Journal of Identity and Migration Studies Volume 3, number 2, 2009 2 THEMATIC ARTICLES – IDENTITY, INTEGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP Immigrant Integration: Acculturation and Social Integration Astrid HAMBERGER Abstract. This article tackles the concept of “immigrant integration” as it is analyzed by different authors in the international migration field. In this article, I will use the terms “refugee” and “immigrant” as equivalent to each other due to the interchangeable character of these concepts throughout the integration literature. First, the article brings into discussion the definitional and conceptual battle around the concept of immigrant “integration”, and second, it will describe and analyze cultural and social integration wi th their presupposing processes. Key words: immigrant, refugee, acculturation, integration What is immigrant integration? The literature surrounding the immigrants’ reception into host society is to some extent characterized by contradictory positions, a diversity of definitions, and conceptual puzzlement. Throughout immigration studies, researchers use different concepts and definitions to express the same type of process which embodies the “consequences of immigration.” 1 Following Adrian Favell, researchers use various terms, which differ in their clarity: they are “vaguer” concepts like, “absorption” 2 , “accommodation”, “toleration”, “adaptation” 3 or “adaption.” 4 Favell argues that 1 Adrian Favell, “Integration nations: the nation-state and research on immigrants in Western Europe, The multicultural challenge”, Comparative Social Research 22, Elsevier Science (2003): 13-42. 2 S.N. Eisenstadt, The absorption of immigrants (Greenwood Press, 1975), 11-12. 3 Rainer Baubock, Agnes Heller, Aristide R, Zolberg, The challenge of diversity. Integration and pluralism in societies of immigration (European Centre Vienna Averbury, 1996)