Homeward: exploring co-creation practices towards integration

Homeward is a project that reframes how integration is understood and practiced through the use of co-creative practices. Despite the multiplication of highly innovative and inclusive local or national initiatives, the way integration policy are conceived remains fundamentally embedded into top-down practices. They consider integration as a state, the end result of a succession of linguistic, cultural and professional trainings. By contrast, Homeward posits that integration to a new society is more than a succession of formal steps. It is building a new home not only linguistically and culturally but also existentially. That is, building a place where people can inscribe their ongoing life and therefore secure a sense of belonging. To encourage this existential dimension of integration Homeward proposes to develop a double reflection. On the one hand, ensuring that integration is discussed by immigrants from their own experiences and perspectives. On the other hand, better understanding why previous initiatives aiming to include immigrants' voices fail to translate into institutional and societal thinking of integration. To accomplish this double ambition, the project relies on co-creation, a growingly popular concept of policymaking that disrupts hierarchies between governmental, economic, academic and individual knowledge. Through co-creative workshops combining immigrant voices, academic research, and societal activism, Homeward reflects upon how integration is lived and critically engage with what is at stake in the process of co-creation itself. From this collaborative effort, the project acknowledges the diversity of immigrant experiences to bridge various subjective perspectives on integration and better understand the potential and limitations of the use of co-creation in integration policy. In doing so, Homeward actively engages with contemporary concerns for social inclusion and sustainability in growingly diverse societies.