Hot off the virtual press: three new IRIS Working Papers

We are delighted to launch three new IRiS Working Papers looking at health care practices and pathways to settlement in diverse areas.

Pathways of settlement among recent migrants in super-diverse areas (25/2018)

By Susanne Wessendorf

This report summarizes the main findings of the research into how new migrants find ways to settle when they do not have existing support structures to ‘dock onto’. It first sets out the nature of the study and defines the notion of pioneer migrants, before moving on to introduce the research sites and methodology. The remainder of the report addresses the findings of the project, focussing on the most relevant issues around settlement such as legal status and integration into the labour market, but also including the role of social relations when settling in a new place.

Welfare Bricolage in Portuguese Service Providers: from challenges to strategies (24/2018)

By Beatriz Padilla, Simone Castellani, Vera Rodrigues and Jessica Lopes

The Welfare Bricolage project (UPWEB) will reconceptualise welfare theory through responding to the question of how all residents living in superdiverse neighbourhoods put together their healthcare. Increasing population complexity, heterogeneity and pace of change under globalisation has provoked a need to rethink welfare design, alongside issues of engagement, approachability and effectiveness. This report focusses on the welfare bricolage of residents in Lisbon, Portugal, highlighting how they access healthcare and the barriers they face within the healthcare system.

Logics of Welfare Bricolage among UK Service Providers (23/2017)

By Professor Simon Pemberton and Dr Lucy Doos

This working paper focuses on the challenges faced by health care providers in delivering services in two superdiverse neighbourhoods (Handsworth and Edgbaston) in Birmingham, UK. The paper explores the nature of the local population / clients living in such areas and the types of health problems that providers seek to address. The degree to which neighbourhood superdiversity has shaped the nature of provision is explored, as well as challenges to service delivery such as language, culture and traditions, transience and transnational health seeking. Through drawing on the concept of ‘bricolage’, the paper subsequently highlights the strategies that providers have developed to overcome service delivery challenges in rapidly changing and highly complex superdiverse environments.