Refugee Support and Services
Refugee Health and Social Outcomes: Experiences of Female Refugees in Jordan and Haiti
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hayley Pierce
The wellbeing of displaced people is an important humanitarian issue, considering that 65.6 million people are currently forced from their home. As a result, there is a need for a conceptual model to understand consequences of displacement and effective programs to address these consequences. People become refugees for a variety of reasons and research rarely compares across refugee contexts. There are many potential differences and similarities between refugee groups and a lack of proper research comparisons are denying these patterns. This paper initiates discussion of issues that need to be considered in building a framework to understand the effects of displacement by comparing different types and consequences of displacement. Using data from the 2012 Haitian and Jordanian Demographic and Health Surveys, I examine three questions regarding the impact of refugee status on health and social outcomes. First, are displaced women more disadvantaged than residents in terms of reproductive health and domestic violence? Second, is the relative disadvantage influenced by country context? And third, is relative disadvantage influenced by social characteristics? Analysis shows that there is not a reproductive health disadvantage, but there is a domestic disadvantage. Second, although context matters for overall wellbeing, it does not have a big effect on the relative disadvantage. I suggest that if social disadvantage is evident in these two disparate settings, there may be a general pattern. And third, relative disadvantage is evident in all social characteristic sub-groups, implying that displacement exposes women to risks of violence regardless of setting or social characteristic.
In Limbo: Stories from Refugee Settlement programs in Uganda
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kebedech Tekleab
In the summer of 2017, I traveled to East Africa to research Refugee Settlement Programs in Uganda and interviewed several refugees from two Settlement Programs, Bidi -Bidi and Nakivale. My research in Africa was part of the larger project I intended to do which focuses on the current global humanitarian crisis, mainly the crisis in the Mediterranean Sea and its coastlands. As African refugees are part of the Mediterranean crisis, I decided to begin my research from the continent. In general, the causes of migration are numerous. They include war, civil unrest, bad governance, climate change, and genocide. These conditions create displacement and death, not to mention the psychological and physical consequences they have on the survivors. Besides, the crisis affects the political and economic policies of nations that are hosting the survivors. It has impacts on values and human relations. In my project, in addition to the policies that continue to taint the politics, the human being that has been cyclically victimized by them remains to be the focus of my work. The stories are told from refugee camps where waiting time is indefinite, life is stagnant, the future is unknown, and despair is the present. My study includes stories of the refugees (six-minute video), the influence of the research in Uganda on my studio work, my works from the current Mexico/US border crisis, and the separation of children from their parents, currently on exhibit in New York: “Crossing Boundaries: Material as Message” along with the general narrative.
Syrian Refugees Receiving Information: Dissemination of Medical Resources
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sarah Jernigan, Ahmed Beydoun, Stephen Kroeger, Sevsem Cicek Okay, Riham Alwan
The Syrian refugee crisis has caused millions of refugees to resettle. Many refugees have unique health needs that may result from their resettlement or previous health conditions. In order to receive the proper medical treatment, refugees require access to information. This study examined how Syrian refugees in the Greater Cincinnati area prefer to receive medical information and the role that interpreters play in the doctor and patient relationship. To address these questions, semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data; a thematic analysis was utilized to analyze the transcripts. Results indicate that participants prefer to receive relevant medical information in person or via text message. In addition, in-person interpreters were favored over phone interpreters. Recommendations for changes include: multiple modes of communication; tangible document access; using text messages; consistent interpreters; and utilizing videoconferencing.
Interviews of War Refugees : Views of Four Refugees
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katerina Palaiologopoulou, Andreas Zervas, Alexandra Theodorou
The purpose of this research is to present interviews of four different refugees, who are in different places: during the war of Kosovo, inside the prison in Greece, and as a student in a school for adults in Greece. The results of research are mainly qualitative. The research method is interview with open-ended questions. What is clear is that the immediacy of the answers is the way in which one can understand and teach the differences between people, the racism, and the prejudices they imply. It is enough to analyze the concepts of "race" and "culture," "ethnicity" and "nationality." The legend of the existence of human beings and their characterization in higher and lower groups is undoubtedly obvious. Racism implies acts based on the belief that a group is superior and that the minority is inferior, they act preserving the superiority of a group through oppression of the minority. Efforts to fight racism and ethnicity are important to be able to distinguish between exact ethnographic generalizations about one a group of people, on the one hand, and stereotypes on the other.
