Deconstructing borders: Mobility strategies of South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda

Taking the current presence of South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda as a case-study, this paper explores how different forms of mobility enable them to better cope with the harsh conditions caused by their displacement. Based on extensive field research, the results of this article show how for South Sudanese refugees, crossing borders can be empowering, although these complex strategies do not fit within the mutually exclusive ‘durable solutions’ proposed by the international refugee regime. Looking through a transnational lens, it is illustrated how different forms of movement enable the refugees to hold on to certain aspects of ‘normal life’, such as being employed, enacting customs and visiting loved ones, blurring the distinction between voluntary and forced migration. This results in a deepening of transnational networks as the generally large South Sudanese families find their members dispersed across Ugandan and South Sudanese town centres, villages, refugee settlements and third countries in Africa and elsewhere.     

Narratives from the neighbourhood: The discursive construction of integration problems in talkback radio1

This paper examines how speakers deploy narrative devices in talking about Sudanese refugees. Particularly, we show how narrative constructions form an important basis for the advancement of accounts about integration problems into the local polity. We analyse talkback ‘phone‐in’ calls to a local Adelaide radio station that provide callers an opportunity to give accounts of events and social phenomena that concern them in their local settings. Analysis shows that speakers regularly deployed narrative constructions, first‐hand ‘witnessing’ devices that functioned to legitimate accounts as veridical versions of events, and contrast devices to explicate the moral and behavioural aberrance of Sudanese refugees. The analysis illustrates how these discursive devices function rhetorically in interaction, in ways that differentiate Sudanese refugees as problematic. Through this analysis, we contend that narrative devices precipitate and bolster socio‐political policies that have serious, negative consequences for Sudanese refugees.     

‘To talk or not to talk?’: Foster youth's experiences of sharing stories about their past and being in foster care

Sharing stories about the past and about being in care, can help adolescents placed in foster families to make meaning of their experiences and connect with their conversation partner. However, what obstacles and opportunities for sharing stories are experienced by foster youth has not been researched, while this holds important implications for research and practice. In an episodic interview, thirteen adolescents and young adults (16–23 years) talked about their experiences with sharing their memories about their past and being in foster care. Using a thematic analysis, two themes were constructed, each containing three sub-themes. The theme ‘When’ included references to the prerequisites for talking and considerations made by participants, and contained the sub-themes ‘How often do I talk’, ‘Conditions’ and ‘Ownership of my story’. The theme ‘Why’ included references to the rationales for sharing or not sharing memories, which contained the sub-themes ‘Protection’, ‘Understanding’ and ‘Processing the past’. The stories of the participants highlight both the opportunities and obstacles for talking. Foster parents and foster care workers should be aware of the needs foster youth have with regard to conversations about their experiences and should try to facilitate the meaning-making processes, although some foster youth prefer managing their memories in a more private way.     

The Settlement Experiences Of Refugees From The Former Yugoslavia

In the 1990s many mixed marriage refugees from what was Yugoslavia settled in Perth, Australia. A mixed marriage is one where the parties have different ethnicities. Using multiple‐case, conversational interviews, the experiences of 12 of these refugees were explored. The processes of acculturation and adaptation, the development of social support networks and community, and their ethnic identity and ethnicity, were discussed and analysed within both the sociopolitical context of the conflict in what was Yugoslavia, and their subsequent migration. The initial settlement programmes and supports to the refugees and provided by Australia's government and community groups were also analysed. The results illustrated the diversity of experiences of the participants as well as shared experiences resulting from their being in a mixed marriage. In summary, the results suggest that settlement is stressful for the refugees, that community‐based settlement programmes provide more positive settlement experiences than government programmes, and that people in mixed marriages experience particular stresses related to the political context in the former Yugoslavia, including a history of alienation and persecution. Theoretically the results indicate that the participants are moving towards an acculturation outcome of biculturalism. The complex nature of their ethnic identity and ethnicity is also discussed.     

Through their eyes: seeing experiences of settlement in photographs taken by refugee background youth in Melbourne,Australia

Although ‘refugees’ are frequently represented in visual media, it is predominantly as the central subject matter and rarely are they positioned as the photographers of their own journeys. In this article, we present photographic images that have been taken by refugee background youth portraying their experiences of the first years of settlement in Australia. We consider how, in our longitudinal research conducted with 120 refugee background youth, visual materials can provide equally important yet different insights in comparison to written or spoken narratives on the experiences of refugee settlement. Through an examination of the photograph’s visual content, we explore the ways in which they portrayed their early experiences of external suburban settlement environments and their depictions of interior spaces and home-making practices. We discuss how these visual insights capture an alternative way of seeing the experiences of becoming at home as the youth become emplaced post-resettlement in Australia. We argue that the photographs taken by these refugee background youth illustrate how visual methods and materials can provide equally important but often overlooked insights into early settlement experiences. Importantly, the photographic images offer a way of portraying the people, places and sentiments that are central to the everyday lives of refugee background youths in ways that oral and written narratives cannot.     

Out of the ordinary: research participants’ experiences of sharing the ‘insignificant’

How do research participants feel about having their ‘ordinary’ lives researched? This article focuses on how research participants manage the sharing of details emerging out of their ordinary lives in the context of research – an activity which, for most, is outside of the ordinary. Despite two significant research turns – towards reflexivity and towards the ‘everyday’ – these experiences remain curiously neglected. Drawing on a study of small acts of help and support, I seek to push methodological debate about researching the ordinary beyond the technical challenges of surfacing or capturing the apparently mundane or ‘insignificant’. I do so by arguing that background feelings rooted in the living of, and sharing about, the ordinary are analytically important in their own right; that the ‘ordinary’ itself, therefore, has to be managed by research participants and researchers; and that Goffman’s notion of performance is a useful tool for understanding how this is done.     

For the greater good? Ethical reflections on interviewing the ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ in qualitative research

ABSTRACT

There is increasing emphasis on understanding economic advantage alongside disadvantage – on studying both ‘poverty’ and ‘riches’. This trend prompts and requires new ethical reflection. I argue that in qualitative interview research, a clearer distinction needs to be drawn between ethical commitments to individual research participants, and the group(s) to which they belong. This distinction is often elided in ethics guidelines and when researchers discuss their own work. Attending to the distinction highlights a symmetrical ethical dilemma: researchers studying disadvantage are often motivated to further the interests of the wider group to which their participants belong, yet the study itself risks eliciting or exacerbating negative experiences or identities amongst participants themselves. Conversely, the process of studying advantage frequently bolsters the positive identities or experiences of individual study participants, even as the research findings challenge or subvert the interests of their group.     

Participants’ productive disruption of a community photo-elicitation project: improvised methodologies in practice

Abstract

This article reports on an attempt to use photo-elicitation to explore contested intergenerational perceptions and experiences of ‘place’ in one English village. Participants actively disrupted the photo-elicitation project and ended up co-creating an enriched research design that allowed them to represent how they experienced ‘place’. The spontaneous, mixed media-elicitation that resulted overturns some of the more straightforward notions that are aligned with photo-elicitation techniques. This article builds on a growing body of critical literature on photo-elicitation and shows how participants’ disruption of a project’s research methods can be both challenging and fruitful in practice. The researcher’s flexibility and willingness to work with participants’ alternative approaches proved extremely effective in allowing participants to communicate their ‘imagined geographies’ and to identify experiences of social inequality. This article explores how the initially problematic in participant involvement can be turned into the productive through the use of ‘improvised methodologies’.     

Bindung und Impression-Management: Beeinflusst der individuelle Bindungsstil das Selbstdarstellungsverhalten in sozialen Situationen?

A central tenet of John Bowlby’s attachment theory is that people’s attachment experiences are integrated into so-called ‘internal working models’. These working models are supposed to contain representations about ‘the world’ as well as certain attitudes towards one’s self or one’s self-concept. In the present study, it is assumed that this self-concept, which reflects the individual’s attachment experience, exerts substantial influence on one’s self-portrayal in social situations, which is viewed as the process during which the self-concept is communicated to an audience. In the present study the attachment type was determined by the ‘Skala zur Erfassung von Bindungsrepräsentationen’ (Scale for the determination of attachment representations) which was developed by Grau (1999). Additionally, the tendency to exhibit ‘positive’ impression management strategies was measured by the ‘Fragebogen zur Erfassung positiver Selbstdarstellung’ (Questionnaire for recoding positive self-portrayals) by Mummendey and Eifler (1994). Subsequently, people’s positive self-portrayal score was compared to their attachment type. Analysis indicated that the attachment type merely had an influence on the tendency to exhibit positive self-portrayal strategies when participants had a negative representation of their-self, as well as a negative representation of others, a pattern which characterises the ‘fearfulavoidant’ type. Results also demonstrated that elder participants scored lower on the positive self-portrayal scale, irrespective of their attachment type.     

The Role of Intimate Relationship Status,Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Doing Fieldwork among Sexual–Racial Minority Refugees: An Intersectional Methodology*

Feminist researchers from a range of disciplines have called for consolidation of intersectionality as a methodology. In this article, I contribute to the literature on intracategorical intersectional methodology by drawing on my experiences of conducting fieldwork with 19 gay male Iranian refugees in Canada. Also, by merging the research on intersectionality, sexuality, and refugee studies, I take intersectionality beyond its traditional application on the lives of women of color. I particularly focus on relations between intimate relationship status and insider status, sexuality and internal gatekeepers, and ethnicity and obtaining signed consent forms. Assuming that ethnographers, albeit marginally, participate in or become part of their participant group during fieldwork, I demonstrated the utility of intracategorical intersectional methodology for a systematic examination of power dynamics and the interactions between participants’ and researchers’ markers of identity. I argue that intracategorical intersectionality challenges static definitions of insiderness in qualitative research and provides researchers with nuanced and non-hegemonic analyses of research process.     

Refugees and transnationalism on the Thai–Burmese border

The past decade has seen the rapid development of transnationalism research, but transnationalism from below in situations of mass refugee influx has received little attention. However, the case study of Burmese refugees in Thailand clearly demonstrates that those refugees can maintain economic, social, cultural and political links with co‐nationals in all the domains of the refugee diaspora, even if their capabilities are in principle strained. It is argued here that the legal status of the person or diaspora organization concerned, as well as the country of origin and the host country have a larger influence on the type of transnationalism than the label ‘migrant’ or ‘refugee’. The concept of transnationalism should thus be conceived in a more encompassing sense, both geographically, thematically and including all emigrants regardless of their original motivations for migration. The article is based on fieldwork, including over 150 interviews with Burmese refugees and political activists.     

Methodological challenges of conducting ‘insider’ reflexive research with the miscarriages of justice community

There is an increasing body of literature which examines the personal experiences of social science practitioners who become reflexive researchers. Less, however, has been written on researchers who reflexively investigate once traumatising locations and experiences. This paper problematises the psychological and methodological challenges experienced by a social scientist and ‘survivor’ of wrongful conviction conducting reflexive research where the participants and researcher have a shared (hi)story of wrongful conviction and trauma. A particular consequence of conducting the study was that friendship groups were developed between researcher and participants. The paper will examine this phenomenon and conclude that reflexive ‘insider’ approaches that spawn friendship groups can provide rich data providing the challenges of such research are acknowledged and appropriate strategies employed to safeguard the integrity of the research. The paper similarly concludes that measures should be adopted to protect the psychological equilibrium of the ‘insider’ researcher to avoid possible re-traumatisation.     

‘Black holes in the fabric of the nation’: refugees in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West

ABSTRACT

This article explores the representation of refugees in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, a novel which has been widely celebrated for its response to the refugee crisis of its contemporary moment. In a distinct echo of Salman Rushdie’s claim, thirty-five years earlier, that it ‘may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated’, Hamid’s novel similarly claims that ‘we are all migrants through time.’ Moreover, like Rushdie’s fiction, Hamid’s novel incorporates elements of magical realism: its protagonists escape their unnamed war-torn city through a ‘door’ that instantaneously transports them to Mykonos, and they subsequently travel through other such ‘doors’ to London and California. Their story is interspersed with a series of vignettes in which other migrants also find themselves magically transported across national borders. As well as considering the ways in which Hamid’s novel seeks to humanise refugees, this article considers the novel’s evocation of a world in which human beings – like capital, images, and (mis)information – have gained access to largely ungovernable networks of instantaneous travel across vast distances. It argues that Hamid’s novel is not just ‘about’ refugees but also constitutes a reflection on how they and their journeys are represented and mediated by actually-existing technologies.     

‘There it will be better … ’: Southern Sudanese in Khartoum imagining a new ‘home’ away from ‘home’

At the time of the research, Khartoum was a multi-ethnic and multinational metropolis of 8 million people. A considerable part of the population consists of Southern Sudanese migrants and displaced persons that came during the 20 years plus of civil war in South Sudan to the capital. These people were categorised after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), as displaced people regardless as to whether they come to the capital as labour migrants, students or because of the war to the capital. The notion of displacement assumes that they are people who are ‘out of place’: thereby assuming a former situation of being in place, a place that can be called ‘home’. After the CPA from 2005, this frequently only imagined home became a real place for the IDP’s to which they are supposed to go back. Yet, many migrants and displaced people are reluctant to move to Southern Sudan. Their decision about going to the South or staying in Khartoum depends not only on the opportunities and perspectives in their respective ‘home’ areas but also on the perceptions of belonging and identity. The imaginations and aspirations about the future life in South Sudan, which I analyse in this article, reflect this ambivalent positioning.     

Understanding Vulnerability: From Categories to Experiences of Young Congolese People in Uganda

This article problematises the ‘vulnerables’ category that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees applies to groups of refugees. Drawing on 9 months’ qualitative research with young Congolese refugees in Uganda, it presents research subjects’ self‐identification and lived realities that do not correspond to the homogenous, fixed ‘vulnerables’ ideal. Moreover, it argues that the ‘vulnerables’ categorisation approach can provoke a number of counter‐productive effects, including a focus on symptoms rather than causes, inflated numbers of ‘vulnerables’ and undermining indigenous support structures. An alternative approach that interrogates and addresses the contextual and relational aspects of vulnerability is proposed.     

Sensitive topics in social research involving children

While there is broad consensus that involving children in research is critically important for understanding their lives, there is considerable caution around their participation in social research on ‘sensitive’ issues. Such caution is further amplified by a lack of agreement about what constitutes a ‘sensitive topic’. This article draws on data from interviews with a range of Australian stakeholders, including children, parents, researchers, ethics committee members, government and non-government organisation representatives, and other decision-makers, specifically related to the question of ‘what is a sensitive topic?’. While participants identified a range of sensitive topics, findings point to sensitivities being closely linked with the contexts of children’s lives and experiences. This requires researchers to approach research in ways that reflect more nuanced understandings of these sensitivities, help address potential concerns and facilitate the development of research relationships that promote ethical conduct of research with children.     

Sudanese and Somali Refugees in Canada: Social Support Needs and Preferences

The aim of the study was to identify the unique support needs and preferences of African refugees in Canada. In‐depth interviews were conducted with Sudanese and Somali refugees (n=68) living in two cities in central and western Canada. Refugees were interviewed individually to identify their support needs, current sources of support, available support programmes, barriers to access to support resources, and preferred support interventions. These refugees reported major support needs, depleted social networks, and barriers to accessing services and supports. They identified distinct preferences for support from peers from the same country of origin and professionals. Participants wanted group‐level support supplemented by one‐to‐one support. Transportation, child care, meals, and peers matched by language and gender were recommended to enhance accessibility to support programmes. These findings can inform the design of support intervention research and enhance the relevance and supportiveness of services and programmes for recent refugees.     

Issues of collaboration,representation, meaning and emotions: utilising participant-led visual diaries to capture the everyday lives of people in mid to later life

In recent years there has been an increasing use of visual methods in ageing research. There are, however, limited reflections and critical explorations of the implications of using visual methods in research with people in mid to later life. This paper examines key methodological complexities when researching the daily lives of people as they grow older and the possibilities and limitations of using participant-generated visual diaries. The paper will draw on our experiences of an empirical study, which included a sample of 62 women and men aged 50 years and over with different daily routines. Participant-led photography was drawn upon as a means to create visual diaries, followed by in-depth, photo-elicitation interviews. The paper will critically reflect on the use of visual methods for researching the daily lives of people in mid to later life, as well as suggesting some wider tensions within visual methods that warrant attention. First, we explore the extent to which photography facilitates a ‘collaborative’ research process; second, complexities around capturing the ‘everydayness’ of daily routines are explored; third, the representation and presentation of ‘self’ by participants within their images and interview narratives is examined; and, finally, we highlight particular emotional considerations in visualising daily life.     

The Impact of Family Therapists’ Adult Attachment Styles on Their Career Choice and Approach to Therapy: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

Attachment theorists have highlighted the role of the therapist in providing a ‘secure base’ for therapy. This raises the question of how therapists with insecure as well as secure attachment styles manage the integration of their personal experience and their therapeutic work. This study explored the relationship between family therapists’ adult attachment styles, influences on their career choice and their approach to therapy. Participants’ (n = 11) attachment styles were previously assessed using the self-report Experiences in Close Relationship questionnaire. Three participants were assessed as having a ‘secure’ attachment style; three were ‘preoccupied’, three ‘fearful’ and two ‘dismissing’. They were interviewed about their practice and the impact of past or current relationships on their development as therapists. Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyse the verbatim accounts into cluster of master themes and subthemes. The analysis identified two master themes: understanding one’s self and the impact of family of origin experiences, and the integration between personal experiences and therapeutic work. There were differences in responses relating to the therapists’ attachment styles. Therapists with ‘secure’ adult attachment styles were aware of their challenges and able to utilise their experiences in their practice and respond sensitively to their clients. Conversely, those with ‘insecure’ styles have difficulties in mentalisation and in using counter-transference responses in their practice. We suggest that family therapists, social workers and others engaged in therapeutic work with families should undertake an exploration of the ‘self’ of the therapist in the context of their own family relationships and adult attachment styles as part of their training and continuing professional development.     

The adaptation of East Asian masters students to western norms of critical thinking and argumentation in the UK

The paper explores the adaptation experiences of East Asian masters students in the UK in dealing with western academic norms of critical thinking and debate. Through in‐depth interviewing, students' perceptions of their learning experiences were explored, and stages in this adaptation process were identified, with various entry and exit routes. It was found that the majority of the students opt for a ‘middle way’ which synergizes their own cultural approach to critical thinking with those aspects of western‐style critical thinking and debate that are culturally acceptable to them.