Trust, integration and institutional encounters in Europe
When
22 April 2026
11:00 - 12:30 CET
Where
Cappella, Villa Schifanoia and online
Via Boccaccio 121 Firenze and zoom
Join this event featuring two presentations that tackle how institutional contexts and lived experiences shape diverse pathways of belonging and participation in Europe.
This session of the Migration Working Group will explore how immigrants and their descendants build, negotiate, and experience trust in institutions and integration processes across European societies. The first paper to be presented, by Gabriella Agyei and Asya Pisarevskaya, examines the determinants of institutional trust among African second-generation individuals in the Netherlands. Adopting a transnational lens, it traces how perceptions of political instability in countries of origin intersect with everyday encounters in Dutch institutions, shedding light on the experiential foundations of trust and distrust. The second paper by Abd Alkader Alhag Fteah will compare socio-economic integration experiences of Middle Eastern and North African immigrants and refugees in Spain and Germany. Drawing on 40 semi-structured interviews and using Ager and Strang's integration model as a reference framework, the paper argues that labor and social integration are deeply intertwined.
The Migration Working Group (MWG) is a researcher-led research group, whose aim is to foster exchange on the latest, cutting-edge migration research and give the opportunity to early career scholars and PhD researchers to present their research.
Discussant
Martin Ruhs
European University Institute
Billie Martiniello
European University Institute
Scientific Organiser
Eréndira León
European University Institute
Andreea-Maria Ferent
European University Institute
Marianna Hu
European University Institute
Researcher Mustapha Kokumo
EUI
Speaker
Gabriella Agyei
European University Institute
Asya Pisarevskaya
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Abd Alkader Alhag Fteah
Complutense University of Madrid
Chair
Researcher Mustapha Kokumo
EUI