Integration as a totalizing institution: a moral economy of street-level knowledge production on immigrant integration

Immigrant integration governance in Europe increasingly requires migranticized subjects to respect constitutional values. This paper examines the knowledge production on integration by street-level bureaucrats in Switzerland, combining a moral economies approach with a governmentality perspective. The empirical analysis builds on problem-centred interviews and participant observations of public authorities and caseworkers in the fields of immigration and naturalization, disclosing the norms, values and emotions guiding the knowledge production on integration by street-level bureaucrats. The analysis reveals a moral economy of integration in which caseworkers struggle with the application of the value requirement as a 'mindset paragraph'. The tensions and negotiations in everyday knowledge practices revolve around the value of gentleness and, simultaneously, keeping a tight grip on the subjects' intimacy and the imperative urge to know and 'feel' their integration. This evaluation of inner values and feelings by the state inevitably produces knowledge practices of suspicion and doubt. The prism of governmentality allows us to grasp how this moral economy of integration might have shifted the workings of power but not its disciplining nature. The paper suggests understanding integration governance as a totalizing institution in that it seeks to govern all aspects and spheres of life.