Getting on regardless? The tripartite model of migrants’ welcome in the context of urban inequalities and diversification

ABSTRACT

This paper utilises Lefebvre’s conceptual triad of space to propose a model of migrants’ welcome. This model’s application in the context of migration in urban areas requires a simultaneous engagement with social practices, representation and representational aspects of space, countering this way an otherwise essentialised notion of welcome. Utilising this framework in our research with migrants and non-migrant residents in five boroughs in Liverpool, UK, showed that welcome rests on the plane of urban inequalities, which affect the ethics of sharing resources, accepting and enabling the other. A multi-scalar dialectical dynamic of welcome emerges between the discursive notions of welcome as deployed in the everyday encounters and the way welcome is experienced and rephrased in the public domain or lamented in the private one. Dispersal and urban planning policies should regard migrants as stakeholders of welcome at local level for the purpose of migrants’ inclusion and managing social change.

KEYWORDS:

• Asylum seekers and refugees
• encounter
• conviviality
• welcome
• urban space
• Liverpool

Introduction

Migrant welcome is a contentious issue in the UK today. The new Illegal Migration Bill 2022–23 (UK Parliament 2023) aims to significantly limit the right to claim asylum and settle in the UK, in contradiction with the Refugee Convention and other human rights documents (EHRC 2023).¹ A dysfunctional asylum system has created a backlog in the processing of claims, which is leveraged for reductionist legal changes of the right to asylum. Meanwhile, local authorities are overwhelmed with pressure from the government to house asylum seekers in hotels and barges on the one hand, and contestation from the civil society of these unwelcoming and dehumanising measures, on the other (Katwala, Rutter, and Ballinger 2023).

In this political climate, the role of the local level for migrants’ welcome is paramount. This paper aims to illuminate exactly this aspect of migrant welcome; it develops a tripartite model of welcome in light of narratives of place and a place-identity that seek to position the city, its boroughs and its inhabitants, as welcoming. Focussing on the local level allows for the study of the everyday, often mundane, practices that sustain or challenge a sense of welcome. It helps to understand the extent to which, and the ways how a hostile discourse around welcoming migrants filters down, potentially shaping the “affective atmosphere” of the everyday (Payson 2015). It also adds to the analysis of how welcome is negotiated as part of embodied hospitality life politics (Lynch 2017) among both migrants and non-migrants in the everyday life.

In light of an increasingly hostile environment for migrants in the UK, there is a growing academic interest in exploring welcome as an emotional and interpersonal dynamic (e.g. Gill 2018). However, the focus has been on the city-level movements of sanctuary (Bagelman 2013; Darling 2010) and the performative aspects of welcome as a metaphor for hospitality (Lynch 2017). An ethics of hospitality has been more recently explored at local level, against a hostile national backdrop (Darling 2014), but the mundane aspects of welcome at local level remain largely unexplored.

Building on Gill’s (2018) emotional and relational understanding of welcome, this paper approaches welcome by thinking through the links between the city and local level, and the impact of locality on the way that (informal) welcome unfolds. Exploring (un)welcome in a city like Liverpool is particularly important, given the city-level ethos of conviviality and welcome that many of our participants also recognised. Given the city’s relatively recent and rapid diversification (Pemberton 2017; Pemberton and Phillimore 2018; Vathi and Burrell 2022), literature exploring urban diversification is particularly relevant. Emerging in the midst of the so-called “demise of multiculturalism” (Berg and Sigona 2013), this literature has noted that urban populations have become increasingly complex and diverse as a result of shifting patterns and characteristics of migration. However, most (super)diversity research has taken place in cities that have high percentages of ethnic minorities and, as a result, a shift in minority-majority relations (Gilroy 2004). This approach does not fully allow for the study of diversification as it takes place, and what that entails for the dynamics of welcome.

In the context of Liverpool, the spread (Pemberton 2017) or “dispersal of diversity” is closely linked with dispersal policies of asylum seekers (Neal et al. 2013); indeed, Halton and Liverpool have the highest number of people seeking asylum per 100,000 population in the region (NWRSMP 2023). These migrant arrivals open up new geographies of both diversity and encounter within the city (Robinson 2010). Its fast changing boroughs offer thus the opportunity to delve in the dynamics of welcome alongside social change, whilst embedding the analysis in rich multicultural discourses that underpin the city’s identity and its ethos of welcome.

Employing a multi-stakeholder methodology, involving migrants, non-migrants and key actors at city and borough level, this paper goes beyond the exploration of bipolar nature of welcome in the condition of increasing urban diversity (Lynch 2017). Utilising Lefebvre’s ([1974] 1991) triad of space, the tripartite analyses of the cognitive, performative and practical aspects of welcome shed light on the continuum on which experiences of exchange, reciprocity and trust rest. Approaching welcome in this way allows the paper to explore not only the human, emotional and interpersonal dimensions of welcome (Gill 2018), but also to (de)construct welcome and explore its mundanity, fleshing out what welcome entails, how it unfolds and evolves across different scales and localities.

Situating welcome in urban inequalities: beyond convivial encounters

The theorisation of welcome has followed a dichotomous approach in disparate attempts to capture its dynamics at different scales. The structural initiatives of state actors to provide welcome are juxtaposed with the semi-formal movements and acts of solidarity at the grassroots (Gill 2018). Similarly, the abstract of an ethos of welcome is combined with the pragmatic in the analysis of its constitution. Other interpretations have contrasted the cumulative with the more fleeting and situational aspects of welcome (e.g. in Derrida 2002; Foucault 1990). More recent empirical analysis is built around the stakeholders and actors involved in providing or securing a sense of welcome (Darling 2018). However, phenomenological investigations on how welcome unfolds at local level on a day-to-day basis are scarce.

In a post-capitalist society, the contradictory dynamics of social production of space are rooted as well as continue to evolve in at the level of everyday life (Wilson 2013). However, the need to spatialise welcome has been presented primarily from an emotional geography perspective. It is recognised that acts of welcome are spatial, and spaces of welcome are both abstract and lived (Vuolteenaho and Lyytinen 2018), and that research ought to foreground the human dimensions of welcome, or welcome-as-experienced (Gill 2018). Everyday moments of kindness and “minor gestures of sociality” (Darling 2018, 222) are presented as underpinning an accumulating, albeit fragile, sense of welcome. Convivial encounters are broadly viewed as giving rise to a sense of welcome, too (Gill 2018), even when some of these encounters are fleeting and not geared towards the building of a sense of community (Wilson and Darling 2016). But a need to problematise a conceptualisation of welcome, where a “warm response” is pitted against the hollow or feigned (Vuolteenaho and Lyytinen 2018), is also recognised, as it potentially obscures the tensions and wavering emotions that welcome can trigger.

Thus the concept of welcome has been presented predominantly as an emotional, interpersonal and relational dynamic (Darling 2018; Gill 2018), with ethics of hospitality as underpinning welcome consisting of a main, albeit an unexplored, theme. Feeling welcome is presented as something that is sensed (Lynch 2017), emerging from the experience, or perception, of a warm response to presence. To welcome rests on practices that convey this warmth (Gill 2018), but as suggested by Robinson (2010), the “collective identities and cultures” of the city also shape how immigration and welcome are experienced. This signals the need to pay attention to scale and also to the discursive aspects of welcome as part of the city ethos.

But despite notions of the local and familiar being understood in relation to people and place, existing discussions of welcome largely overlook the importance of place to the way that welcome is experienced and practiced. This is even though literature on ethnic urban diversity or the “diversification of diversity” (Wise and Noble 2016, 42) takes an interest in the importance of place for understanding how change is experienced across localities. It is broadly argued that the specificities of place matter (Amin 2002; Nicholls and Uitermark 2016), that “contextual, compositional and collective aspects of place inform integration outcomes” (Platts-Fowler and Robinson 2015, 476). However, a focus on outcomes obscures the dynamics of everyday life, which evolve rapidly in diversifying urban areas.

Population turnover in rapidly diversifying areas can constrain opportunities to make a connection to a neighbourhood, affecting encounter and social relations (Pemberton and Phillimore 2018). The impact of churn in areas where accommodation brings diverse residents into close proximity, such as terraced housing or flats, can increase an acute sense of insecurity, leading to the avoidance of encounter. However, in densely populated neighbourhoods, proximity can also enhance practices of civility, neighbourliness and conviviality (Bynner 2019). These dynamics point to the complexity of the convivial urban living, or “ … the processes of cohabitation and interaction that have made multiculture an ordinary feature of social life in Britain’s urban areas and in postcolonial cities elsewhere” (Gilroy 2004, xi).

More recent literature explores modes of togetherness through the role of space in fostering connection across difference (Amin 2002; Neal et al. 2018), “doing” togetherness through gestures of civility and sociability (Laurier and Philo 2006), and rethinking the building and structuring of community (Neal and Walters 2008; Neal et al. 2019). A focus on conviviality has prompted a renewed, albeit contested, interest in contact (Allport 1954) and encounter (Thrift 2005; Wilson 2016). Emerging themes emphasise the role of encounter as a site for exchange and reciprocity (Wise 2009) and the role of space in facilitating “meaningful” encounter (Jones et al. 2015; Neal et al. 2018).

Welcome at local level can thus be understood as actualised through encounter, facilitating the recognition of the “other” and shaping the boundaries of the familiar and the strange or the different. Hall (2012, 129) sees welcome as a “network of familiarity”, emerging through the associations made between people and place. Encounter, thus, is framed as pushing at the boundaries of the familiar, shaping notions of belonging and otherness (Ahmed 2000), and bringing the issue of welcome to the fore.

But whilst encounters are mostly convivial, it is often social convention and civility that sets the tone (Hall 2012), rather than a genuine sense of welcome, particularly in public spaces (Valentine 2008). Convivial encounters can, then, be seen as a form of front stage behaviour (Goffman 1990), effectively obscuring the (private) tensions, anxieties and prejudice (Hardy 2017). Indeed, the co-existence of conviviality, tension and conflict has been acknowledged (Valluvan 2016) and conviviality does not negate the existence of tensions (Back 2019). Rather, convivial cultures rest on a “toolbox of convivial capabilities” (Back and Sinha 2016, 253).

In contrast with the “labour” of welcome in formal or semi-formal settings (Gill 2018; Vuolteenaho and Lyytinen 2018), the emotional labour of informal welcome in the day-to-day interactions has not been meaningfully engaged with. Most discussions focus on invested actors, and spaces of care, such as the refugee camp, or migrant charities (Darling 2018). In short, little is known on how welcome is constructed and unfolds in the mundane, day-to-day life, and how it evolves over time and across space (Lynch 2017).

The dynamics of welcome-as-experienced at local level require an engagement with power imbalances and inequalities across a range of geographies and scales, embedded in discursive framing of welcome as part of city ethos and elaborated through social practices in place. For this purpose, Lefebvre’s ([1974] 1991) classic triad of socio-spatial theory that captures the conceived, perceived and everyday aspects of welcome is employed as guiding theoretical frame, matched with a multi-stakeholder research design.

Applying the Lefebvre’s triad of space production to the study of welcome in this paper takes a dialectical approach, just like Lefebvre ([1974] 1991) himself understood abstraction – as materiality and representation intertwined. This approach works against an essentialised notion of welcome, as the model’s application requires a simultaneous engagement with the material (social practice), discursive (representation) and phenomenological (representational) aspects of space. At the same time, utilising this model in a fast diversifying city like Liverpool is in line with Lefebvre’s original understanding of abstract space as a “relational moment within a continuous flow of ideas” (Wilson 2013, 365).

Methodology

The qualitative approach of this paper responds to calls for emotionally sensitive methodologies (Vuolteenaho and Lyytinen 2018), which allow for an exploration of “welcome as experienced” (Gill 2018, 95). Contributing to the emerging scholarly interest in welcome, the research sought to explore “welcome” from the perspective of refugees, people seeking asylum, non-migrant local residents, as well as councillors, council representatives and other key informers. It thus extends the focus beyond invested actors, such as activists and volunteers, and explores the dynamics of welcome across different domains and on different scales.

The study adopted a multi-methods approach, combining interviews, observations and visual (photographic) methods; however, the analytical focus centres on 71 semi-structured interviews that took place in Liverpool in May–October 2018. The inclusion of interviews enabled a deeper exploration of the experiences, understanding and meanings that participants of different positionality have or elaborate in regard to welcome in the context of everyday encounters (Valentine and Sadgrove 2012).

The research incorporated both the city and neighbourhood, with research carried out within five areas across Liverpool: Kensington, Norris Green, Anfield, Greenbank and Woolton. These areas are spread out geographically across the city, and are traditionally less associated with ethnic minority and immigrant communities in Liverpool, falling more in line with the notion of newer, or emerging, geographies of settlement and encounter (Robinson 2010). Whilst not a strictly comparative study, the multi-sited nature of the research allows for comparisons to be drawn between areas that differ according to the relative affluence/deprivation and ethnic diversity levels, concentration of dispersal accommodation (McPherson 2014) and processes of diversification (Pemberton 2017).

Within this sample, interviews were conducted with 22 refugees and people seeking asylum, 24 non-migrant local residents (comprising Liverpool-born, other UK nationals, EU nationals and international students) and 4 elected councillors. The remaining 21 interviews were conducted with local authority representatives, employees of housing associations, and workers/volunteers at charitable and community organisations.

The study adopted a “broad-brush” approach to sampling so as to avoid a “groupist” approach (Goodson and Grzymala-Kazlowska 2017). Whilst the label “refugees” is used as an umbrella term, the sample comprises refugees and people seeking asylum, including those who have had their claim declined. The approach used to non-migrant residents is equally as broad as the study revealed complex and contested ideas about who and what is “local”. Focussing simply on residency in one of the key areas was viewed as best suited to capturing the heterogeneity of the local population (Goodson and Grzymala-Kazlowska 2017), which was considered to have implications for the study of welcome.

Interviews were conducted in a range of settings. More often than not interviews with refugees were carried out in organisation venues, whereas the majority of residents selected a location familiar to them, such as cafes, community centres and occasionally homes. Of the 71 interviews conducted, all but 6 were audio recorded. Where consent to record was not obtained, handwritten notes were taken during the interview. All names used in the paper are pseudonyms. The study adopted a thematic analytic approach combining manual methods of working with hard copies of transcriptions alongside the use of NVIVO for storing data, tracking and comparing themes.

The tripartite model of welcome

The following sections explores the dynamics of welcome based on Lefebvre’s ([1974] 1991) conceptualisation of the production of space, with the aim of fleshing out how welcome plays out at a local, semi- and informal level. The triad model of welcome in urban space as elaborated in this paper is not necessarily a linear, or sequential, one; rather, our findings suggest that the three aspects of welcome foregrounded here are multi-scale and oftentimes interwoven. Indeed, Lefebvre ([1974] 1991) was against a closed and deterministic triad system of space production, putting the emphasis on the dialectical aspects of abstract space, which both serves the concretisation of social relations in the material, while continuing to strengthen the discursive aspects of the social world (Wilson 2013).

In the following sections, welcome appears as unfolding and negotiated across the conceived, perceived and lived dimensions of space, as an ongoing, complex process. Encounters of (un)welcome lead to the emergence of new imaginaries of welcome, thus shaping actors’ strategies for managing and sustaining welcome, and vice versa. Three key dimensions of welcome emerge: imaginaries, actualisation and management of welcome.

Anticipatory cognitions: imaginaries and embodiment of welcome

… I guess it’s something you just feel. I know when I feel welcomed, and I know when I don’t. It’s something you get a sense of. (Sasha 35, F, Norris Green, Refugee)

In this study, welcome was commonly understood as something that is sensed (Darling 2018). Whilst these feelings of (un)welcome were viewed as emerging from situated experiences, notions and expectations of welcome are initially shaped through imaginaries and the anticipation of welcome.

I had visited here before, in 2008, so that helped. I expected to be welcome here, that people would be friendly … I remembered a lot about the city, the places I visited, the people … (Nadira 46, F, Anfield, Refugee)

The anticipation of welcome can indeed be constructed in relation to previous experiences (Lynch 2017). Whilst for Nadira this was an experience of feeling welcomed within the city, for others welcome was shaped by prior experiences of (un)welcome in general in the UK. Material concerns, related to accommodation, neighbourhood and local support, were factored into this anticipation. Whilst Nadira’s previous experiences as a holidaymaker shaped an anticipated welcome, she also considered how this can change, given her precarious immigration status and the economic situation. Migrants’ changing positionality towards those who hold high(er) stakes in terms of welcome matters thus in the process.

The imaginaries of welcome appeared as constructed in light of narratives of place and place-identity. This derives and further feeds into a discursive city-level ethos of welcome that ran alongside, sometimes in tension with, narratives and expectations of (un)welcome as elaborated in place. Welcome, and being welcoming, was viewed as a crucial aspect of the identity and ethos of Liverpool.

Liverpool is a port city, so it has this long history of welcome … families that can trace their roots across the globe and I think that has had a positive impact on the nature of the city, on how we respond to people. It’s the idea that if you are here, then we will go out of our way to make you feel welcome … there is a sense of pride in that. (Local Councillor, Kensington)

The port, evoked here as synonymous with welcome, was a common feature in the narratives of participants born in the city. For them, the port was a symbol of openness and the “heart” of the city (Lane 1987), which has a long history of welcome and a distinct identity shaped by the flow of people and goods through the port. For Simon (53, M. resident of Anfield), the identity of the city is best understood as “a hodgepodge mix of the cultures of sailors and settlers”. Through these narratives of place and place-identity, interwoven with family histories of migration, a discursive city-level ethos of welcome was distinct among non-migrant participants.

… it’s a cornerstone of our DNA as scousers … we have a long history of people coming here and being welcomed, and because of that, we have an open and friendly outlook. (Andrew, M. 63, resident, Norris Green)

But whilst imaginaries of welcome were found to emerge around a discourse and ethos of welcome, notions of welcome were also shaped by contrasting narratives on Liverpool. Nadim (31, M. Kensington, AS) recalled that his friends in Stockport had said to him that, “I would not like Liverpool, that here was racist place and I would not like … I am being told that here is dangerous, bad people … not a place for people like me”. Urban rumour and safety concerns are, thus, also part of the atmosphere of (un)welcome, revealing the compounding nature of welcome in urban areas, regardless of diversity.

Here, narratives of the city were seen to shape an anticipation of unwelcome, triggering emotions, which in Nadim’s experiences fed into social anxiety and a fear of interacting with residents. Carole’s comments revealed the way that narratives of place, and of welcome, play out in the shadow of the decline experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. The imaginary of welcome, at least at the city level, is associated with much needed growth and a crucial aspect of the ongoing regeneration of the city.

… so, we do shout about being welcoming, we do celebrate it because it is changing that view … Being a welcoming place, and marketing that, is a big part in how the city has grown and how it’s recovered. (Carole, 59. Woolton, resident)

In this sense, the dominant narratives of the city that underpin the ethos of welcome are framed as having informed an open and welcoming outlook (Hickman and Mai 2015; Robinson 2010). Majid’s (22, M. Anfield. AS) comments echo those of residents who suggested that the ethos of welcome was not only part of the culture of Liverpool but also embodied by the people of the city. “ … It is hard to put your finger on; there is a feeling of ease, of welcome. This is the attitude of the city, but also it is the nature of the people”.

In our interviews, “embodying welcome” was indeed associated with encounters and moments of kindness (Darling 2018). Participants’ recollections included examples, such as giving directions or paying train fares for visitors struggling to get home, alongside gestures of openness, such as a smile. This embodiment of welcome was found to play into residents’ responses to Liverpool being a signatory of the City of Sanctuary movement, as Maureen (61, F. Norris Green, resident) pointed out:

It makes me proud to know that the city wants to do its bit … It sums up what this city is about … I know they will be made to feel welcomed here, it’s who we are, isn’t it? They will always find a scouser willing to help … 

At the same time, alongside this positive imaginary of sanctuary, the anticipation of what sanctuary might entail triggered fears, anxieties and concerns – emotions running in contrast to the sense of pride surrounding the city’s ethos of welcome. Suzanne (31, resident, Anfield), spoke of her own conflicting emotions about the implications of offering sanctuary in a city with high levels of deprivation.

Do we have the means to do that, to welcome people? We have homeless people in town, families on the bread line … at the same time, the thought that we could say to people, especially women and children ‘nah, jog on, you’re not welcome’ because of finances, I find that hard to take, it doesn’t sit right.

This rationalising of welcome, as captured here, can mobilise messy, conflicting and less clear-cut emotions (Vuolteenaho and Lyytinen 2018) towards welcoming migrants. And whilst a rationalisation of welcome emerged in interviews with residents across all five research sites, there was a difference in how offering sanctuary was framed in affluent areas compared to more deprived ones. In Woolton – an affluent area in South Liverpool – participants framed sanctuary as an opportunity to respond to the so-called refugee crisis, emphasised in their support for community sponsorship initiatives, whilst in deprived areas there was a sense of resignation; welcoming asylum seekers and refugees was, according to Andrew (63. M. Resident, Norris Green), “part and parcel of living in a low-demographic area”. The hospitality life politics rest, therefore, on different ethics of welcome among the non-migrant locals – from the ideological, higher order values, to the pragmatic submission, to acceptance.

The less welcoming sentiments that emerged in relation to City of Sanctuary largely reflected the economisation of refugees and people seeking asylum, and how that affects the acts of solidarity, often leading to bordering sentiments and practices in urban areas where migrants settle (Darling 2014). Nadira, whose voluntary work in a community centre in Anfield has given her insight into residents’ concerns, also commented on the implication of welcoming refugees in deprived areas.

I get it … The ladies I speak to, they say, ‘Oh Queen, is not about you, you are a worker’. They worry. They come to the centre for a hot meal, neighbours using food banks … They worry about what supporting refugees means for them and their friends.

The use of the term Queen – a term of endearment in Liverpool, indicates that Nadira has come to know the ladies in the community centre quite intimately. Welcoming, then, is also about sharing the ordinariness of the everyday and “letting someone in”, signified here through the use of particular urban slang. Though coming to know and be familiar with Nadira as a “worker” through volunteering has allowed residents to position, and thus welcome, Nadira differently to those (unknown) refugees perceived as an economic strain on already tight local resources (Ramachandran and Vathi 2023).

Therefore, the features of place at the city level, such as the sociocultural history of the city and its collective identity (Robinson 2010), as well as at the local level, in relation to contextual features such as deprivation, were found to significantly shape notions of welcome among migrant and non-migrant residents. Imaginaries of (un)welcome were found to give rise to a range of, at times conflicting, emotions, including pride, fear and worry. These imaginaries shape how welcome is anticipated and carried into experiences of encounter through which it comes into being. Leading on from this, it is to this “actualisation of welcome” that this paper will now turn.

Encounter, affect and familiarity: Welcome as actualised

The previous section focused on welcome as a cognitive construct, unfolding through imaginaries of welcome. Alongside this, the sense of welcome continues to evolve as welcome is actualised through encounter and nuanced through growing familiarity. This dimension of welcome may contrast with imaginaries of and the city-level discursive notions discussed above. Fatima (25) recalled her experiences of being moved between dispersal accommodation in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire and Kensington in Liverpool, pointing to the importance of institutional forms of welcome (or lack of).

People have been friendly, but I don’t know if that is being welcomed. In Ellesmere Port, they make sure you have what you need, not just somewhere to live, but information about what is this place, what is this community, where can I go to get help, support, meet people. I had expected the same, but here nothing … 

Whereas Andrew (63, Resident. Norris Green) reflected on the ethos of welcome associated with the city and the experiences of the settlement of refugees in areas suffering from deprivation:

… go for a walk round County Road or Kenny … go to these places, speak to people living in these areas … Liverpool people are friendly, and this is by far the most welcoming place … But have a look around in them areas and ask yourself, is that what it means to be welcoming, are these [migrants] the people we really should be welcoming. There’s enough issues in them areas, without adding more … 

Andrew’s concerns focused on the high concentration of migrants in deprived areas as well as assumptions about welfare dependency. In both examples, the human dimension of welcome is noted; however, the tensions focus more on material concerns: for Fatima support, information and advice; for Andrew the economic strain of welcoming refugees in deprived areas. Therefore, whilst a sense of welcome is associated with human connection and warmth (Gill 2018), welcome as a situated experience is still contingent on material and structural conditions, as suggested by Steven (38, Voluntary community football coach): “99.99% of people are welcoming; for me the question is how much austerity works against that natural impulse”.

Further, the account of Andrew offers insight into tensions that emerge around the issue of welcome at different scales, here the city versus the local. Narratives of welcome focused on the history of the city and a romanticised vision of the port associated with family histories and global visitors contributing to the resurgence of Liverpool, but also a time when the city’s positionality in the national urban and social hierarchy was distinctly high. Tensions and conflicting emotions emerged when this version of welcome contrasted with welcome as actualised through refugee settlement and dispersal into existing areas of urban poverty.

Interviews also revealed that encounter was a key aspect of the actualisation of welcome in these areas. As Ahmed (2000, 3) states, it is through encounter that “we flesh out the beyond and give it a face and form”. Alicia (20, Resident, Anfield) spoke about the transience of her street in relation to frequently welcoming new neighbours.

People move in and out all the time, so we are used to it … but it’s not really the in-and-out part that’s changed … It used to be that your new neighbour was a local, but more and more it’s not locals; it’s foreigners, refugees … 

In deprived and rapidly diversifying areas like Anfield, it was common for participants to reflect on the implications of welcoming neighbours that they assumed were asylum seekers and refugees. At a local level, then, it is through encounter that questions and concerns around welcome, in relation to who is welcomed, where and how, are brought into being, but also where the strain of frequent emotional labour that welcome entails is felt or avoided.

Alongside bringing issues around who is welcomed to the fore, encounter was framed in relation to underpinning a sense of (un)welcome and an elaboration on its characteristics. Nadim (31) spoke about his experiences in Kensington:

There is a nice feel here, I don’t know how to tell you, but it feels friendly, I feel welcome … […] When I first came and had to get a bus to the city centre, I was not sure but a man in the street showed me where the stop was and waited for it to come.

The experience of welcome recalled by Nadim shows that acts of kindness and gestures of civility can lead to an accumulated sense of welcome (Darling 2018), and positive encounters can give rise to the warmth and emotional connection (Gill 2018). However, our research found that emotions that underpin the experience and practice of welcome are not static. Welcome is not a simple, linear process; a sense of welcome is a more complex, fluid dynamic that can give rise to discontinuity and disruption. Consider the account of Elaine (41, resident, Kensington) who spoke about the role of locals in welcoming new people, regardless of background, into the street.

… you get some where you’ll knock to see if they need anything or you’ll say ‘hiya’ in the street, and they are just dead snotty, like just pure blank you, or walk past you … Them people don’t want me to make them feel welcome, and I certainly don’t feel that way towards them … 

In the case of Elaine, the experience of not having her efforts to be welcoming acknowledged or reciprocated by the newcomers led to her to discontinue her attempts to welcome. For welcome to be sustained there was an expectation of reciprocation on behalf of the newcomer, an expectation that seemingly does not consider the language skills or cultural differences and power dynamics at play in the actualisation of welcome.

Both the facilitation and discontinuity of welcome can also be shaped by interaction and the exchange of “gossip” (Wise 2009). Fred (Kensington, 70) spoke about his experiences of a house in his street being converted to a House of Multiple Occupancy (HMO), hosting migrants.

There’s a house by mine, got a few lads in. Most of the neighbours were up in arms about it … I spoke to one of the lads, [name]; nice lad, only young you know … he helps me out from time to time. So I do make an effort to tell people, he is a nice kid, so I do tell people to give them a chance … I think more people are coming round to it now … 

Fred’s neighbours were seemingly angry at the developments in their street; he noted that they openly shared this anger with other residents through gatherings and discussions in the street. Fred adopts a role similar to Wise’s (2009) “transversal enabler”; he is found to be smoothing out local concerns and facilitating welcome. Whilst the opportunity for welcome could be facilitated in this way, it was targeted specifically at those who had come to be “known” through this interaction, revealing its selective nature, whilst co-existing alongside sentiments of unwelcome, fear and anxiety.

The fluidity of welcome also emerged in relation to specific spaces and experiences within those spaces. Take for example the experience of Fatima, who shared a photograph of some graffiti near to her street (Figure 1).

… people are friendly and make me welcome, but now I think, maybe different … I see this near my home, and it changes things … [people] may smile and be friendly, but they may not want people like me here … If people who are allowed to work and be here … can not be welcome, then I am thinking I am not welcome, too.

Figure 1. “Brexit changes things”. Kensington, September 2018.

Fatima’s experience of disrupted welcome captures the way sensorial experiences of place, here in relation to graffiti in the built environment, can affect a sense of welcome. Place-based experiences of (un)welcome can feed into newly emerging imaginaries of welcome, hinting at the ongoing and dynamic process that different stakeholders engage in to provide and experience a sense of welcome.

Welcome as it is actualised, then, is found to come into being through encounters, interactions and experiences of place, which revealed the contrast between welcome as imagined and as actualised, giving rise to tensions. The experience of (un)welcome was also shown to play into conflicting emotions and experiences of discontinuity and disruption, posing emotional demands on different stakeholders due to the messiness of the contours of welcome.

Managing welcome: emotion and the labour of welcome as lived

Interviews further offered insight into the way that a sense of welcome can be achieved through the management of emotions, expectations and behaviours, as will be illustrated here through the foregrounding of two distinct forms of this management; first, through the invested effort to secure a sense of welcome in others and, second, through conscious practices and choices that manage and obscure conflicting emotions towards welcome and also unwelcoming sentiments.

The management of welcome through invested effort to secure a sense of welcome in others involved both migrant and non-migrant participants. Nadira (46, Kensington, Refugee) spoke about her experiences of living in shared housing with other refugees:

When a new lady moves in, mostly they are upset, trying to make sense of everything, what they feel they have lost, what they need, what they expected … the other women are the ones to support them, make them feel welcome … sometimes this is explaining things about the house, about community; sometimes listening, crying.

Here we are given a sense of the labour that can go into providing support for newcomers, helping them “make sense” of their experiences and emotions towards building a sense of welcome. Not only does Nadira’s account offers a glimpse at the invisible, often gendered, labour of welcome, but also, importantly, at how welcome is layered – involving the private and public domains, and refugees themselves as actors in their own right.

Similarly, Lewis, an employee of a housing association, shared his experience of supporting refugees with their transition out of dispersal accommodation.

… the only house he’s been offered is in Anfield and he’s heard really bad things, so he is worried that he won’t be welcome, fearful I’d say … I’ve been out to the house, we visited the community centre, a café; I’ve introduced him to people I know, locals, other migrants, to help give him that head space where he can move in and start his life.

Connection and networking are, therefore, key to welcome and more particularly to the invested effort that can go into building a sense of welcome. These efforts carried an emotional demand and, at times, required actors to manage their emotions. In the case of Nadira providing emotional support for newcomers involved managing, for example, masking or recalling, the emotions she experiences in respect of her own asylum journey. Welcome can thus involve the management of personal emotions, or bringing about an emotional state or feeling of welcome in others (Wharton 2009).

Alongside these invested efforts, at an individual level, the perception and practice of informal welcome rested on attitudes and behaviours that managed welcome, at times obscuring less welcoming sentiments. According to Andrew (63):

In a way we behave and act how we want to be seen. Scousers are known to be friendly and welcoming; it’s who we are … what we are known for … it might look like everyone’s getting on, the city does have an easy-going way. Like, I might knock and welcome a new neighbour … but there’s a lot going on unsaid, especially when it comes to all these refugees. There is a lot of tension that we keep a lid on.

Andrew’s comments indicate that welcoming behaviours can serve as a form of “front stage” behaviour (Goffman 1990), illustrating a divide between acceptable public behaviour and private, often hidden, tensions (Valentine 2008). Interviews, particularly with those born in the city, revealed that there were clear ideas about behaviours and attitudes deemed as “typical” of people from the city, from which a sense of “standardised” welcome on the surface derives.

A discursive, city level welcome obliges areas’ native residents to endorse it, but everyday welcome can rest on managing, and obscuring, tensions so that “outward expressions of emotion” (Wharton 2009, 149) are aligned with notions of the “typical”, friendly behaviour that is commonly celebrated in local media outlets (Murphy 2020).

Whilst for some participants engaging in welcoming behaviours in public was associated with expectations and an ethos of welcome, the performance of convivial practices, found to feed into a sense of welcome, was also pragmatic in nature. James (38, resident of Greenbank) revealed a reluctant attitude towards welcome, emphasising the behaviour of some migrants, including issues around refuse collection and anti-social behaviour, alongside a perceived (un)willingness to integrate as signifying those who are deserving of a welcome.

I’ve said my views aren’t all positive … I do look at some of them and think, are these really the kinds of people we should welcome here, but I just get on. I smile, if someone smiles back, great! If you do me no harm, then I want an easy life and I’ll smile and wave.

The account of James resonates with Gill’s (2018) notion of “feigned welcome”. Here we are offered insight into the mundane features of welcome, of engaging in informal welcoming gestures as part of a pragmatic strategy for living together, and a certain disengagement with the politics of dispersal and housing, and immigration more broadly.

At the same time, for some participants this welcoming “veneer” enabled the management of “wavering” and mixed emotions, whilst for others it was a strategy for sustaining welcome. Marikya (24, F. Kensington, seeking asylum) told us about her own experience of reciprocating welcoming gestures.

People do try to make you feel welcome; they will smile at you, say hello … it took me time to get used to this … I am still not comfortable, but I know it is how people are … Sometimes now, if I make eye contact with someone then I smile, or say hello back … Sometimes I wear a scarf, like this … and I can keep my eyes down.

Marikya’s account captures the practice of engaging with welcoming practices in spite of tensions or conflicting emotions, as with the example of James. However, rather than taking the form of a feigned welcome, Marikya is managing her own emotion and anxiety in order to reciprocate the convivial gestures of the locals, while embodying welcome. A welcoming veneer is reflective of an uncertainty that characterises encounter and not necessarily always political; rather, it was intended to ensure the continuity of welcome.

Further, Marikya’s experiences capture the management of tensions through the strategy of avoidance, achieved here with a scarf to avoid eye contact. In our interviews, avoidance was a common way of managing the emotions triggered by the issue of welcome at local level. For some participants, avoidance involved specific groups; for example, residents who would choose to cross the road to avoid groups of Asian men in an attempt to navigate conflicting emotions, whilst still practicing welcome towards others. Similarly, interviews revealed the avoidance of specific (unwelcoming) places, to seek out welcome elsewhere. Ali (54, refugee, Greenbank), told us about choosing to spend time in places he felt welcomed, including his local church and Asylum Link Merseyside.

People are people, everywhere is mixed; some welcoming, others not. This is how it is, obviously you want to feel welcomed; I am starting a new life, I want to feel welcomed here, so I choose to spend my time in places where I feel this.

Finally, as signalled by Ali’s quote, migrants are agentic in co-constructing welcome interacting with the locals. This management of welcome via pragmatic convivial strategies varied across the different research sites, often in relation to the contextual and physical features of place (Platts-Fowler and Robinson 2015), including experiences of population churn and density of housing. Urban design and the physical environment are, therefore, important in terms of welcome, as it facilitates or hampers encounter (Rishbeth and Rogaly 2018; Vathi and Burrell 2021).

You have to consider the nature of an area like Kensington compared to Woolton. In Kensington, everyone is so tightly packed so there is a sense of getting on, there has to be … the way of life in these areas means people will engage in that type of neighbourly behaviour … In Woolton, you’re talking about gated communities, a sense of distance, so the same demands for a way of living together are not there. (Liverpool City Councillor, Kensington)

Thus, whilst welcome is shaped and (re)constructed through imaginaries and actualisations of welcome, it is realised through an, often pragmatic, capacity (or lack of) to live together (Back and Sinha 2016). This capacity emerges and develops in relation to material, social and physical features of place, whilst intertwined with political space – state’s power over existing and evolving differences (Lefebvre [1974] 1991).

Discussion and conclusion

This paper proposes a tripartite model of migrants’ welcome, utilising Lefebvre’s ([1974] 1991) triad of space as a heuristic device for the exploration of welcome in place. Our analysis resonates with writings that conceptualise welcome as emotional and interpersonal (Gill 2018); a “sense” of welcome (Lynch 2017) can indeed be achieved, however fleetingly, through convivial gestures (Darling 2018).

However, welcoming practices can obscure tension and conflicting emotions, depending on convivial capabilities (Back and Sinha 2016) and the social conventions that inform everyday behaviours (Hall 2012; Valentine 2008). Our findings contrast, therefore, with a binary approach pitting a genuine welcome against the feigned (Gill 2018); they point instead to welcome, and its emotional contours, as complex, fluid and varied. In the context of refugee settlement, welcome that unfolds through the everyday is, as per Darling (2018), continuously negotiated, despite the significant power imbalances at play. Indeed, our findings show that the key tensions that surround the provision and securing of welcome from the hosts and migrant counterparts are based on the conflict between expectations of reciprocity and power inequality, in relation to which the host communities are in an advantageous position.

The human dimension of welcome is thus clearly important for understanding how welcome plays out at a local level (Darling 2018; Gill 2018). However, the material, physical and social features of place matter in shaping the imaginaries, notions and practices of welcome (Amin 2002; Robinson 2010).

A dialectical dynamic of welcome emerges (Lefebvre [1974] 1991), in which the discursive notions of welcome are tried and reworked in the everyday encounters; these in turn feed in to the way welcome is rephrased in the public domain, or lamented in the private one. Our participants’ narratives reveal that a “coarsening of public mood” (Darling 2018, 223) can mobilise and provoke anxiety and fear in place towards refugees and people seeking asylum (Payson 2015). The multiple, often conflicting narratives of place, were found to run in tension with narratives of welcome, challenging efforts to provide and secure welcome in the everyday (Platts-Fowler and Robinson 2015). At the same time, urban rumour and tensions around crime and deprivation, or compassion and sense of responsibility, can affect an ethos of welcome and shape an atmosphere of (un)welcome. Thus, the way welcome is conceived, perceived and actualised can vary at different scales and across the public and private domains, in the formal, semi- and informal settings; it also evolves over time.

Ultimately, welcome, of which migrants are actors themselves, rests on the plane of urban inequalities – the historical and the contemporary ones. While welcome as ethos and its discursiveness may be less fraught with tensions, the phenomenology and social practices of welcome ought to be developed conjointly with the discussion of the way urban inequalities continue to evolve in the city and in place. The arrival of new migrants triggers shifts of perception on the city identity, local belongingness, and of ethics of sharing resources, accepting and enabling the other, challenging while actualising welcome.

The importance of these findings for the dispersal and urban planning policies is paramount – after all, the way we appropriate space is fundamental to the human condition, and state’s control of lived space through the production of habitat ought to consider this fundamental, for the newly arriving migrants as well. These policies should consider migrants as stakeholders of welcome, in order to allow for the creation of differential space – “the possible within the real” (Wilson 2013, 372) – between the locals and migrants.

Ethical approval

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Research Ethics Committee (FREC), Edge Hill University, 11 May 2018.

Acknowledgements

Research for this paper was conducted as part of a PhD/GTA studentship sponsored by Edge Hill University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Edge Hill University [PhD/GTA studentship].

Notes

1 As of June 2023, the Bill has passed the House of Commons and is in the House of Lords, at committee stage.