Placemaking Research 2021

In recent years, placemaking emerged as a potential approach to solving the challenges and promoting social interaction between refugees, asylum seekers, and host communities. The use of placemaking or place-based approach to foster a sense of belonging and livability of refugees and asylum seekers is favorable by resettlement countries such as Australia, the United States, Canada, and other European countries, and even in the Middle East and North Africa region. Also, placemaking implementation in those countries has been shifted from promoting social interaction to social integration. Nevertheless, placemaking as a tool for refugees’ social integration in the SEA context is understudied. Therefore, there is an urgency to examine the feasibility of placemaking in a forced displacement context.

The study will examine the implementation and development of placemaking in transit countries and resettlement countries. It is intended to explore the following research questions:

1. What do the practice and recent methodology development on placemaking or place-based approach for social integration in forced displacement context look like?
2. What is the difference in the use of placemaking methodology in destination and transit countries in the context of forced displacement?

The study outcome is expected to reveal the research gap on placemaking for refugees’ social integration in displacement context, support the further development of the placemaking model in transit countries, and deliver recommendations for relevant policymakers.

Since the nature of this study is a literature review, this research will rely mainly on academic sources and non-academic literature accessible from various platforms. This study will use systematic literature review as the methodology and ‘Preferred Reporting Item Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses’ (PRISMA) as the reporting guidelines.