Rescaling Resettlement: Local Welcoming Policies and the Shaping of Refugee Belonging.

This article examines how local context shapes the outcomes of federal refugee resettlement policy in the United States by comparing initiatives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Atlanta, Georgia. It finds that local actors in Pittsburgh valorize refugees' ethnic identities and community participation as symbols of diversity within a postindustrial development agenda, while in Atlanta, predominantly White Evangelical Christian charities emphasize refugees' legal and humanitarian status, framing them as deserving recipients of care and ideal workers in the regional labor market. These differing local incorporation policies influence how refugees articulate belonging, with Pittsburgh refugees emphasizing ethnic community membership and Atlanta refugees foregrounding their legal status. The study highlights that refugee resettlement is a racialized process mediated by institutional and socio-cultural dynamics at the subnational level, challenging assumptions of a uniform national context of reception and underscoring the variable salience of refugee status across places.