From Policy to Belonging: Exploring Interactions Between Dutch and Refugee Youth in the Wake Up Your Mind Project

In this article, I examine the social dynamics between Dutch and refugee youth participating in the Wake Up Your Mind project in Leiden. With an immersive ethnographic approach, I fully integrate myself into the world of my interlocutors, using participant observation, interviews, and collaborative visual documentation (photography and videography). This verbal and visual data provides a nuanced picture of the interactions within this intercultural project, revealing both connection and tension. I observed that differences in motivation, engagement, and communication styles caused frustration among some participants, while closer bonds were also formed through empathetic and open conversations and the shared goal of organizing a cultural evening. The findings suggest that it is not just how often people interact that matters, but also how they connect and in what context, which reflects ideas from intergroup contact theory: connection can thrive under the right emotional and social...Show moreIn this article, I examine the social dynamics between Dutch and refugee youth participating in the Wake Up Your Mind project in Leiden. With an immersive ethnographic approach, I fully integrate myself into the world of my interlocutors, using participant observation, interviews, and collaborative visual documentation (photography and videography). This verbal and visual data provides a nuanced picture of the interactions within this intercultural project, revealing both connection and tension. I observed that differences in motivation, engagement, and communication styles caused frustration among some participants, while closer bonds were also formed through empathetic and open conversations and the shared goal of organizing a cultural evening. The findings suggest that it is not just how often people interact that matters, but also how they connect and in what context, which reflects ideas from intergroup contact theory: connection can thrive under the right emotional and social conditions.Show less

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From Policy to Belonging: Exploring Interactions Between Dutch and Refugee Youth in the Wake Up Your Mind Project