ABSTRACT
The growing prominence of immigrant integration policy over the past two decades has generated increasing attention from academics. This chapter reviews the trajectory of integration studies from the early 1990s onwards, touching on the development of frameworks featuring national models, post-national membership, cross-national integration indicators and corresponding indices, and comparisons of established ‘immigration countries’ vs ‘new’ countries of immigration. I also consider work by scholars who reject the practice and study of immigrant integration altogether. This ‘critical turn’ in Migration Studies maintains that mainstream approaches to the study of immigrant integration are normatively bankrupt as they sanction and reify the coercive violence of nation-states to the detriment of migrants. While acknowledging the strengths of some of these claims, I argue that calls to jettison the study of integration are unwarranted. At its best, the study of immigrant integration demonstrates the limits of prevalent ‘grand narratives’ while also pointing out where countries succeed or fail in providing newcomers access to jobs, education, political rights, and a sense of belonging.
