Arriving old: A qualitative study of elder refugee women’s self-perceptions of the first year of resettlement

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examines eight elder women’s experiences of resettling with their family and the protective factors that enhanced their resiliency. The implications for social work include the need to assess elder refugees’ strengths, resilience, pre-resettlement functioning instead of services that might encourage integration into the dominant culture and community, and that the refugee experience is a lifelong experience that shapes and informs various stages of life.     

扶贫移民适应期生计风险、扶持资源承接与政策优化

扶贫移民兼具扶贫和生态保护功能,有效破解区域生态可持续和社会经济发展矛盾的同时也会出现目标的“反功能”现象。基于适应期扶贫移民生计特征归纳,寻求可能遇到的丧失发展资源、失去公共服务、社会关系网络受损、边缘化等生计损失及致贫风险,针对扶贫移民适应期生计发展扶持政策实施过程中存在的“政策对接有落差、政策衔接有缝隙、政策承接有障碍”等资源承接问题,尝试提出提高移民发展可行能力、注重产业发展、整合发展扶持政策与资源、强化移民专业经济组织建设、健全农村要素市场、促进发展要素整合联动等建议,以促进扶贫移民安稳致富奔小康。     

水利水电工程建设对移民社会系统的影响与重建

水利水电工程的建设可能会对移民的生产生活方式、社会交往与社会心理、基础设施与公共设施、社会关系网络、收入与支出、就业与生计模式等产生影响。随着社会的转型,移民发展观和安置理念的转变,移民政策的完善,安置模式的创新,工程建设对移民社会系统的影响逐步减小,但无法完全消除。为了实现移民社会系统的恢复与重建,需要优化安置点的选择,对移民实施外援和内源干预,提供就业服务和能力再造,加强资源倾斜与整合力度、加强移民制度建设,通过上述手段的合力共同促进移民社会系统的重建。     

少数民族地区水利水电工程移民问题探讨

西部少数民族地区是我国水利水电开发的重点区域。少数民族地区移民的特殊性对移民安置的实施提出了挑战。综合利用文献和田野经验,在梳理少数民族地区移民安置主要研究领域的同时,分析了研究的前沿科学问题。已有研究主要围绕少数民族地区移民的搬迁补偿、移民安置、移民适应、移民融合等问题。后续研究中,需要关注少数民族人地关系与生计、少数民族宗教信仰与文化习俗及其恢复补偿、少数民族移民可持续发展研究等。     

Exploring intergenerational communication and stress in refugee families

More than half of the refugees who have resettled to the United States in recent years have been youth. Refugee youth have often witnessed or experienced violence and family separation prior to resettlement and face barriers to successful resettlement such as language and educational challenges. These factors elevate risk for mental and emotional distress, and protective factors like strong familial relationships are important to promoting mental well‐being. This study utilized focus groups with 36 refugees ages 18 to 25 from four ethnic groups to explore conceptualizations of and communication about mental and emotional distress within and outside of family systems. Youth reported a nuanced conceptualization of their premigration and postmigration stressors and their patterns of communication about distress in three domains: (a) exposure to traumatic stress prior to resettlement, (b) stressful experiences in resettlement, and (c) communication about mental health inside and outside of family groups.     

From victims to winners: strategies of negotiation among relocated residents in demolition-compensation events in local China

It has been well documented by researchers that in China’s continual quest for modernisation and urbanisation, many urban and rural residents became displaced and portrayed as victims. A more important question however needs to be explored: do evicted residents learn from others to develop strategies to protect themselves from becoming victims? Through in-depth interviews, primary data collection, documentary research, this study has confirmed that for some evicted residents in Southern China’s urban fringes, when their land was appropriated by local government and developers and they were offered resettlement elsewhere, they did not behave passively to accept the terms of compensation dictated. Instead, they actively learnt from other dwellers who were evicted earlier to become well-organised, resourceful, and sophisticated negotiators in bargaining for their compensation. The group of rural residents proved that they could do better than the evicted urban residents, especially in terms of compensation-negotiation.     

Survival and integration: Kachin social networks and refugee management regimes in Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles

How do refugees establish social networks and mobilise social capital in different contexts throughout a multi-stage migration process? Migrant social network literature explains how migrants accumulate social capital and mobilise resources in and between origin and destination but provides limited answers regarding how these processes unfold during refugee migrations involving protracted stays in intermediate locations and direct interaction with state agents. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork with Kachin refugees in Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles, I address these gaps by comparing refugee social networks in two sites of a migration process. Distinguishing between networks of survival and networks of integration, I argue that differences in their form and functions stem from their interactions with local refugee management regimes, which are shaped by broader state regulatory contexts. In both locations, these networks and regimes feed off each other to manage the refugee migration process, with key roles played by hybrid institutions rooted in grassroots adaptation efforts yet linked to formal resettlement mechanisms. Considering the refugee migration process as a whole, I show that Kachin refugees demonstrate their possession of social capital gained during the informal social process of migration to advance through institutionalised political processes of resettlement in each context.     

Refugee resettlement and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) created pathways for people who are refugees with disabilities to resettle and build new lives. Resettlement country Australia, in response to its CRPD obligations, created greater access to the waiver of visa health requirements for humanitarian entrants. This article chronicles key documents demonstrating that the CRPD has been an effective instrument for improving access to resettlement for people with disabilities. The article also describes new challenges to Australia’s compliance with the CRPD as it fails to address multiple discrimination of people from refugee backgrounds with disabilities, an area of concern to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for which it has issued guidance. This article proposes creating a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Resettlement Submission Category for disability to improve resettlement programmes’ compliance with the CRPD.     

The livelihood challenges of resettled communities of the Bui dam project in Ghana and the role of Chinese dam‐builders

Emerging issues from the Bui hydropower project suggest that the experiences of two earlier hydropower projects in Ghana failed to prevent challenges related to resource access and livelihoods. This article examines the nature of the challenges, their causes, why they were not avoided and the role of the Chinese builders. We conducted 43 interviews and 11 focus group discussions and analyzed qualitative data by themes using narrative analysis. Our findings show that the livelihoods of the resettled communities are, on balance, negatively impacted by the construction of the dam. While Chinese dam‐builders played a major role in financing and enabling the dam's construction, the Ghanaian governance arrangements were found to be more important in addressing the livelihood challenges.     

Exploring the role of faith in resettlement among Muslim Syrian refugees

ABSTRACT

Over 95% of the refugees from Syria who have resettled in the United States are Muslim. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the role of the Islamic faith in contributing to resiliency among recently resettled refugees from Syria. Ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Syrian adults who had arrived in the United States between 3 months and 2 years prior to the study. Findings emphasized the primary role of the Islamic faith in the lives of participants. For participants in this study, identifying as Muslim was an essential part of their identity and served as a source of comfort, strength, pride, and humility. Parents in the study expressed fears that their children would lose their connection to their culture and would grow up to devalue the Islamic faith and traditional religious practices due to their exposure to American values which they viewed less strict regarding dress, alcohol consumption, and faith practices. Understanding the important role that the Islamic faith can have in providing a source of comfort, strength, and empowerment for Syrian refugees, and working to build infrastructure to support and sustain these faith traditions is an essential component of refugee resettlement in the United States.