Policy narratives about the distribution of forced migrants to rural areas. Searching for traces in recent German history

The paper deals with policy narratives about the distribution of forced migrants to rural (Western) Germany in recent history (since World War II). The aim is, firstly, to identify the narratives of dispersal policies in favour of rural areas and, secondly, the residence obligations that limit the choice of place of residence to a specific spa- tial scale. Policies targeting groups of forced migrants continue to persist over time. That is, refugees and expellees after World War II and asylum seekers and refugees in the 2010 decade. The empirical evidence stems from a qualitative-oriented content analysis taking into account the perspectives of politicians and bureaucrats on the national and regional scale. Results indicate three narratives, which should legitimize the distribution of forced migrants to rural areas and are persistent over time. These are related to (i) the housing and (ii) labour market, as well as (iii) demographics and infrastructure. Political actors intertwine aspects of burden-sharing with issues of re- gional development of rural areas. The restriction of the freedom of movement of forced migrants followed and follows the imperative of governing spatial develop- ment through immigration and thus reveals a migration-development nexus for the host country Germany.