IN-PERSON: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

Based on our longitudinal, in-depth qualitative research focusing on the social construction of deservingness by street-level bureaucrats vis-à-vis migrants, we will discuss in this paper how migrants are subjected to subtle forms of micro-aggressions when interacting with welfare institutions. While we see that many of our interview partners in Austria coming from new EU member states are reluctant to point to negative experiences in our conversations, we want to highlight the many ways in which immigrants are nevertheless devalued and/or belittled. This also includes spatial orders in the bureaucracy that frames the interactions. Also, our empirical data indicates that acts of positioning depending on the interlocutor (e.g. us as researchers) need to be explored when analysing our interviewees` narratives. Working interpretatively with Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz 2006), we place our results within intersectional approaches of belonging (Anthias 2013; Yuval‐Davis 2007), theories of super-diversity (Vertovec 2007), spatiality and othering (re-)producing transnational social inequalities (Scheibelhofer, Holzinger & Regös 2019; Weiß 2021).