In the second part of this project, we examine the impact of policy gaps and emerging structures on refugee families’ psychosocial well-being. For a long time, studies documenting the well-being of refugees have adopted a strictly psychological or psychiatric approach, emphasizing the pathological effects of trauma due to conflict or the migration trajectory (Chatty 2007; Ryan et al 2008). In recent years, however, more scholars have explored the effects of post-migration factors (e.g. separation of family members, access to social networks, living conditions) on refugees’ psychosocial well-being (Derluyn & Broekaert 2007; Groeninck et al 2019, 2020; Ryan et al 2008). In identifying these post-migration factors, it has proven crucial to adopt a more longitudinal approach allowing researchers to trace the impact of changes in refugees’ family status, social networks and living conditions (Vervliet et al 2014). This requires a methodological outlook that is transversal and multi-scalar, as well as locally situated and in-depth. It needs to be able to capture aspects and impact of mobility as well as anchoring processes, because our research shows that these are both alternating as well as overlapping experiences of families post arrival.

Therefore, we adopted an approach that started from embodied encounters (Scheel 2013). Taking as a conceptual as well as practical starting point were the encounters newcoming families had with various actors who navigate their way in and along the Belgian migration regime, thereby critically demonstrating the political gaps and frictions. These concern different kinds of so-called ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ actors who, each in their own way, had a major positive impact on refugee families’ sense of well-being in Flanders and Brussels. We identified 23 social workers, administrators, volunteers, legal guardians, ‘experience experts’, and (mental) health workers based on previous research by our research team. Our first methodological pillar consisted of depth interviews with each of these actors. By focusing on their embodiment of practices, tactics, ways of doing and performing in their encounter with both newcoming families as well as with the “means and methods of control” (Scheel 2013, 282), we gained insights in their agentival capacity of care; paradoxically enabled as well as constrained by the structural migration regime in which they act (ibid. 284-85).

The majority of these actors became trusted referrals towards refugee families who agreed to cooperate with the research. Hence, they became gatekeepers for our second pillar of depth interviews with 26 refugee families spread over Flanders and Brussels. The majority of them arrived in Belgium between 2015-2022. They originated from Palestine (7), Afghanistan (6), Syria (5), and Turkey (4). We also encountered one Somali, one Moroccan, one Rwandese, and one Eritrean family. In terms of migratory experience as a family, 16 went through a process of family reunification, of which five had a minor applicant.

Among these 25 interviewed families, 14 were concentrated within three suburban municipalities in Flanders, in a density of between 3 to 7 families per locality. This brings us to the third pillar of our research methodology, which consists of three local case analyses. The municipalities were chosen based on their situatedness in the immediate surrounding of one of the three largest cities in Flanders, which are Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels.

By adopting a life-course perspective during the interviews with families in general, we tried to unravel which particular moments, places, and actors have been important in terms of care and support, how and why. Here as well, the focus of analysis lied on embodied encounters; on the practices people and/in their surroundings (attempted to) perform(ed) or not, and the “meanings in use” according to the situated ways of reasoning that were intertwined with it (Wiener 2009; Welfens and Bonjour 2020, 3). By “follow the actors” throughout their trajectory and along their meaningful embodied encounters, our third pillar attempted to map in these local case studies the actors that were meaningful and relevant to families’ sense of well-being, how and based on which practices. Or in other words, by conducting at least two interviews with an interval of approximately 6 months with the majority of these 14 families, we attempted to unravel their changing pathways of support, care, and towards well-being to understand how these ‘well-being pathways’ unfolded both in time and place (Reis et al. 2020, 46). In addition, this also unveiled absentees, gaps and frictions. Subsequently, we conducted depth interviews with each of these present and absent actors, which amounted to a total of 30 additional conversations. Comparable to our method in the first pillar, the focus of analysis lied on the embodied encounters, or their absence.

Finally, a fourth pillar of research was added, which contained ethnographic participant observation for a period of six to ten months (2022-23) in each of these three local case studies. Within the same logic of embodied encounters, Dr. Groeninck became a personal volunteer for a family in each of these municipalities. She accompanied them to official and social services, practiced their language skills, and assisted in practical and administrative ‘inter-Belgian migrations’ when they (had to) move(d).