Case studies are a type of research that aims at providing a “comprehensive description of an individual case.” A “case” could be any unit of analysis: an individual, a group, or a phenomenon. In RIT’s cases, we look at the unit of the urban area experiencing the phenomenon of forced migrant integration.

Case studies have a range of different temporal scopes. RIT’s case reports are “diachronic,” meaning they look at changes in urban spaces over time, using original data collection from the present supplemented by archival data and communities’ recollections of past events. In this way, each case explores how urban areas have changed throughout history to adapt with migration.

A group of case studies may be analyzed collectively to observe broader trends. RIT analyzes nested cases—looking at multiple neighborhoods within the same urban area—and parallel cases—looking at multiple urban areas all around the globe.

There are several strengths of case studies that make this approach effective for the RIT project.

First, case studies are valuable for exploring complex processes that may have multiple perspectives, and for yielding findings that are rooted “in real world settings.” Refugee urban integration is influenced by a long list of complex factors and may be described accurately from many different perspectives between and within migrant and host populations. There might also be very stark differences between the way integration is described in law or in theory versus how it is experienced “in real world settings.”

Second, case studies are complementary to other types of studies because they give context, open up the opportunity to discover new theory, and allow for testing existing hypotheses with real world observations. In the study of refugee integration, there is a wealth of statistical method research conducted by large humanitarian and development organizations, governments, and consultants. The RIT project uses a series of case reports to complement this existing data, building a grounded understanding of refugee integration (more on grounded theory here), adding context, testing current theories, and discovering “new and unexpected results.”

Finally, case studies are “especially valuable in practice-oriented fields,” making this approach useful for the RIT project’s goal of producing findings that will be useful for practitioners and policymakers, not just academics.

Each of RIT's cases are specific to their local context and the reflexive experiences of the case's participants, while also addressing three cross-cutting themes:

1. Mapping refugee populations - including the distribution and size of different refugee nationalities in the town, clustering or distribution in space, changes in spatial organization over time, and transnational networks that extend beyond the immediate town or neighborhood.

2. Urban impacts - including the economic impact (if any) of refugee communities, changes to the job market or housing market, social and political effects, changes to quality of public services like hospitals and schools, how locals perceive and interact with refugees, how other migrant populations perceive and interact with refugees, and how governments have responded to refugees.

3. Refugee experiences - including refugees’ sources of income and support, financial obligations, political activity, self-definitions of integration, factors considered important in enabling or preventing integration, attitudes toward the future, and development of social networks over time, both with other refugees and with hosts.