Immigration and urban integration. Prelimary results of the project Geitonies: Generating interethnic tolerance and neighbourhood integration in European urban spaces

Abstract

This research briefing includes some preliminary results of a European Research Project under the title of GEITONIES, which was funded by the 7th Framework Program of the EU between 2008 and 2011. “Geitonies” is the Greek term for neighborhood, and the multinational research team involved in this Project departed from the assumption that shared urban spaces prove vital in the creation of tolerance, mutual trust, inclusion, participation and social cohesion. In this sense, choosing the neighborhood as the main unit of analysis has allowed these researchers to explore some of the age-old sociological dilemmas related to interethnic relations and social cohesion from a new vantage point; furthermore, integration issues have also been reformulated by dealing with them from a relational perspective. The fieldwork was carried out in 18 neighborhoods of six different European cities (Lisbon, Rotterdam, Bilbao, Thessaloniki, Vienna and Warsaw). These neighborhoods served as a laboratory where one could study daily practices, representations, and interactions among the various social and ethnic groups.