ABSTRACT
The concept of the ‘context of reception’ as defined by Portes and Rumbaut (2006) and further developed by Stepick and Stepick (2009) and Jaworsky et al. (2012) is one which has been applied to a number of empirical studies but less frequently within a European context and often with a focus principally on the labour market and economic variables. The principles of the context of reception are predicated on the assumption that certain aspects of the host country’s socio-political environment will influence a migrant’s ‘incorporation’ and identity formation as a member of the host society. Portes and Rumbaut (2006) identify those socio-political aspects as: policies of the host government, conditions of the host labour market, characteristics of the new arrivals’ co-ethnic communities in the host country and the reactions of other communities of different ethnicity from the migrant. Other scholars have referred to similar variables without conceptualising them under the umbrella of the ‘context of reception’. Kelly (2003) for instance, in her study of Bosnian refugee ‘communities’ in Britain explored the different ways in which migrants from Bosnia were treated by the host society, depending on whether they arrived independently or whether they arrived as part of a sponsored (for example UNHCR) programme. Again within the US context, other research has emphasised the role of media and their representation of migrants (Padin, 2005) and how local political action (Bloemraad, 2004) can have an influence on the position in which the new migrant will find him/herself.
