Titeln på denna studie är Internalisering av kategoriella par i form utav homosexuella asylsökande. Studiens syfte är att undersöka om och hur föreställningar utifrån ett heteronormativt synsätt, hos handläggaren på Migrationsverket, påverkar asylprövningen av homosexuella. Studien berör hur diskursen i samhället formar föreställningar av den homosexuelle mannen och hur dessa föreställningar blir gällande inom myndighetsutövningen vid Migrationsverket. Studien utgår från teorier av Michel Foucault, samt är kompletterad och avgränsad med hjälp av andra teorier, bland annat Queerteorin. Studien bygger på semistrukturerade intervjuer av sju handläggare vid Migrationsverket, verksamma vid två olika kontor i Stockholm. Undersökningen visar att föreställningar om homosexuella förekommer inom Migrationsverket och att detta kan påverka utfallet av asylprövningen. Migrationsverket arbetar själva med dessa frågor genom utbildning av sin personal, vilket tyder på en insikt kring problematiken. Denna studie är en del av min kandidatexamen på Södertörns Högskola inom Socialt arbete med storstadsprofil. / The title of this study is The internalization of categorical pairs in the form of gay asylum seekers. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether and how the preconceived view of homosexuals from a hetero normative perspective, by desk officers at the Swedish Migration Board, affects the asylum trial of homosexuals. The study addresses how the discourse in society forms perceptions of the gay man, and how these perceptions become effective within the exercising of authority at the Swedish Migration Board. This study relies on several theories of Michel Foucault and it is supplemented and delimited by other theories, including Queer Theory. The study is based on interviews with seven desk officers at the Swedish Migration Board, active at two different offices in Stockholm. The investigation shows that perceptions of homosexuals occur at the Migration Board and that this may affect the outcome of the asylum trial. The Swedish Migration Board is working with these matters through education of their personnel, suggesting an awareness of the problem. This study is a part of my bachelor´s degree at Södertörn University in Social Work with urban profile.

Recent policy changes have created a new era of refugee resettlement in Australia. As a result of the introduction of the onshore refugee program, a two-tier resettlement assistance system has developed. This system differentiates between refugees who have been issued protection visas offshore and onshore, and provides considerably less resettlement assistance to onshore-visaed refugees with Temporary Protection Visa (TPVs). The exclusion of TPV holders from resettlement assistance programs and the temporary nature of the visa has prompted this comparative study of the resettlement experiences of two groups of recently arrived refugees. This thesis considers the experiences of recently arrived refugees within the economic, social, cultural and political spheres of resettlement, in order to develop a deeper understanding of the inter-related nature of the resettlement process and the impact of visa category on the integration of refugees in contemporary Australia. Kuhlman’s (1991) model of refugee resettlement, and definition of integration form the basis of the theoretical framework of the thesis. A multiple method approach has been applied to the study and data from the second cohort of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia (LSIA) was analysed to present a macro level understanding of the resettlement experiences of recent arrivals in Australia. In Adelaide, interviews with key informants and service providers were undertaken in conjunction with a series of in-depth interviews with 10 Sudanese offshore-visaed Humanitarian entrants and 9 Iraqi onshore-visaed refugees, to provide detailed descriptions of the resettlement experience. While the resettlement process is found to be difficult for all refugees, the TPV policy acts to compound the problems and disadvantages refugees face in resettlement. Under these circumstances it is found that TPV holders experience social exclusion during their early resettlement in Australia. The importance of host-related factors on the resettlement experience are therefore found to be extremely relevant in contemporary Australian refugee resettlement. Policies regarding visa conditions, and refugees’ eligibility for resettlement assistance have a significant impact in all spheres of the resettlement process. These findings suggest that the influence of host society policies must be accorded more weight in theories of resettlement, given their ability to extensively influence the resettlement process. Further this thesis presents substantial evidence against the TPV policy and recommends that temporary protection in Australia be reviewed, in order to ensure the social inclusion and successful integration of future refugee arrivals. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1277761 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2007

In recent years, the field of queer asylum studies has slowly been expanding in different contexts across the world, with numerous methodologies and various topics of focus. In Sweden, the academic work in this area has mainly focused on legal perspectives. Providing a different perspective, this thesis examines the situation and experiences of LGBTQ asylum seekers and refugees in Linköping, Sweden through a community-based collage project. It examines how collages can be used as a method for research and a tool for community building within this context, and explores the experiences of LGBTQ asylum seekers and refugees in Linköping, Sweden, using individual and group collages. Using the concept of bricolage, the thesis ties together various artworks with short narratives and analytical interpretations. Together, they form a fragmented, in itself collage-like insight into this community. Through these fragments, the thesis reflects on the themes of migration, belonging, survival, and identity. Additionally, it explores questions of home, family, refugeeness, mess, homonormativity and representation. I argue that commonly used narratives of migration often do not fit this group, as they face highly complex forms of oppression based on their intersecting identities. Furthermore, the thesis examines the use of collage as a method by looking into the ways collage can negotiate methodological issues like accessibility and researcher accountability, how it can function as a tool for community building, and how it can be used to allow a community researcher to negotiate their positionality in an easier way. I argue that the use of collage has many benefits and that the use of the collage method in this thesis has enriched the research.

Inspired by the Kratochvíl, Cibulková and Beník´s model of actorness, the thesis explores the framing power of UNHCR. The critical discourse analysis introduced by Norman Fairclough is applied in order to analyze the textual, contextual and sociocultural dimension of the UNHCR framing power. The case of Turkey was chosen for this study due to the current situation and the fact that Turkey is one of the biggest hosting country in the refugees´ crisis. Through the critical discourse analysis, the thesis explores whether UNHCR is considered as a framing actor in the case of asylum seekers, refugees and stateless people in Turkey. The analysis shows that UNHCR is globally respected and takes important part in the issue. However, not all of the international organizations refer to UNHCR as the lawmaker and the initiator of debates in the issues mentioned above.

This thesis explores how people struggle to make livable lives in the conditions of existence of seeking asylum in the UK. The study is based on ethnographic research, conversations and participant observation, with people seeking asylum in Manchester. Grounding the research in their narratives is a contribution to decolonizing knowledge and doing justice to the sentience of people who are marginalized and pathologized. The narratives are brought into dialogue with feminist and decolonial philosophy and political theory, and with empirical studies of 'refugeedom' from a number of disciplines, to produce a new field of connection from which to map the terrain involved in theorizing livability. While the whole thesis seeks to respond to the narratives, there is a detailed focus on three dimensions which participants emphasize as crucial to livability: settlement in Manchester; the prohibition of employment; the asylum application procedures. These are moments in which livability is claimed as both ethics and practice. From the perspective of the narratives and the ethics which permeate them, livability opens up into questions of recognition, social justice and care. People claim commonality: recognition as human, equality and inclusion in social goods, and care in public settings. These are the practical and ethical supports of livability. The narratives point also towards critiques of 'refugeedom', the policies and practices that form the discursive and material conditions within which people seeking asylum attempt to make livable lives.

An emphasis in political debates and much print media in the United Kingdom (UK) on perceived issues with ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity has contributed to a narrative of worry and fear. Despite such hostile discourse, people find ways of living together with diversity every day.  The encounters which I am concerned with in the following degree project are taking place through community theatre with Mafwa Theatre in Leeds where women from asylum seeker, refugee, and wider communities are socialising and cooperating over fun and simple drama activities. The purpose of this thesis is to better understand the different participants’ lived experiences of the theatre space, how they view their role in the group, and how they perceive diversity in the group. The research questions are explored with qualitative research methods of individual interviews with Mafwa members, the facilitators, and a volunteer, participant observation during the weekly drama sessions, and document analysis of printed, online, and audio materials. With this degree project, I aim to contribute to the discussion about everyday multiculturalism and living with diversity in the UK. The theoretical framework consists of the concept of hospitality which helps me explore how hospitable spaces are shaped and negotiated by different contributors, and conviviality which embraces the complexity of social relations without romanticising them and can help us reach a better understanding of how to live together without a fear for each other’s differences.  The findings show that the different participants view the drama group as a hospitable community of acceptance and respect within a hostile environment for asylum seekers and refugees at the national level. The space offers a well-needed opportunity for the women to have fun, develop their creative skills, and escape day-to-day concerns. Moreover, the study shows that besides being proud co-producers of artistic practice, all participants are also active co-creators of shaping the hospitable space and a ‘convivial culture’. Finally, despite misunderstandings and disagreements in the group, the participants express having bonded over similarities and learned from differences rather than describing diversity as something to fear.

This thesis investigates how a change in the municipal asylum seeker share affects voting for the Sweden Democrats (SD), a far-right anti-immigration party, in both national Parliament and Municipal Council elections in Sweden. To circumvent the endogeneity problem, I use an instrumental variables strategy where the share of available apartments in Allmännyttan is used as an instrument for the municipal share of asylum seekers living in Migration Agency provided accommodation (ABO). I have exploited municipal level panel data on municipality characteristics, allocations of asylum seekers and national elections. I am not able to find support for any effect of a change in the municipal share of asylum seekers on voting for the Sweden Democrats. Consequently, I cannot provide any support for either the group position theory or the contact hypothesis.

Refugees show higher prevalence of psychological disorders compared to the general population in host countries. At the same time, there is a lack in the provision of and knowledge about appropriate transcultural mental health support. The overall goal of this thesis was to investigate insider perspectives on the mental health support for refugee patients (MHSR). More specifically, the objective was to obtain insights into the MHSR in Brazil, a Latin-American and developing country. The research on refugees in Brazil is sparse, but the need to provide adequate MHSR is increasing with growing numbers of people who seek refuge in the country. The goal was approached in the first section of this thesis by reviewing and synthesising the existing research. In this, we aimed at obtaining insights into qualitative research findings on the perspectives of professionals and refugee patients concerning MHSR. The section starts with Chapter 2, a qualitative evidence synthesis of ten primary qualitative studies referring to 145 insider perspectives. The main findings highlight the importance of a trusting therapeutic relationship, of the adaptation of therapeutic approaches to patients’ needs and situation, and of psycho-social support, cultural sensitivity, as well as of external support structures for professionals. Negative or hindering aspects were identified as a lack of mental healthcare structures, the impact of the postmigration situation on patients’ well-being, cultural and language differences, and patients’ mistrust. Finally, ambivalences were formulated regarding verbal therapies, trauma exposure, the use of mental healthcare, and the impacts of the work with refugees on professionals. Section I ends with Chapter 3, that critically evaluates the method of a qualitative evidence synthesis and discusses some of its challenges, particularly with regard to the question of how to abstract and merge primary qualitative results without losing their in-depth-meaning. Chapter 3 also poses the question of the universality of the findings of the QES, as no primary studies from non-Western countries were included. The need for a greater international plurality in the research field of MHSR motivates Section II of this thesis. This second section looks at how psychologists in Brazil perceive the MHSR in this Latin- American country. Three different studies were performed for this second section using qualitative semi-structured interviews with professionals and thematic analysis, as well as consensual qualitative research strategies. The first study investigated how psychologists perceive the psychological suffering and symptoms of their refugee patients. It also provides background and contextual information for the following parts, such as concerning refugee patients’ countries of origin. The investigation found that the most frequently described conditions in refugee patients were anxiety and depression disorder and symptoms, grief, and PTSD symptoms. However, the results also showed that the use of manuals for the categorical classification and diagnosis of mental disorders is a debated topic among psychologists in Brazil, since psychiatric diagnostic categories are often perceived to be a poor representation of a person’s experience. Psychologists tended to stress patients’ socio-political suffering and to conceptualise patients’ symptoms as expected reactions to their profound losses and ongoing contextual instability. Participants discussed refugees suffering especially in relation to four clusters: the postmigration stressors, traumatic experiences, flight as life rupture, and the current situation in the country of origin. The second study of Section II explored the perspectives of psychologists on providing “acolhimento psicológico” (psychological care) for refugees in Brazil. It analysed the general experiences, positive and negative aspects, as well as facilitators and necessary changes to better the MHSR. Results showed, that psychologists experienced operating in a novel, precarious and xenophobic context, which led them to move beyond classical psychological work, engage in practical assistance and become very close to clients. Participants reported on a lack of public structures, insufficient competencies of professionals and high levels of staff fatigue. At the same time, they described gaining new perspectives and benefiting from witnessing their clients’ resilience. In terms of facilitating factors for the psychological care process participants pointed to the importance of psychologists being flexible, authentic, of showing a high resistance to frustration, and of making use of group-based approaches. Participants suggested that, in order to better refugees’ mental health in Brazil, efforts should focus on adopting a more social perspective in psychology, developing antidiscrimination campaigns, building policies for refugee’ integration, and scaling up investments in mental healthcare in general. The third study of Section II, retrieved the psychotherapists’ experience of providing psychotherapy for refugees in Brazil. Supportive and hindering elements in psychotherapy with refugee patients in Brazil were identified at eight different levels: the patient, the therapist, their relationship, the setting, the psychotherapeutic approach, the context of the patient, the context of the therapist and the societal context in Brazil. Hindering elements in the therapy included missing preparation for the integration of refugees, lack of interpreters, patients’ mistrust and therapists feeling untrained, helpless and becoming overinvolved. Supportive elements included a trusting therapeutic relationship, therapists’ cultural humility and structural competence, patients’ societal inclusion as well as working with groups and networks. This investigation showed that in light of the enormous structural challenges for the mental well-being of refugee patients, therapists’ flexibility and the reliance on collective work and networks of support is crucial. Finally, Section III, the integrative discussion summarizes, compares and contrasts the results of the various studies of this dissertation regarding, again, helpful/positive, ambivalent, and supportive/negative factors in the MHSR. These synthesised results are subsequently embedded within and discussed in relation to the scientific literature. The thesis closes by considering its limitations and by providing suggestions for future research, as well as an overall conclusion.

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The thesis revolves around the question of whether state and non-state actors’ responses to the refugee crises are restricting the rights of refugees by introducing privatization of security. The thesis studies the experiences of refugees in offshore immigration detention centres of Australia and the UN operated refugee camps, which are highly privatized or are in a process of privatization. The thesis rests on the theoretical framework provided by Hannah Arendt which explains why human rights are failing refugees in this context, and how they remain meaningless until the 'right to have rights' is incorporated as a basic right. The thesis argues that privatization of security is harmful and results in increased human rights violations and that the private military and security companies are a way of delegating as well as deflecting responsibility that state actors and non-state actors have towards refugees. The thesis also raises the possibility of private resettlement programs as one of the solutions to ensure the right of belongingness is translated practically by giving refugees a community. / Graduate