Due to an increased flow of refugees over the past few years, affairs of refugees have caught increased attention. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the integration process of an earlier group of quota refugees who came to rural Iceland in 1998, from former Yugoslavia. Eighteen years have passed and the refugees’ views of entering and living in Icelandic society will help to understand the process of integration and the role of migration in an ever-changing social context and in times of rapid globalization. The study aims to explore two questions: 1) How did the life events of the refugees affect their integration processes? 2) How did transnational practices impact the integration processes? In-depth interviews were carried out and a life course perspective was the method used for obtaining the refugees’ stories and life experiences, and to investigate their integration processes. The analysis draws on the theories of integration, life course perspective, transnationalism and social networks. This study indicates that transnational practices are beneficial for the lifetime project of integration. Access to an extended social network of relatives and co-ethnics also plays a crucial role. Another important element for integration is the feeling of normal life, supported by a feeling of security in the physical, economic and institutional sense.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR, 2023), some 117.2 million people will be forcibly displaced or stateless by 2023. In this scenario, a large number of families will have to be reconfigured within a transnational setting. The ways in which they maintain their familiar ties and their feeling of being close despite the distance is worth further research. Since the Russian full-scale invasion, several countries in the European Union provided temporary protection for the first time to those arriving, who were mainly females with some of their relatives. The demographic reality of this displacement and the novelty of temporary protection open up a fruitful context to address family maintenance. This thesis explores how Ukrainian females who sought temporary protection in Burgos (Spain) have experienced the ties to their families across distance, delving in their meanings of being together, their practices of co-presence and the role of ICTs in them. / Según la Agencia de las Naciones Unidas para los Refugiados (ACNUR, 2023), alrededor de 117.2 millones de personas estarán desplazadas forzosamente o apátridas para el año 2023. En este escenario, un gran número de familias deberán reconfigurarse en un entorno transnacional. Las formas en que mantienen sus lazos familiares y su sensación de cercanía a pesar de la distancia merecen una investigación más detallada. Desde la invasión rusa a gran escala, varios países de la Unión Europea brindaron protección temporal por primera vez a quienes llegaban, en su mayoría mujeres acompañadas de algunos de sus familiares. La realidad demográfica de este desplazamiento y la novedad de la protección temporal generan un contexto fructífero para abordar el mantenimiento de las familias. Esta tesis explora cómo las mujeres ucranianas que buscaron protección temporal en Burgos (España) han experimentado los lazos con sus familias a través de la distancia, profundizando en sus significados de estar juntas, sus prácticas de co-presencia y el papel de las tecnologías de la información y comunicación (TIC) en ellas.