Refugee Research Research Articles

Development of a Refugee Health Research Agenda in North America.

The lack of a cohesive, stakeholder-informed refugee health research agenda has been a barrier to promoting, funding, and conducting health research with refugee populations in North America. A cross-sectional study was conducted among individuals working in refugee health in North America (N = 93) to describe major domains within the field of refugee health research and to develop refugee health research priorities. Open-ended survey questions included: (1) What research topics specific to refugee research would you like to see in an international research agenda? (2) Please describe current and important gaps that you believe exist in refugee research and why? Overarching themes focused on the need for the development of research partnerships with refugee communities that are intentional, effective, and driven by the needs of refugee communities. The survey also identified a need for best practices in creating sustainable, community-based research partnerships (effective models and evidence-based strategies) that translate across 12 domains. The refugee health research priorities for North America described in this manuscript should continue to be modified over time as political, economic, social, and medical contexts change.

Employment outcomes of refugee women and men: multiple gender gaps and the importance of high-skill jobs

ABSTRACT Refugee women face significant challenges when seeking employment in Western host countries. To advance gender-sensitive perspectives within migration and refugee research, this study examines differences in employment outcomes between refugee women and men. Specifically, this study provides a nuanced picture of six indicators of employment outcomes, including pay, fixed-term versus permanent employment contract, overqualification, career prospects, an at-home feeling in the workplace and the ability to talk to colleagues about personal problems. The study also shows that individuals’ occupational status plays a role in gender disparities. Our findings, based on a recent survey of refugees working in Austria, reveal several gender gaps, with an especially significant gap regarding fixed-term employment contracts. Refugee women, who are more likely to be disadvantaged in employment outcomes, benefit disproportionately from working in high-skill jobs. The findings underscore the complex nature of gendered patterns in labour market integration of refugees and imply specific policies addressing gender inequality in this setting.

Resilience and Positive Wellbeing Experienced by 5-12-Year-Old Children with Refugee Backgrounds in Australia: The Childhood Resilience Study.

Refugee research tends to be deficit based and focused on the risks threatening positive adaptation and wellbeing. High rates of mental (and physical) health issues have been reported for refugee adults and children, including intergenerational trauma. This study uses the new Child Resilience Questionnaire (CRQ), co-designed with refugee background communities, to describe resilience and positive wellbeing experienced by children of refugee-background. The Childhood Resilience Study (CRS) recruited 1132 families with children aged 5-12 years in Victoria and South Australia, Australia. This included the recruitment of 109 families from 4 refugee background communities: Assyrian Chaldean (Iraq, Syria), Hazara (Afghanistan), Karen (Burma, Thailand) and Sierra Leonean families. CRQ-parent/caregiver report (CRQ-P/C) scores were categorised into 'low', 'moderate' and 'high'. The child's emotional and behavioural wellbeing was assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, with positive wellbeing defined as <17 on the total difficulties score. Tobit regression models adjusted for a child's age. The CRQ-P/C scores were not different for boys and girls of refugee background. Children of refugee-background (n = 109) had higher average CRQ-P/C scores than other CRS children (n = 1023) in the personal, school and community domains, but were lower in the family domain. Most children with 'high' resilience scores had positive wellbeing for both children of refugee-background (94.6%) and other CRS children (96.5%). Contrary to common stereotypes, children of refugee-background show specific individual, family, school and cultural strengths that can help them navigate cumulative and complex risks to sustain or develop their positive wellbeing. A better understanding as to how to build strengths at personal, family, peer, school and community levels where children are vulnerable is an important next step. Working in close collaboration with refugee communities, schools, policy makers and key service providers will ensure the optimal translation of these findings into sustainable practice and impactful public policy.

Treating drunk driving: Burmese refugees’ alcohol misuse and its implications for social work practice and education

ABSTRACT An alarming number of DUI/DWI arrests of Burmese refugees stirred public concerns in a Midwestern city. Unfortunately, the community’s responses to the crisis came to an end after years of effort to make a change. The study seeks to explain why this occurred and uses this case to reflect on refugee research and social work practice. This article analyzes how the ineffectiveness in three social institutions – the criminal justice system, the mental health care system, and Burmese churches – led to the failure to correct alcohol misuse behavior among the Burmese. Burmese offenders’ language barriers and unfamiliarity with the criminal justice system led to their quick conviction. Once entering court-ordered therapy, their cultural differences in perceiving mental illness and their lack of language proficiency minimized the intended benefit of alcohol addiction treatment. Furthermore, Burmese pastors normalized drinking as part of Burmese culture, which underestimates the indication of excessive drinking for potential mental health issues. Drawing from the findings, the article discusses the impact of excessive drinking on refugees’ social integration and the implications for social work practice and education.

Building an ethical research culture: Scholars of refugee background researching refugee-related issues

Abstract Recent scholarship on the need to decolonize refugee research, and migration research more generally, points to the urgency of challenging ongoing colonial power structures inherent in such research. Increased involvement of scholars with lived experience is one way to challenge and remake unequal and colonial power relations. Through discussions with researchers of forced migration, we aimed to explore the challenges, barriers, and supports related to involvement in such research, and to identify how research practices and structures could be improved to increase and facilitate the involvement of scholars with refugee backgrounds. In this field reflection, we highlight key points and suggestions for better research practice that emerged from these discussions. In doing so, we are endeavouring to contribute to the important ongoing conversation about ethics and decolonizing research. We build on existing ethical guidelines by opening up some of the complexities of ethical practice and offering concrete actions that can be taken to work through these.

Research in Times of Emergency: Methodological and Ethical Considerations in Immigrant and Refugee Research

ABSTRACT In this paper, I discuss the methodological challenges and ethical questions that emerge when conducting fieldwork with refugee and immigrant populations in a moment of emergency. I draw on research conducted in Missoula, Montana, between 2021–2022 as Afghans arrived in U.S. communities following the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan. I draw on vignettes from fieldwork to foreground the methodological, emotional, and ethical implications of recruiting recently displaced people in moments of emergency into an ongoing research project. I discuss how I navigated these sudden changes in the field, reflecting on my positionality as a researcher and training as a feminist geographer. I contextualize my decision to forgo conducting interviews with a recently displaced population and overburdened service providers within scholarship on feminist methodologies, migration studies, and ethics of care. In doing so, I reflect on the ambivalent nature of research, and what it means to conduct research on, with, and/or about refugees and immigrants.

Research with Refugees: Working with Ethnic Community-Based Organizations

ABSTRACT The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) has functioned as a partnership between the federal government and a number of nonprofit partners for more than four decades. Yet resettlement is dependent on more than these particularly visible actors, and also includes states, municipalities, and a range of other organizations. In this paper I look at one part of the resettlement assemblage in the United States—ethnic community-based organizations (ECBOs)—from my own perspective as a researcher who has collaborated with one such entity over a number of years. Focusing on the shifting sands of refugee resettlement and drawing on research with staff at this agency, I examine some of the possibilities and pitfalls of engaging in praxis-oriented refugee research, especially at the local level. I suggest that the particular nuances and context of the ECBO is central to our understanding of contemporary resettlement practice in the United States.

Funding for Refugee Health Research From the National Institutes of Health Between 2000 and 2020

The US has historically resettled more refugees than any other country, with over 3.5 million refugees since 1980. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the largest public funder of biomedical research and development, but its role in mitigating many health disparities refugees experience through its funded research remains unknown. To examine the NIH's research funding patterns on refugee health research over the last 2 decades. Secondary analysis of NIH-funded grants between 2000 and 2020 using a cross-sectional study design. The NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools database was used to find relevant grants. Data were analyzed from November 2021 to September 2022. NIH grants awarded by year, state, grant type, research area, funding institute, grant duration, and amount funded. Of 1.7 million NIH grants funded over the 20-year study period, only 78 addressed refugee health. Funded grants were mostly training grants (23 grants [29%]), followed by hypothesis-driven research (R01 grants; 22 grants [28%]), pilot or preliminary investigation proposals (13 grants [17%]), and other types of grants (20 grants [26%]). The most studied research domain was mental health (36 grants [46%]), followed by refugee family dynamics and women's and children's health (14 grants [18%]). A total of 26 grants (33%) were funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and 15 (19%) were funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Most grants were US-based (60 grants [76%]) and the state of Massachusetts received the greatest amount of funding ($14 825 852 [18%]). In 2020, the NIH allocated about $2.3 million to refugee health research, or less than 0.01% of its $42 billion budget that year. The number of grants funded in each time period did not always reflect changes in the number of refugees resettled in the US over the years. This cross-sectional study found that there remain significant gaps in the understanding of and interventions in the health research needs of refugees locally and along the migratory route. To close these gaps, the NIH should increase its investments in comprehensive studies assessing the physical, mental, and social well-being of this expanding population. This can be achieved by ensuring that all NIH institutes allocate budgets specifically for refugee health research and extend support for the training of refugee researchers.

“I’m Not a Refugee Girl, Call Me Bella”: Professional Refugee Women, Agency, Recognition, and Emancipation

The notion of refugees as a viable source of labor to address skill shortages in the destination country’s labor market has rarely been the dominant discourse on refugee entrants. Bella’s1 lived experience as a professional woman who arrived as a Syrian conflict refugee to Australia in 2017 presents an outlier in refugee research and challenges conventional scholarly wisdom and public discourse. A combination of human capital, a purposeful use of networks, supported by her desire for recognition and a deep sense of self-worth allowed her to navigate the formalized and structured Australian business landscape. Accordingly, she was able to overcome the stigma of being a refugee: Less worthy of employment status in a position representative of her overseas skills and qualifications. In drawing on an outlier methodology and critical theory, we develop a more nuanced understanding of the agency of skilled and qualified refugee women drawing attention to lessons for business which typically takes a “one size fits all” approach to labor integration.

Book Review—The Right to Research: Historical Narratives by Refugee and Global South Researchers. By Kate Reed and Marcia C. Schenck, eds

The Right to Research: Historical Narratives by Refugee and Global South Researchers is essential reading. Much of the work that is being taught, cited, and used in advocacy for and on behalf of refugees are written by scholars from the Global North. Even though many migrants are racialized and from the Global South, the scholarship that receives the most attention is that of scholars who have no experience with the challenges their research subjects face. This is changing, but there is a stickiness to ideas about what is research that meets the standards of peer review and how research should be done. This book builds upon decolonizing, anti-racist, and critical feminist and race thought that has long embraced multiple and diverse forms of knowledge production. Ironically, refugee and migration studies have taken much longer to challenge norms and assumptions that underpin research in this area. Nine essays make up this collection. The authors have liminal or no legal status, some dependent on organizations or NGOs for support, have diverse educational and employment backgrounds, and were from a variety of countries. The works show less emphasis on the privileged ability to use research resources from libraries, the internet, and workshops and instead showcased conditions of production outside the traditional bounds of academia that were non-textual and focused on oral narratives. The work in this book does as it states, ‘create[s] new archives’ and ‘record[s] oral histories that can speak to processes, experiences, and subjectivities that no amount of sleuthing in colonial (or postcolonial state, or NGO) archives, however skilled, could uncover’.1 This book disturbs how refugee research thus far has been done by upturning the construction of the refugee as subject and instead allowing migrants to identify and act as researchers in their own right. As articulated, ‘the right to research is both the ability to systematically inquire into the unknown and the ability to share one’s findings and be taken seriously as a producer and bearer of knowledge—something that has historically been denied to many refugees and other people on the move’.2

The stories behind stories: Reflections on the role of voice in research with unaccompanied refugee youth

The stories behind stories: Reflections on the role of voice in research with unaccompanied refugee youth

A Content Analysis of Immigrant and Refugee Research: A 31-year Review

This study systematically reviewed the immigrant and refugee research in counseling psychology and related fields, which included 323 empirical studies in 310 articles, over a 31-year period. We analyzed the content and methods in (a) participant characteristics, (b) study characteristics, (c) topics and theoretical frameworks, and (d) publication trends. To summarize key findings, top nations of origin included Mexico, China, and South Korea. English-speaking, young individuals and college students were overrepresented in study participants. Acculturation and enculturation was one of the most frequently used variables, topics, and theories. Nevertheless, the proportion of acculturation and enculturation research has declined over time, while research on racial bias and discrimination has increased since 2000. It suggests growing attention to sociopolitical dimensions of migration beyond cultural transition. Qualitative methods were frequently used when studying Middle Eastern immigrants, refugees, and LGBTQ issues. We evaluated the findings from strength-based, bidirectional, ecological, and intersectional perspectives and suggest directions for research, practice, advocacy, education, and training.

Using participatory video for co-production and collaborative research with refugees: critical reflections from the Digital Place-makers program

ABSTRACT This article critically reflects on the implementation of participatory video (PV) to explore the perspectives of 14 refugee participants regarding their place-making strategies in the Netherlands. The insights here derive from the experience of co-designing and implementing the Digital Place-makers program: a filmmaking course that relies on basic editing training and story-telling. PV has been strongly criticized for its attendance to researchers’ output requirements during the production process. We address this issue by focusing on our role as facilitators in acquiring editing skills and capacities that allow participants to produce their films as autonomously as possible. In doing so, we found that engaging in editing techniques during PV had multiple benefits for the refugees, such as enabling a pathway for regaining confidence and highlighting social injustice in their communities. We also argue that knowledge co-production in refugee research must question labels of vulnerability that prevent participants from enjoying authorship of their productions.

Networks and Contested Identities in the Refugee Journey

This thematic issue traverses refugee research that recognises the importance of networks in determining the paths that refugees undertake in their journeys to seek safety and protection. In recent years, scholars have increasingly pointed to the multifaceted nature of networks in the refugee journey. These articles demonstrate the importance of elucidating the distinct influences and factors that shape refugee networks, including the unequal power relations between refugees and refugee aid workers in transit countries, transnational family and community connections, the proliferation of technologies in strengthening refugees’ networks, the role of the state in privileging certain refugee groups over others, and the role of refugees themselves in mobilising both past and existing networks to activate supports.

Revisiting the ‘dual imperative’ of forced-migration studies – commentary to Refstie

From the perspective of forced-migration studies, the reflections article elaborates on the question Hilde Refstie posed in her keynote speech at Geography Days in 2021 – “what doing our part means in a progressive world of fast policymaking”. Discussing the nature of forced‑migration studies as a both policy-relevant and policy-critical field, then deliberating the issue of what ‘action’ may look like in action-oriented refugee research, this presentation of self-critical reflection on these issues is grounded in the Academy-of-Finland-funded research project Action-oriented Research on Asylum Seekers’ Deportability (ARADE, 2018–2022). The author concludes that, while research should be conducted in solidarity with refugees and those collaborating with them, such as activists, scholars must maintain reflexive criticism considering which actions and approaches are suitable and desired in particular contexts. There are no simple solutions for designing and implementing action‑oriented research for and with refugees.

Can collaborative knowledge production decolonize epistemology?

A critical engagement with representation, positionality, and power inequalities has become increasingly common in research and publication projects in the field of forced migration studies. Indeed, the field has drawn on decolonial frameworks to move towards more inclusive perspectives. Nevertheless, the challenge in decolonizing knowledge production is to consider the rich spectrum of knowledges and knowledge production, while remaining aware of complexities and tensions, to avoid further marginalizing already-marginalized actors. This article stimulates a discussion that critically reflects on the structures and power relations in which collaboration processes form. I draw on forms of collaboration applied in my research, primarily co-authorships with refugee research partners, to reflect on methodological challenges and questions of legitimacy, from positions of hegemonic academic knowledge production. An epistemic decolonization through collaborative knowledge production can only occur if researchers practise emancipatory and ethical scholarship that revalues marginalized actors’ perspectives and agendas, while also actively decentring the western hegemonic academy.

The Precariousness of Home and Belonging Among Queer Refugees: Using Participatory Photography in Oral Histories in Vancouver, British Columbia

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between oral history and participatory photography for queer refugees as they create differing affectual and mnemonic relationships to the past and present in experiences of belonging and home. By intertwining oral history interviews with participatory photography by sexual minority refugees, this research interrogates the intimate and ephemeral spaces between narrative and affect, lived realities and “memoryscapes,” and how queer refugees navigate the conflicted and contradictory emotions of home and belonging between time and space. Understanding how queer refugees tell stories about home through oral history and participatory photography allows us not only to understand the social, structural, and material worlds they must navigate as they settle in Canada but also challenge dominant and linear refugee migration narratives in which home is constructed as an endpoint. The shared narratives and participatory photographs address a critical intersection in LGBT refugee research and oral history by expanding our understanding of how queer refugees narrate their migration stories, feelings of belonging, and experiences of home.

A contextualized perspective on research participation in collaborative refugee research: A multi-site exploration of relational dynamics in collaborative research.

An increasing body of literature emphasizes the role of refugees' social context, with social conditions both at home and in the host society having an impact on the possibility of power redistribution and the mobilization of agency in collaborative research practices. Our aim is to develop a contextualized understanding of research participation for refugees in collaborative research in order to further enhance insights on the potential strengths and pitfalls of collaborative refugee research. We closely study the various relational contexts that shape refugees' research participation and that may have an influence on power dynamics in collaborative research. In the present study, we explore participants' adaptation of research participation by means of an interpretive cross-case analysis of three psychosocial intervention studies sharing a collaborative approach with refugee participants, refugee families, refugee communities, and professional partners at different stages in the research process. We identify the developed collaborative strategies in our three case studies and provide an outline of the ways refugees mobilize research participation through these identified collaborative strategies, from within the relational contexts of the family, community, and institutional actors. This analysis shows how research participation operates as a relational forum in which refugees continuously navigate and negotiate within and between multiple relational contexts. We argue that performing research participation, as a way of relating to a relational context, is both an interactive and a dynamic process. For research practice, our analysis addresses the importance of an in-depth understanding of participants' relational contexts to foster both a reflective research practice and trustful research relationships between researchers and participants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Creating collective solidarity: Insights from the development and process evaluation of civic action for refugee empowerment in Cincinnati.

Our goal was to describe the development, progress, and functioning of Civic Action for Refugee Empowerment in Cincinnati (CARE: Cincinnati) as a model for community-based participatory research (CBPR) with refugees. We conducted a participatory evaluation to assess our collective ability to employ shared power and equitable decision-making, and to facilitate structures that build member ownership and solidarity. We identify principles and processes that can be used by researchers, practitioners, and activists interested in working toward the creation of more equitable community spaces for refugees. Twelve refugee research team members representing seven different countries and ranging in age from 16 to 75 engaged in the participatory evaluation and are coauthors of this manuscript. All participants were interviewed by an external researcher, who transcribed and anonymized responses. Academic researchers first developed preliminary themes and then the entire research team verified, prioritized, and expanded themes. The experiences of refugee team members illustrate an iterative process of reflection and action that are both personally satisfying and encourage work for deeper change. The themes further illustrate that the CBPR process aided in developing a sense of solidarity among diverse team members and that the dynamic and participatory organization of the group fostered equitable and creative decision-making. Our participatory evaluation suggests that future research partnering with refugees that brings together diverse teams to share power will not only improve research quality and dissemination, but will also serve as a tangible benefit for refugee team members. The shared reflection, analysis, and action process inherent in the research process are individually motivating to refugee team members and foster possibility for transformative change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Recent Development and Emerging Trends of Research on Rohingya Refugee Crisis (1993-2020): A Bibliometric Analysis

Rohingya refugees are one of the top displaced communities in the world. Refugee crises have been a global concern in recent times, involving inclusive research. This bibliometric analysis aims to produce an overview of Rohingya refugees and help researchers build intuitions on them. To this end, the author implements a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software for cluster analysis and three-factor analysis using publications from Scopus and Web of Science. The author uses180 WoS and 202 Scopus documents to analyse the data based on inclusion criteria. The study results indicate sharp increasing trends of publications and citations in recent times after the major influx in 2017. Bangladesh, the USA, and Australia made the highest number of publications and collaborations on Rohingya refugee research. Besides, the study results visually demonstrate the sub-areas linking with the Rohingya refugees concerning the scientific journals, leading areas, major influencing countries, authors, sources, institutions, and exciting research directions. The study also identifies the research collaborations between countries and authors. Finally, based on keywords and three-field analyses, it is concluded that Rohingya, refugees, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Rohingya refugees, mental health, and forced migration have captivated extensive attention by the researchers on Rohingya refugees in the last three years.