Diversity and integration: from metropolis to village (in Dutch)

Big cities have many opportunities to integrate newcomers and contribute to equal opportunities for their super-diverse populations. But how do smaller cities and towns address the integration of their newcomers? What policies and practices are they putting in place to do so - and with what impact? What are the challenges? Can they be engines of inclusion and what are successful recipes for making inclusion and diversity a success in large and smaller cities? And how can Flanders, Belgium and Europe help?

Professor Ilke Adam is a senior lecturer at VUB, and an expert in migration and diversity policies. She is the director of the interdisciplinary research center BIRMM, a network of more than 100 VUB researchers working on migration and diversity. As a political scientist, she researches how different levels of authority, from the EU to local governments, engage in migration and diversity, why they make certain policy choices and what the effects of those policies are.

Soline Ballet is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University, and is affiliated with the Migration Law Research Group. Soline is also a member of the interdisciplinary Center for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR) and conducts research on future-oriented social work for people without legal residence in Belgium.

Bart Somers, mayor of Mechelen, Hans Bonte, mayor of Vilvoorde, Agnessa Solovieva, welfare officer in Ninove, and Maret Dakaeva, coordinator of Uit De Marge vzw, will take part in the panel conversation. 

This panel discussion is part of Facts to Act 2024, organised by the Hannah Arendt Instituut.  

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