A comparative study of (im)migrant integration in Europe: The case of Iraqi Sabian (Mandaean) diaspora

Diaspora research has focused primarily on collective (im)migrant expression, particularly engagement in transnational networks, identifications and practices oriented toward own community, dispersed kin, and homeland. In this literature, (im)migrants are inadvertently placed in ethnocommunal loop(s) which leaves accounts of integration in and orientation to the host country largely unexplored. This has created a gap and resulted in a kind of entrapment not only for (im)migrants, but also for scholars and scholarship with serious implications for public policy planners and practitioners. I address this gap by examining individual (im)migrant interactions with host country, kinfolk and home country through exploring, for the first time, the integration of Iraqi Sabian (Mandaean) diaspora in the UK, Netherlands and Sweden. Drawing on a mixed-method design that combines interviews and survey data, this paper delves into personal narratives and lived experiences and shows that study participants, predominately first-generation immigrants, have integrated in varying ways and degrees by adopting integrationist strategy to orient to, fit in and feel part of the host society and system. Besides many other findings, the study identifies two interacting sets of integration facilitators and four overlapping sets of challenges, and finds a majority of the study sample, though with cross-country differences, in higher positions in host society.