Cultivating Integration via Placemaking: an ArcGIS StoryMap and Inventory of Refugee-Centered Farming Organizations in the USA

Abstract

This paper inventories the number, type, location, and characteristics of refugee resettlement agencies and refugee third sector organizations (RTSOs) in creating opportunities for placemaking and longer-term integration via refugee-centered farming programs in the USA. Using an ArcGIS StoryMap and accompanying database, we map how resettlement organizations engage in farming programs and provide insight into the various actors implementing refugee resettlement and integration policy in the USA, while also highlighting the role of place and placemaking in that process. Findings indicate that there are 40 total organizations involved in 30 states, with 100 farm sites scattered across 48 cities, primarily found in nontraditional sites of resettlement. Using Ager and Strang’s (Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(2):166–191, 2008) integration model as a theoretical starting point, we use a two-cycle content analysis to illustrate that organizations have diverse goals focusing on employment, social connections, health, safety and security, and placemaking. Sponsored activities and community projects concentrate on workforce training and community-supported agriculture. This interactive visualization and analysis of existing programs nationwide allow the organizations involved, policymakers, scholars, and members of the public to explore the locations of programs with pertinent information about each organization. The research also illustrates that refugee-centered farming organizations should continue to emphasize their efforts on placemaking as a beneficial strategy for the longer-term integration of resettled refugees. Additionally, this research contributes to larger debates and theoretical understandings of longer-term integration by extending Ager and Strang’s (Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(2):166–191, 2008) integration model and embedding place and placemaking as underpinning elements in the process.

Introduction

Many resettled refugees in the USA face both foreseen and unforeseen challenges given the reality that as displaced individuals they have likely experienced interrupted life paths, and they now live with scarce resources, language barriers, and skill mismatches, as well as educational, housing, and food insecurity. Furthermore, difficulties associated with residence in lower-income neighborhoods, the absence of high-quality public services, and inequality and/or racism complicate feelings of isolation as resettled refugees navigate new towns and cities (GAO, 2012; Kerwin, 2018; Versey, Murad, McPhee, & Schwarz, 2022).

In an effort to explore those fundamentals that reduce challenges and create longer-term opportunities for integration, Ager and Strang (2008) introduce a theoretical model that includes “markers and means”—such as jobs, housing, education, and health, along with “social connections”—involving social bridges, social bonds, and social links, as core elements that contribute to better outcomes for resettled refugees. Ager and Strang (2008) go further to argue that these measures of integration, facilitated by language and cultural knowledge as well as feelings of safety and security, are essential to the well-being of resettled refugees, thus creating circumstances for full participation as claims-making citizens.

Refugee-centered farming programs have received considerable attention as one potentially fruitful practice that can support refugees as they face hurdles in cultivating new connections in their new destinations and as they move towards meaningful integration in the manner suggested by Ager and Strang (2008). To better understand the landscape of refugee-centered farming in the USA today, this paper inventories the role of various refugee resettlement organizations and refugee third sector organizations (RTSOs) in creating opportunities for longer-term integration of resettled refugees via farming programs. The paper begins with an overview of refugee resettlement in the USA, and then turns to a discussion of the theoretical literature on the role of farming and placemaking in the integration process. After describing the methods used to create a database of the locations, missions, and activities of refugee-centered farms in the USA, the paper provides a detailed content analysis of the connections between Ager and Strang’s (2008) integration framework and the missions and activities of refugee-centered farming organizations. The resultant findings illustrate that the placemaking aspects of farming are a key theme in the missions and activities of these refugee-centered farming organizations. Finally, the conclusion returns to the larger debate on refugee integration to further highlight the theoretical contributions of the paper, particularly by extending Ager and Strang’s (2008) integration model and embedding place and placemaking as underpinning elements in the process.

Mapping farming sites illustrates the various actors involved in implementing resettlement and integration policy in the USA, as well as providing further theoretical insight into the role of place and placemaking in integration processes. The ArcGIS StoryMap and accompanying database include the number, type, and location of resettlement agencies and RTSOs in refugee-centered farming. This inventory includes an overview of organizational goals and types of sponsored activities and community projects. This interactive visualization of existing programs nationwide allows the organizations involved, as well as policymakers, scholars, and members of the public to explore not only the locations of these programs; the accompanying database also provides pertinent information about these organizations that can be further analyzed by any user. Refugee-centered farming organizations currently appear across the US landscape of resettlement, and it is clear that many of these programs have created significant opportunities for the longer-term integration of refugees in the USA, particularly as they engage in the process of placemaking at the farm sites.

Context: Refugee Resettlement in the USA

The Varied Roles of Refugee Resettlement Agencies and Refugee “Third Sector” Organizations

The USA has settled more than 3 million refugees since the passage of the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention set the universal standard for the definition and qualifications of a refugee (Singer & Wilson, 2011). Resettlement agencies have been critical in that effort and have received federal funding for the services that they provide during the initial stage of resettlement in the USA. For decades, resettlement agencies have included national-level resettlement agencies and their local affiliates. Their chief responsibility is to enter into cooperative agreements with the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and then provide reception and placement services (R&P Program) for refugees sponsored to enter the USA. Nine resettlement agencies, six of which are faith-based, participate in the R&P Program (see https://www.wrapsnet.org/ for a list of the nine refugee resettlement agencies).

US refugee resettlement policy, which outlines the responsibilities of these resettlement agencies, has shifted dramatically since 1951 (Mott, 2010). Refugee resettlement policy has increasingly reflected the neoliberal turn of the US government (Zucker & Zucker, 1996, 28). For instance, the nine-point Cuban Refugee Program begun in 1961 was the largest refugee assistance program in US history and allotted extensive services and resources for up to 10 years (Skop, 2001). Today resettlement agencies only receive funds through their cooperative agreements with the Department of State to help refugees settle into their respective communities during their initial 30 to 90 days to cover housing, food, clothing, and other necessities (GAO, 2012). The explicit goal of refugee resettlement policy is based on current notions that refugees should become self-sufficient quickly and that the onus is not on the federal government to facilitate that sufficiency (Ott, 2011).

There is little nuance to this policy requiring regular work within 90 days. Though it varies from state to state and agency to agency, US refugee resettlement policy does not consider access to transportation, language acquisition, or the particular needs of individual refugees as they begin their journeys in the USA (Morken & Skop, 2017). Thus, longer-term resettlement support becomes key to the longer-term integration process.

Oftentimes, refugee “third sector” organizations (RTSOs) assume responsibility for guiding resettled refugees after their initial aid and support from refugee agencies stop. Indeed, these RTSOs hold vital importance in the longer-term integration of resettled refugees, as their driving principles typically move beyond whether a refugee’s employment promotes their earliest possible economic self-sufficiency towards meeting the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of refugees. RTSOs are often tasked with filling the gap when temporary, limited governmental support ends (Frazier & van Riemsdijk, 2021). As a result, these RTSOs generally aim to promote and ensure the well-being and health of refugees and their families in a more holistic and sustained way than that short-term aid provided by the resettlement agencies they first encounter upon their arrival in the USA.

The Geography of Refugee Resettlement

From the time when the USA began resettling refugees, most government-sponsored refugees have been placed in traditional gateway cities like New York, Chicago, and Miami. Well-established refugee resettlement agencies have had the size, capacity, and experience to resettle large and steady streams of refugees from all over the world to these gateways for decades (Newbold, 2002; Teixeira & Li, 2009, Singer & Wilson, 2011). The intention is to provide “refugees with critical resources to assist them in becoming integrated members of American society” and “to prepare refugees who are resettled in the US for economic success and community involvement” (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr). Traditional gateways have also been destinations where local resettlement agency affiliates and RTSOs have been successful in the initial resettlement of refugees year after year (GAO, 2012).

Much like broader US refugee resettlement policy, however, the question of where to settle refugees has also gone through many changes. Beginning in the 1970s, the federal government began questioning the logic of concentrating refugees in the same destinations year after year. Policymakers increasingly believed that resettlement of refugees in areas outside of traditional gateways would permit the refugees to find employment and opportunities at higher levels of activity and income (Moncarz, 1973). As a result, national resettlement agencies were asked to find local affiliates willing to sponsor refugees in nontraditional destinations. Smaller cities and towns began to appear on the map as refugee resettlement destinations, including cities like St. Louis, Omaha, and Lexington (Brown, Mott, & Malecki, 2007; Forrest & Brown, 2014; Hume, 2015). The goal of this “regionalization” policy was to disperse the refugee population across the USA to create more diverse opportunities for refugees and ensure their long-term integration (Skop, 2001, 2008; Morken & Skop, 2017; Bose, 2020).

This regionalization program has resulted in higher refugee populations in smaller, nontraditional resettlement destinations, although secondary migration to traditional destinations is significant and illustrative of the magnetism of coethnic social institutions in pulling some refugees to certain communities (McHugh, Miyares, & Skop, 1997; Hume & Hardwick, 2005; Ott 2011; Lumley-Sapanski, 2020). During a recent study conducted by Bose (2016), at least 231 sites were approved as official resettlement locations across the USA.1 Figure 1 illustrates the dispersion of local refugee resettlement affiliates across the USA in 2021. Clearly, there are multiple nontraditional resettlement destinations.

Fig. 1.

Refugee resettlement sites. Source: FY 2021 Reception and Placement Program Affiliate Sites, September 2021. Population, Refugees, and Migration. The Reception and Placement (R&P) Program, US Department of State

It remains unclear, though, whether this geographical shift towards smaller towns and cities facilitates longer-term integration (Newberry & Darden, 2011; Bose, 2020; Idris, 2022). While absolute numbers continue to be in cities historically known as gateway cities, refugee resettlement is proportionally much higher in smaller cities in the USA, especially those found in Vermont, Idaho, and North Dakota — nontraditional destinations where the impact is potentially considerably greater since refugees make up a significantly larger share of the overall and foreign-born populations (Bose, 2020). These new destinations that have emerged in these places encourage us to rethink which locations are most active in resettling refugees as well as the practical and theoretical lessons that might be learned about longer-term integration from RTSOs located in these nontraditional resettlement destinations.

Theory: Why Farming? Connections to Placemaking and Longer-term Integration

One of the most intriguing trends in public policy is the role refugee-centered agriculture plays (Predny & Relf, 2004; Gilhooly & Lee, 2017).2 Much of this research stems from prior work in international settings that indicates that farming in displacement holds significant economic and social benefits for those living in refugee camps; these include one study that draws on interviews with Syrian refugees participating in a camp-based gardening program in northern Iraq (Millican, Perkins & Adam-Bradford, 2019) and other studies from several camps in sub-Saharan Africa that demonstrate the value, benefits, and importance of greening innovation in reducing stress and increasing resilience (Crea, Calvo, & Loughry, 2015; Gladkikh, Gould & Coleman, 2019). Scholars building on those studies find that farming holds potential to foster resilience amongst resettled refugees and thus establishes the conditions necessary for longer-term refugee integration in third country resettlement as well (Airriess & Clawson, 1994; Baker, 2004; Jean, 2015; Gladkikh, Gould & Coleman, 2019; Strunk & Richardson, 2019). Indeed, Ossola, Egerer, Lin, Rook, and Setälä (2018) contend that there is “an opportunity to find new reasons and values for urban agriculture, and to rediscover its meaningful place in cities of the future” (p. 560). Sampson and Gifford (2010) describe refugee farms as “therapeutic landscapes” because of the way these places matter “both in relation to empirical, physical attributes as well as lived experiences, emotional ties and meanings” (p. 117). Bose (2020), too, argues that refugee-centered farming tells us a great deal about the possibilities of this activity for the more obvious and practical elements of self-sufficiency and food security, but also for its possibilities for placemaking and for improving governance, democracy, and participation, and cross-cultural connections.

Indeed, a recurring theme explored by scholars is how resettlement and well-being are linked to placemaking. The idea of placemaking is the process whereby spaces transform into social and communal places that refugees can call their own (Jean, 2015; Skop, Bose, Hackworth & Kaplan, 2019). Placemaking has also been defined as the process that occurs when places meet refugees’ social and emotional needs (Kraly, 2008; Harris, Minniss, & Somerset, 2014). Community-based participation is also a central theme in placemaking (Ellery & Ellery, 2019; Versey, Murad, McPhee, & Schwarz, 2022), and refugees’ participation in meaningful, place-based activities increases their perceptions of security and connectedness (Albers, Ariccio, Weiss, Dessi & Bonaiuto, 2021). Thus, refugees’ relationships to place are integral to their own sense of self and their sense of belonging.

Ward-Lambert (2014) illustrates how placemaking fosters a sense of belonging in her extensive study on urban refugee farmers in Salt Lake City, Utah. She demonstrates how farms are not only places of production, but also places of distribution and consumption, which are all social acts that can build affinity and community. As Sampson and Gifford (2010) argue, “these places are critical for facilitating positive connections to place, promoting well-being and contributing to new arrivals’ becoming home in their country of resettlement” (p. 117). More recently, Strunk and Richardson (2019) articulate how refugee farms can become dynamic places where multiple agricultural practices and diverse ecological knowledge alter landscapes and encourage both cooperation and contestation. They suggest that urban refugee gardens are generally inclusive places where individuals can share land, food, and cultural practices while also navigating difference and intercultural dynamics (Strunk & Richardson, 2019).

Interestingly, scholars such as Espiritu and Duong (2018) point out that placemaking is an alternative framing to more normative notions of integration, given the fraught nature of that term. Through the lens of placemaking, thoughtful discussions emerge about refugee life, about how refugees cultivate their own experiences and make meaning for themselves, and about how they engage in everyday practices and subjectivities, thus cultivating improvised, fluid, and alternative survival strategies and everyday meaning making. Instead of simply being the “markers and means” of integration, “these practices of life making serve as radical acts of social struggle and freedom” (Espiritu & Duong, 2018, p. 588). Indeed, as Jean (2015) argues, “although refugees are unquestionably displaced people, they are also emplaced people who make choices, negotiate, and effectively create new places” (p. 47). Our research, too, suggests that theoretical understandings of longer-term integration should be extended and that embedding place and placemaking should be underpinning elements in Ager and Strang’s integration model.

Whatever the motivations or effects, because the empirical evidence is so strong, the practice of refugee-centered farming has garnered considerable attention and funding from policy makers. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) have allocated significant resources to refugee-centered farming programs. The USDA began a program called the Rural Refugee Initiative in 2005. In 2008, the program officially became the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program (RAPP, 2022). The status of the program and list of grantees for each fiscal year can be found in an archive of the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s AnnualReports to Congress. Since then, the USDA has funded many distinct refugee-oriented farming programs, including the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, the Outreachand Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers and Veteran Farmers andRanchers Program, and the Urban, Indoor, and Emerging Agriculture (UIE) program. In FY 2018, for example, $15 million was allocated to 15 new RAPP sites to support economic and psycho-social effects of farming for refugees (RAPP, 2022). That support continues to the present day (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/archive/orr/resource/refugee-agricultural-partnership-Program). In addition, several other foundations fund this kind of work. While RTSOs do not often share their sources of funding, larger foundations such as Kellogg and Wholesome Wave are known to support refugee-centered farming (personal interview with RAPP representative on 10/15/20). More often, however, local, private foundations provide donations and grant money to smaller RTSOs. Given the number of refugee farms in our database, it is clear that this kind of programming is valued and continues to gain ground as a practice worthy of cultivating.

Methods

To begin the analysis, we started this process through an internet search using various search terms related to refugee resettlement and farming in the USA. We then entered each organization’s name and location into a geocoded database organized by city and state. We triangulated these results with a list of grantees provided to us by the US Department of Agriculture’s Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program (RAPP) unit, as a way to develop the database further. Ultimately, the geocoded database includes 100 farm sites that work with refugees resettled in the USA.3

In the database, we created three major classifications: (1) Number of Farms, Types of Farms, and Locations of Farms; (2) Organizational Goals; and (3) Types of Sponsored Activities and Community Projects. We cut and pasted language related to these classifications directly from organizational websites and social media accounts, with the intention of doing additional counting, cataloging, and content analysis once the database was complete.

Our data analysis was aligned with the grounded theory approach whereby we viewed coding as a tool to connect concepts and establish relationships between categories (Burawoy et al., 1991). Our analysis process employed Saldaña’s (2016) two-cycle strategies for qualitative data coding. In the first-cycle coding, we comprehensively applied a broad set of codes based on an initial reading of the data. During the second-cycle coding, we synthesized the data using themes derived from the first cycle, and used VosViewer to perform a content analysis to demonstrate both the frequency of terms and the intensity of connections between terms. This two-cycle approach allowed us to systematically identify, and then categorize and connect emergent data in a qualitative research process that was “cyclical rather than linear” (Saldaña, 2016, p. 45). Throughout the process, we were reflective and focused on identifying emergent themes, as well as Ager and Strang’s (2008) integration model with regard to the implications of that conceptual framework for our research.

As a result of the analysis, we created a new visualization of Ager and Strang’s integration model that embeds placemaking, given the frequency of this concept in the mission and activity statements of the various organizations. Figure 2 utilizes a color-coded system to highlight the core domains while also identifying placemaking as a structural layer upon which the eight core domains sit. That color-coded schema identifies those domains that appear in the content analysis as related to Ager and Strang’s original conceptualization, including:

• Red = employment markers and means

• Green = social connections and language and cultural knowledge facilitators

• Blue = health markers and means, safety and stability facilitators, foundational rights ad citizenship

• Yellow = placemaking, seen here as a triangle that infuses and informs all the other elements

Fig. 2.

Core domains of refugee integration based on Ager and Strang (2008)

Another of our objectives in this research project was to provide open-access to the database we have created so that the organizations themselves, along with policymakers, researchers, and the general public, can search and retrieve information about refugee-centered farming in the USA. In order to display this database in a visual and interactive way, we decided to use ArcGIS StoryMaps to build a national overview of available programs and farm sites. The ArcGIS StoryMap is a powerful tool that allows users to weave their digital content together into a compelling and interactive narrative that is easy to publish and share (https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-storymaps/overview). Essentially, the ArcGIS StoryMap is a platform for telling the story of refugee resettlement and farming with maps, videos, photos, and more. Our hope is that our ArcGIS StoryMap and accompanying database will help connect farming organizations and will serve as a resource that could be used for further development of research projects, volunteer opportunities, and donor support. Given the dynamic nature of refugee resettlement, the farming organization landscape also continuously changes, so it is important to note that the ArcGIS Storymap is not a living archive, rather the ArcGIS StoryMap and accompanying database are up-to-date as of April 2021. Anyone can access the ArcGIS StoryMap from this link: https://arcg.is/1yrOfq0.

Results

Number of Farms, Types of Farms, and Locations of Farms

Our database indicates that there are 100 sites, located in 30 states, founded by 40 organizations supporting farming as a refugee resettlement practice in the USA. These sites, scattered across 48 cities, range from large-scale commercial agriculture to subsistence farming in community plots. Some organizations have multiple farms in one city, some have larger plots of land, and others are smaller community gardens. Some sites are located in suburban areas while others are present in the downtown core. Some sites are on publically owned land while others use privately owned farms.

Interestingly, to help meet the demand for land and find safe and accessible places for urban farms, in some resettlement sites, the Conservation Fund has gotten involved in assessing vacant and underutilized parcels in neighborhoods where refugees live (https://www.conservationfund.org/projects/new-roots-farm). As a result, farms are often found in unexpected places, often in undeveloped or abandoned lots where organizations are able to lease city lots in both commercial and residential zones. It should be pointed out that these are frequently temporary arrangements that often come with the condition that nothing permanent can be constructed at the site, since cities might want to use the land for urban development in the future (Strunk & Richardson 2019, p. 838).

The types of refugee-serving organizations vary widely. For instance, the New Roots Food and Farming program, which was established more than a decade ago by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in the USA, began with support from the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program (RAPP, 2022). The program has evolved and expanded to 22 locations (some of the sites are scattered in the same metropolitan area) around the country serving over 5000 refugees, immigrants, and community members annually. The New Roots Program is differentiated from the IRC because of its work with refugees beyond that first period of resettlement, and its focus on the longer-term integration of its farmers, as well as its funding stream, which relies upon a diverse set of funders besides the federal government to be self-sustaining. Catholic Charities is another refugee resettlement agency that has developed a subsidiary RTSO called Common Earth Gardens to partner with the Incubator Farm Business Training Program to center efforts on resettled refugees in the Louisville Kentucky metropolitan region.

Results from our analysis indicate that other RTSOs have built extensive local networks with the hope of using agriculture to support refugees in rebuilding their lives and livelihoods. We discovered that such organizations are often secular, and rely upon volunteers and donations to do their work. In total, within the inventory we constructed, there are dozens of refugee-centered RTSOs throughout the USA involved in developing both commercial and community farming programs.

Our analysis also finds smaller faith-based organizations involved in refugee-centered farming; these organizations typically utilize nearby vacant property owned by churches to develop farms. Sometimes, because of the success they have had, the church develops additional gardens on vacant lots across the city where they are located, as is the case for Arrive Ministries in Minneapolis. In this case, the Refugee Church Gardens program uses donated plots from current and former Arrive Ministries church members for food production. Many of the farms are coordinated by churches because of their ability to connect congregants and reach out to newcomer populations; the result is the creation of inclusive spaces that allow for a diverse set of refugee and long-term residents to come together and develop new social relationships (Frazier, 2021).

As Fig. 3 illustrates, our results indicate refugee farm sites are located in both anticipated and unanticipated places with a significant proportion of refugee farms clustered in both larger and smaller nontraditional resettlement destinations. Boise, Idaho; Louisville, Kentucky; and Providence, Rhode Island, stand out as significant sites for refugee farms and all three cities are nontraditional resettlement locations. There are ten farms in Boise, Idaho, while Louisville, Kentucky, and Providence, Rhode Island, have at least eight farm sites each.

Fig. 3.

Refugee farm sites (map created by the first author)

Meanwhile, Global Growers has created twelve farm sites in the Atlanta and Houston Metropolitan Areas, which are much larger resettlement destinations with significant numbers of recently arrived refugees. Clearly, refugee resettlement policy has created the circumstances whereby nontraditional destinations are increasingly important as sites for welcoming refugees. In the case of these particular cities, organizations such as Catholic Charities’ Common Earth Gardens, Providence Community Gardens, Global Gardens of Idaho, and the Global Growers network have fully embraced farming as a valuable practice in the meaningful integration of resettled refugees. This clustering in nontraditional resettlement sites and farm sites in nontraditional locations is also likely due to the fact that there is more land availability, and land costs are much lower in these places. In addition, these cities often have less diverse economies, so this is a way to provide job opportunities for refugees that otherwise might have difficulty finding work.

Organizational Goals

The goals of organizations involved in refugee-centered farming programs call upon some of those “means and markers” that represent the core domains of longer-term integration, per Ager & Strang’s (2008) integration framework, with the added idea of placemaking emerging as well. Few organizations overtly invoke this framework, or the more general academic literature on refugee integration, to justify why they have selected these particular goals, rather they appear to be basing their rationale on more commonplace understandings of how integration happens in everyday life.

In our first-cycle qualitative coding, we found that Ager and Strang’s (2008) core domains were helpful in categorizing the organization goals of refugee-centered farming organizations. As Table 1 demonstrates, a diversity of goals related to these core domains appeared in the goal statements regarding their farming programs, with “Employment” (75%), “Social Connections” (63%), “Health” (55%), and “Safety and Stability” (55%) being the most frequently goals mentioned. Other explicit goals listed included “Language and Cultural Knowledge” (38%), “Education” (30%), “Rights and Citizenship” (30%), and “Housing” (13%). Clearly, many of the organizations invoked many of these themes; thus, there was significant overlap in terms of goals (thus the reason why the percent frequency does not add up to 100%).

Table 1.

First-cycle coding using Ager and Strang’s (2008) eight integration domains

Ager and Strang’s integration domains/category	Percent frequency
Employment	75%
Social connections	63%
Health	55%
Safety and Stability	55%
Language and Cultural Knowledge	38%
Education	30%
Rights and Citizenship	30%
Housing	13%

To explore further connections between Ager and Strang’s (2008) integration framework and refugee organization goals, and in our second-cycle coding, we transferred all 40 organizational goals into VOSviewer, a content analysis software. We selected three as the minimum number of occurrences of a term to assess the frequency with which certain terms appeared in organizational goals. Out of the 436 terms identified by VOSviewer, 26 terms met the threshold. From the list of 26 terms, we included the terms that we deemed most relevant to our analysis, and ended up with 11 terms with a frequency ranging from 4 to 33 occurrences.

Several words that appeared repeatedly were defined as “stop words”—words that were filtered out before formal data analysis began because they were either unhelpful or repetitive, terms such as “refugee,” “organization,” “mission,” and “international.” Table 2 lists the most frequently mentioned terms with regard to organizational goals.

Table 2.

The 11 most relevant terms selected from the organizational goals

Term	Frequency of mentions
Community	33
Food	20
Opportunity	9
Access	8
Family	6
Resource	6
Land	5
Employment	4
Hunger	4
Self sufficiency	4
Space	4

Figure 4 shows the VosViewer visualization of the number of times a term emerged in the 40 mission statements (the size of the nodes indicates the frequency of mentions) and the thickness — intensity of the connecting line — how often the terms overlapped. We re-used the color-coding system we created regarding Ager and Strang’s conceptual framework after realizing that the mission statements seemingly invoked the core domains with regard to their frequency of mentions and intensity of connections across terms. During the analysis, the idea of placemaking also emerged as a separate category, which re-affirmed our understanding of the role of this process in refugee-centered farming.

Fig. 4.

Organizational goals

The terms are organized into 4 clusters: red, green, blue, and yellow. The red cluster includes the terms “employment,” “opportunity,” and “self sufficiency,” which corresponds to Ager & Strang’s employment domain. The green cluster includes the terms “community,” “family,” and “space,” which corresponds to Ager & Strang’s domains of social connections (social bridges, social bonds, and social links) and language and cultural knowledge. The blue cluster includes the terms “food,” “access,” and “hunger,” and corresponds with the domains of safety and stability and rights and citizenship. The yellow cluster includes the terms “land” and “resource” which corresponds to the newly created “placemaking” category.

Our results indicate that “placemaking” is important as a goal in these RTSOs, though often more implicitly conveyed than explicitly expressed, and often encapsulated by other terms and connections that appeared more frequently in organization goal statements, such as “family” and “space.” Placemaking also appears to be related to the broader idea of community, which is the most frequently mentioned term overall. Community is the term that has the most connections between terms, and between domains. The concept of community covers a multitude of economic, social, and physical benefits to refugees. As we learned in our research, community is an integral part of placemaking as the process in which a place meets the social and emotional needs of the refugee, and where community-based participation and place-based activities allow a sense of connectedness and security, both fundamental in the process of placemaking. Unlike the broader idea of community, however, placemaking is specifically tied to and made manifest in particular physical spaces that have been cultivated and made material, in this case, through farming. These tended landscapes are markedly different from the strong social cohesion and connected communities that can be created and maintained despite a lack of propinquity (Zelinsky & Lee, 1998; Skop, 2012; Kaplan, 2018). Thus, though not explicitly named, placemaking is relevant as it relates to the ways in which spaces transform into social and communal places that refugees can call their own (Joassart-Marcelli & Bosco, 2017).

Types of Sponsored Activities and Community Projects

First-cycle and second-cycle content analyses revealed more of an emphasis on economic integration than on placemaking in the sponsored activities and community projects led by RTSOs. Table 3 lists those ten terms that occurred four or more times. Clearly, in this case, “training” appeared with the most frequency with 46 mentions. This was more than three times as many mentions as any other term, with “education,” “farmers market,” and “csa” acting as a second tier of frequently used terms. This is in marked contrast to the frequency of organizational goals terms, as it clearly indicates that regarding programming, organizations place a larger significance on economics and employment than other core domains argued by Ager and Strang (2008).

Table 3.

The 10 most relevant terms selected from sponsored activities and community projects

Term	Frequency
Training	46
Education	15
Farmers market	15
Csa	14
Workshop	7
Food hub	7
Nutrition education	5
Technical assistance	5
English language class	5
Community engagement	4

Figure 5 illustrates the VosViewer results and the ways in which the sponsored activities and community projects supported by refugee-centered farming organizations mostly focus on opportunities for training and education. Other food initiatives, including “food hubs,” “nutrition education,” and “technical assistance,” also appeared with some frequency in this analysis though all were also connected to the concept of “training.” From the analysis, then, it appears most programs are designed to prepare cohorts of resettled refugees for skills development and, ultimately, job readiness with the intention of gaining more immediate upward socioeconomic mobility. They also appear to employ hands-on experiential learning to provide a critical doorway to resettled refugees to connect to peers and master skills, thus providing opportunities that prepare them in terms of economic, more so than other kinds of, integration.

Fig. 5.

Community projects

Programming revolving around community, such as farmers markets and community-supported agriculture, does emerges with some frequency in the data. These activities involve farmers sharing produce with friends, family, and other community members through CSAs and farmers’ markets. These activities further encourage intercultural interactions and cultivate belonging by promoting interactions between refugees, immigrants, and locals, with material and emotional benefits for the newcomers as well as the locals. These programs focus on developing “social connections” for resettled refugees to be used as a navigational tool for their next steps of integration, much like Ager and Strang (2008) propose regarding social bridging, bonding, and linking.

These trainings and educational programs appear to encourage the transfer of agricultural knowledge, along with ideas around entrepreneurship. They focus on self-sufficiency and independence, creating business opportunities and encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit, as well as language skill development. Additionally, results indicate that to some degree these community projects attempt to increase feelings of safety, autonomy, and belonging, ultimately contributing to placemaking and longer-term integration. This empirical evidence also suggests that organizations have increasingly incorporated multiple kinds of practices to support refugees as they face challenges in creating new connections in their new destinations. Thus, they do connect to the idea of placemaking and its role in longer-term integration; however, there is more of an implicit, than explicit, connection to this idea in the case of sponsored activities and community projects.

Conclusion: The Key Role of Refugee Resettlement Agencies and RTSOs in Longer-term Integration

This analysis, along with its open-access database and ArcGIS StoryMap, offers a resource for exploring the role of farming programs in longer-term integration. As reflected in the number, type, and location of sites, organizational goals, and sponsored activities, it is clear that organizations are interested in finding meaningful ways to engage refugees in farming activities. The various organizations have identified barriers to integration and have created goals and sponsored programming that encourage more consequential interactions and experiences. In this way, refugees are more easily able to understand and navigate various healthcare and educational services, find opportunities for community involvement and social networking, and gain legal services. Still, the US resettlement system continues to be based on neoliberal values with its emphasis on “market citizenship” (Frazier & van Riemsdijk, 2021). In other words, it is expected that new arrivals become economically productive and self-sufficient in the early stages of integration. Placemaking, along with other “markers and means” of longer-term integration, is deprioritized in favor of economic efficiency and early employment. In that regard, the US resettlement system is inadequate and demonstrates why RTSOs have an important role to play in the lives of resettled refugees. Indeed, as this research demonstrates, by engaging in diverse placemaking strategies and sponsoring various community projects, organizations involved in refugee-centered farming programs have the potential to cultivate refugees’ well-being and their successful resettlement. Theoretically, by underpinning “place” and “placemaking” into Ager and Strang’s integration model, we can gain better insight into the ways in which refugees’ relationships to place are integral to their own sense of self and their sense of belonging, which ultimately informs the larger theoretical debate on refugee integration.

Importantly, by embedding place and placemaking into Ager and Strang’s (2008) model, we are illustrating the significance of these conceptualizations in broader theorizations and debates about integration. Much like Skop (2001) did in her revision of segmented assimilation theory, this addition to Ager and Strang’s (2008) model is a way to further complicate and deepen understandings of the various ways that resettled refugees experience integration. Skop (2001), p. 467) argued, “a more nuanced exploration of the idea of place – particularly in terms of how migrants attempt to fix meaning to, have experiences within, and contest other ideas of, particular places – will prove fruitful in future investigations of adaptation.” Injecting the concept of place into segmented assimilation theory led to significant advances in theorizations around immigrant incorporation (Dribe & Lundh, 2008; Portes, Fernández-Kelly, & Haller, 2009).

In the same way, while Ager and Strang’s (2008) work accentuates the key ways in which social and economic structures surrounding resettled refugees can shape and/or constrain integration experiences, there is room for further theorization, as other critiques have argued (Van Raemdonck, 2019, Lewis, 2021, Shaws et al., 2021. Our work adds to the existing literature and provides an additional layer to consider by encompassing place and placemaking as underpinning elements to existing integration frameworks. In this way, we can elucidate the integration process even further and, per the call from Espiritu and Duong (2018), provide additional complexity and richness to more normative and fraught notions of integration.

In terms of future work, as this analysis demonstrates, the neoliberal logic also clearly plays a significant role in the ways refugee-centered farming organizations arrange their programming, and there is room for further explorations of the ways in which RTSOs engage with ideas of “self-sufficiency” in their community projects and sponsored activities (e.g., Frazier & van Riemsdijk, 2021). In that future research, we will investigate the ways in which neoliberal understandings of self-sufficiency become deeply embedded in the day-to-day operations and sponsored activities of these farming programs. Our concern is that viewing the resettlement process through a neoliberal lens in turn frames resettled refugees as merely contributors to the labor force and calculates their worth based more on how much value they add to the market than on other ways they strengthen US society.

In addition, because of the methodology employed in this particular study, it is not clear whether these programs are specifically aligned with the values and knowledge that refugees themselves hold as significant (Temple & Moran 2006; Kabranian-Melkonian, 2015). In other words, questions remain about how much co-collaboration occurs and whether refugees’ standpoints are considered in the organizational goals, activities, and community projects sponsored by various organizations. Both Gibbes and Skop (2020), as well as Frazier (2020), suggest that co-collaboration is limited and that power dynamics between sponsors and the refugees themselves play an important role in elucidating the complexities and contradictions in refugee experiences of integration. At the same time, it is clear that different individuals have different resettlement experiences and need different kinds of resources to become rooted in place; in other words, the refugee experience, as well as longer-term integration, cannot be essentialized (Abramovic, Turner, & Hope, 2019). Thus, our future research will also explore whether and how these organizations incorporate the knowledge, life experiences, and standpoints of resettled refugees with the hope that a situational, intersectional approach can further inform, challenge, and rework current conceptualizations of integration and lead to more meaningful outcomes. In this way, we will be able to draw further conclusions about the utility of US refugee resettlement policy as well as highlight tensions between what is demanded of refugees by stringent requirements and strict funding conditions versus the self-identified needs, values, desires, and expectations of refugees as they continue to integrate into US society.

Author Contribution

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection and analysis were performed by (Frida Foss and Emily Skop). Visuals were created by Frida Foss. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Emily Skop and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

The authors received funding from the following sponsors: GLINT Seed Grant, University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) Global Intercultural Research Center (GLINT), Spring 2020, $4000; Undergraduate Research Academy Fellow, UCCS Undergraduate Research Academy, Summer 2020, $3500.

Data Availability

Data is available electronically in an open-access database that will be made available after manuscript acceptance.

Declarations

Ethics Approval

This research did not involve human participants and was thus not subject to ethics approval.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.