Displacement Effects on Gender Roles, and Family Structure: Muslim Meskhetians in the USA

Ekaterine Pirtskhalava

doi:10.13189/sa.2015.031005

Abstract

In 2005, the United States government granted refugee status to Muslim Meskhetians from post-Soviet Russia. This group, originating from Georgia, has been subject to external rule and multiple forced displacements throughout the twentieth century. Spawning a mass migration of over 16,000 refugees, Muslim Meskhetians now reside in approximately thirty-three continental states. Guided by previous studies on cultural adaptation and identity maintenance, this article seeks to examine the impact of displacement on family structure and gender roles, in order to illustrate how displacement has reshaped power relations, family decision-making, and gender relationships among Muslim Meskhetians families in the United States. Based upon qualitative in-depth interviews with refugees in Illinois and Pennsylvania, this article finds that Muslim Meskhetians are engaged in a struggle for cultural maintenance and cultural adaptation, carefully negotiating traditional values of patriarchal religious conservatism with contemporary American liberalism, leading to the construction of a new hybrid identity.

Highlights

According to a recent UNHCR report, at the end of 2012, 45.2 million[1] citizens around the world were forced out of their place of living and; 11.1 million of them obtained the status of refugee.[2]
What remains evident here is that while resettlement structural incentives actively worked against their traditional ways of living, by encouraging American norms of a smaller nuclear family and individualized policies, Muslim Meskhetians have resisted these norms by creating close-knit communities and preserving values
Muslim Meskhetian refugees living in the United States have altered their cultural and social practices after being confronted to the American cultural, legal, and social values, resulting in the transformation of gender expectations, and family structure

Summary

Introduction

According to a recent UNHCR report, at the end of 2012, 45.2 million[1] citizens around the world were forced out of their place of living and; 11.1 million of them obtained the status of refugee.[2]. My research focuses on the process of refugee resettlement and adaptation centres within the family among Muslim Meskhetians in the United States. Processes of their social and civic integration None of these studies have focused on how the social and cultural environment of the United States is reshaping Muslim Meskhetians’ conceptions of gender, lifestyle, or family structures. Families and Identities influences how refugees process their own intra-group relationships through the everyday processes of living, In terms of ethnic identification and networks of learning about the new environment, and adapting to belonging and commitment, Muslim Meskhetians seem challenges. Subthemes Distribution of finances in family, Family resettlement lifestyle Marriage decisions

Family Relationships

Gender Roles

Conclusion