Integration, time and temporalities: introduction to special issue

Time and temporality are increasingly recognised as central dimensions of migration, yet less attention has been paid to how time and temporalities actively shape, structure and mediate integration processes. This Special Issue addresses this gap by foregrounding the temporal politics of integration. While integration is often framed in relation to people, places, and structures at the point of arrival, we argue that it is equally constituted through multiple and overlapping temporalities, where past, present, and future intersect with rhythms, ruptures, waiting, and anticipation. Drawing on eight contributions focused on Scotland, England, Germany, and Poland, the Special Issue provides empirical texture to the relationship between time, temporalities and integration by demonstrating how temporalities are produced through governance, experienced in everyday life, and negotiated through migrants' own practices and strategies. The papers make visible how refugees and migrants encounter diverse forms of temporal ordering, from state-imposed waiting and liminality to everyday rhythms and practices of agency, adaptation, and belonging. Together, they show that time and temporalities are not simply the backdrop against which integration unfolds but are constitutive of how integration is governed, experienced, and negotiated. The Introduction develops this conceptual framework by examining the relationship between integration, time, and temporalities and concludes by outlining the contributions of the Special Issue to debates on temporal governance, belonging, and migrant integration.