Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)Baillot, HelenKerlaff, LeylaDakessian, ArekStrang, Alison2023-02-032023-02-032023-01-25Baillot, H., Kerlaff, L., Dakessian, A. and Strang, A. (2023) ‘“Step by step”: the role of social connections in reunited refugee families’ navigation of statutory systems’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 49(17), pp. 4313–4332. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2168633.https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/12801https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2168633From Crossref journal articles via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: epub 2023-01-25, issued 2023-01-25Article version: VoRPublication status: PublishedFunder: AsylumFunder: MigrationFunder: andFunder: IntegrationFunder: FundFunder: AMIF; FundRef: 10.13039/100013274Helen Baillot - ORCID: 0000-0003-2848-023X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2848-023XLeyla Kerlaff - ORCID: 0000-0003-0191-1511 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0191-1511Arek Dakessian - ORCID: 0000-0001-7792-6862 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7792-6862Alison Strang - ORCID: 0000-0003-3064-5283 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3064-5283For asylum route refugees, the existence and persistence of structural barriers to navigating statutory systems are well-documented. Even when initial barriers are overcome, further transitions may disrupt refugees’ lives. One such is the arrival in the UK of family members from whom they had been separated during their flight from persecution. This paper draws upon data gathered using a Social Connections Mapping Tool methodology with reunited refugee families to make three contributions to the field of refugee studies. Firstly, families’ accounts of navigating statutory systems confirm the multi-directionality of integration. Refugees’ efforts to build and leverage social links proceed differentially across key statutory domains and cannot alone overcome systems barriers that require adaptation on the part of public services. Secondly, our findings contribute to scholarship that critiques the division of social relationships into categories of bonds, bridges and links, and the distinctions made between these based on ethnicity or nationality. Rather, refugees’ social relationships are more appropriately understood as a fluid continuum, with their nature and purpose subject to change. Finally, refugee families’ descriptions of settling in the UK highlight the influence of time on integration and the importance to refugees of re-building independence in a new country context.4313–4332Licence for VoR version of this article starting on 2023-01-25: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in anymedium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIEShttps://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2168633http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)Demographyarticle2023-02-03