Intercultural Challenges for the Reintegration of Displaced Professionals

Book excerpt: This book critically reflects on the challenges faced by refugee aspirant professionals in securing employment and the ways in which professional intercultural competence development and attendant language learning practices can help facilitate the professional (re)integration in these communities. The volume draws on data from a large-scale research project that saw refugee aspirant professionals, researchers, and volunteer language teachers working together to develop and operationalise key intercultural skills needed for professional employment in the UK, the Netherlands, and Austria, ultimately culminating in a toolkit of free online resources co-designed to meet the needs of communities and facilitate the development of these practices across Europe. Detailed analyses of the data drawn from the project allow for critical reflections on co-production in intercultural spaces and researchers’ positionality, power relations, and ethical choices in multilingual contexts. Taken together, the book offers both theoretical and practical considerations for application beyond the European context toward better facilitating the professional (re)integration of migrant communities on a more global scale. The book will be of particular interest to students and researchers in intercultural communication, refugee studies, and language education.