Is Social Contact With the Resident Population a Prerequisite of Well-Being and Place Attachment? The Case of Refugees in Rural Regions of Germany.

Due to dispersal policies applied in many European countries, such as Germany, rural regions are important arrival regions for asylum seekers and refugees. For German policy makers, who have faced a large number of immigrants since 2015, it is crucial that asylum seekers and refugees stay in those rural regions and benefit the development of those areas. This paper addresses the quality and quantity of social contact between refugees and resident populations as a prerequisite for integration and long-term migration-development effects from a social geographical perspective.