、决定是否授予其特定权利（如居留权、政治权利、家庭团聚权）的决定性标准，及其产生的具体影响。这一标准不仅影响社会凝聚力的构建路径，更揭示了法律与实践层面社会凝聚力的内涵界定逻辑，以及哪些群体被纳入归属范畴、哪些被排除在外。本研究通过分析法律文本、民族志数据与各类档案文献，有助于阐明国家公职人员在以“融合”为标准决定赋予或拒绝移民权利时，如何依据性别、阶层、族裔、宗教、年龄等维度，对流动外籍群体与定居外籍群体进行分类处置。政策与实践的内在理据，需置于更宏观的社会转型进程中加以解读，例如人权治理体系的兴起、新自由主义的扩张，以及“管控文化”的形成。本研究以瑞士为核心案例，同时包含瑞士国内州际比较，以及与两个具有鲜明差异化特征的欧洲福利国家——德国与瑞典的国际比较。