This paper applies a critical spatial lens to investigate the complex process of refugee integration, focusing specifically on the experiences of Muslim women refugees in Bristol, UK. Rather than viewing cities as passive contexts for policy implementation, the paper positions them as active spatial arenas where inclusion—understood through access, rights, and belonging—is materially shaped. Grounded in principles of spatial justice, the research addresses the core question: what role do urban environment play in shaping Muslim refugee women lived experiences of integration?

Findings are drawn from a doctoral study using qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews and participatory mapping (emotional and cognitive) with Muslim refugee women. This approach captures the intersectionality of their experiences, demonstrating how faith, gender, and refugee status converge to produce distinct spatial barriers and opportunities.

The analysis develops across three interconnected themes. First, women’s initial encounters with the host city reveal how housing allocation, neighbourhood level, and the spatial configuration of services condition accessibility, visibility, and perceptions of belonging. These configurations often reproduce marginalisation through gendered and racialised dynamics, limiting integration pathways.

Second, the study explores how integration is negotiated as a lived practice of spatial inclusion, through everyday mobility and activation of social infrastructure including community networks. These practices enable women to navigate urban barriers and exercise spatial agency.

Third, the findings reveal how women claim presence in public space and negotiate belonging, performing forms of urban citizenship despite heightened hostility and Islamophobia. This occurs within the paradox of Bristol’s ‘City of Sanctuary’ identity versus lived exclusion.

The paper concludes that integration is materialised through everyday practices of spatial inclusion. It calls for urban planning approaches that move beyond top-down frameworks, recognising the embodied, intersectional, and lived experiences of marginalised communities as fundamental to designing inclusive cities.