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Peace Corps Fellows award for commitment to the community / What are Iskashitaa Refugee Harvesting Network’s roles and objectives in teaching English as a Second Language to adult refugees in the Tucson community? How can we create a classroom environment that builds their language acquisition while promoting self-sufficiency? To inquire into these questions, interviews were conducted with adult refugee students who attend the classes, anecdotal records were kept of the ESL teachers’ weekly reflections and classroom observations were performed. Iskashitaa’s ESL classes should provide a space for English language acquisition, assisting in the acculturation process through introducing material that is based on life-skills, with the teachers serving as a cultural broker, advocate and friend and finally, introducing the adult refugees to the community through volunteer activities with Iskashitaa. There is a need for more inquiry and discussion about the pre-literate refugee population, especially in effective teaching strategies, curriculum ideas and a better understanding of literacy practices within the home. These are matters that merit a larger discussion by people who work in education and with refugees, as feedback would be beneficial from all who work with refugees and can recommend what they have observed, experienced and envision to help in the language acquisition, self-sufficiency and acculturation process for refugees.

Immigration has become one of the most contentious issues in Europe. Following the war in Syria, an unprecedented number of people have crossed the external borders of the European Union (EU) to claim asylum in one of the member states. Sweden is one of the member states that has received the highest number of refugees per capita, and in 2014 and 2015 Sweden received the highest number of refugees since the Balkan wars. This thesis seeks to argue that there has been a securitization of asylum seekers and refugees, particularly those of Muslim origins, in Sweden the result of which has been that refugees and asylum seekers are increasingly viewed and described in terms of security rather than in humanitarian terms in public discourse. The securitised discourse presents Sweden as being at risk of a system failure and collapse due to the high number of refugees and asylum seekers and the pressure they put on the Swedish society and welfare system. While characterizing forced migration as a security issue and a potential threat have negative implications for asylum seekers and refugees, as this thesis aims to show there is also a hidden risk of this securitization of refugees and asylum in its impact on the resident population. Lack of security, actual or perceived, can for example lead to anxiety and fear, and to the feeling of being under threat. In relation to the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees, this fear could potentially contribute to a rise in xenophobia, nationalistic tendencies and policies, and perhaps even racism. As such, fear is a risk that must be taken into account.

Thesis advisor: Andrew Davis / Thesis advisor: Richard J. Clifford / The theme of exile in the second part of the book of the prophet Isaiah has prompted me to reflect on the refugee crisis in Cameroon. Refugees in the north of Cameroon hail from Nigeria where Boko Haram, an Islamic militant movement, has destroyed their towns and villages. The new exodus is about the triumphant and glorious return of the exiles from Babylon to the promised land. At this triumphant return, the main actor is God. I perceive parallels between this experience and the refugee experience in the north of Cameroon. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Faculty of Humanities School of Social Sciences 0318773x dzinesag@social.wits.ac.za / In the past three decades several African countries including Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa witnessed the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of troops, repatriation and resettlement of ex-combatants, refugees and/or internally displaced people (DDRRR) in a post-conflict setting. DDRRR processes affect and are affected by post-conflict peace building. However, current research on how DDRRR and peace building are intertwined and how DDRRR contributes to post-conflict peace building is still in its infancy. This thesis is a comparative study of how the nature of armed conflict, conflict terminating peace agreements and the conceptual, political, socio-economic and institutional frameworks under which DDRRR occurred influenced and impacted on the process in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. The three countries experienced different but novel DDRRR processes. Britain and the Commonwealth played a pivotal role in Zimbabwe’s conflict termination and immediate post-liberation struggle DDRRR. In Namibia, DDRRR was implemented under a United Nations peacekeeping context. DDRRR was internally originated, locally owned and state-managed in South Africa from the early 1990s to the present. This was an accompaniment, and also a result, of a negotiated transition to democracy following no serious military engagement. Zimbabwe’s DDRRR was implemented during the Cold war era unlike in Namibia and South Africa. The study intersects these contextually different DDRRR case studies. It analyses the country-specific DDRRR programmes and strategies and evaluates their differential contribution to the broader peace building and reconstruction process. The thesis will then isolate applicable and practical determinants for successful post-conflict DDRRR for posterity based on a comparative examination of the three distinct cases.

In the era of globalisation we are required to negotiate a large series of global flows. These include the flow of capital ideas, imagery, goods and people. Contemporary culture has increasingly become nomadic, and the idea of place has become transitive. This condition stands in contradiction to the time-honoured notion of the city as a stable entity. Whether brought about by natural catastrophe or initiated by choice, instant cities emerge, only to disappear again just as rapidly. This has given rise to new terms such as relief urbanism, deadline urbanism or event urbanism. This shift from notions of fixed locality to temporary accommodation for mass migration requires equivalent forms of flexibility in planning. (Weiss 2007:3) This thesis will focus on the particular flow within this contemporary situation which has the biggest implication for architecture, namely the movement of people. Since the world war, migrancy has rapidly become more global in scope and scale with there being more mobility than any other period in history. (Cairns 2004:3) Contemporary migrancy involves the movement of immigrants, emigrants, guest workers, refugees and asylum seekers. The effects of migrancy are also being more intensely felt and widespread than ever before. Nowhere are the impacts more evident than in Africa where the movement of people as a result of war, poverty and persecution are central to the continent’s economics and politics. While migrancy is rapidly transforming Africa the region lacks the capacity to understand and manage these movements. (Forced Migration Studies Programme 2008) So the focus of this thesis will be on refugees and asylum seekers seeking refuge in South Africa and the impacts it is having on displaced people themselves and the local population made terrifyingly manifest in the recent Xenophobic attacks plaguing the country. Following a discussion of the many problems faced by refugees and the root causes of the Xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg this thesis will look at the alleviation of some of these problems culminating in the design of a Prefabricated Housing Prototype and System which can be implemented in a combination of contexts. The system will be developed using 3 test studies. The first will be as an infill project in an dense urban context providing cheap rental unit options for the urban poor including South African low income earners and refugees in the inner city, the second will be a housing model for upgrading stable South African informal settlements and the third as an alternative Refugee camp in an emergency or cross border context. It will examine the role of architecture as a means to sustain dignity and create a sense of belonging for people with very few social connections. The facility will aim to help people regain control of their lives by helping them to contribute to the market economy. It will also aim to be an architecture that is against alienation and will facilitate healing.

Chan Wai Kwong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-139). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction --- p.1 / Research Aims and Significance / Historical Backgrounds of Young Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong / Literature Review / How is This Research Different From Previous Research? / "Methodology, Field-site and My Personal Background" / Organization of Thesis / Chapter Chapter Two --- A Prison for Non-criminals: What Made Closed Refugee Camp Experiences Positive for My Informants --- p.41 / General Conditions of Two Different Closed Camps / Survival Strategies and Micro-economic Systems / What Made the Closed Camp Positive for My Informants? / Analysis / Conclusion / Chapter Chapter Three --- The Open Refugee Camp: The Place Between Physical Existence and Legal Non-Existence --- p.65 / Introduction / Sinh's Story-An Ethnic Vietnamese / Hung's Story - An Ethnic Chinese / Born To Be A Refugee - Hau's Story / Comparison / Conclusion / Chapter Chapter Four --- The Adaptation of Young Refugee in Hong Kong --- p.92 / Introduction / Integration in Hong Kong -Thuy's Story / Integration in Vietnam - Man's Story / Pik Uk Prison - Hai's Story / What Happened to Other Students From Pillar Point Camp? / Analysis / Conclusion / Chapter Chapter Five --- Research Implications --- p.119 / Introduction / Review / Cultural Shaping of Self / What Does It Means to Grow Up in Refugee Camp in Hong Kong? / Implications of This Research / Appendix --- p.134-135 / Bibliography --- p.139

This is a heuristic study about successful Ethiopian refugees in British Columbia. Heuristic research is another building block of phenomenological inquiry; it permits the researcher to discover his/her lived-experience within the phenomena. This research explores and discovers the lived-experiences of participants as articulated feelings and views on their sense of identity. Each participant's stories stand for the realities of who they are and how they made the transition of reconstructing their identity as a means of assimilating into Canadian society. Furthermore, their stories describe the patterns and processes of negotiation and re-negotiation of their identity in order to become successful in their new social environment. This research highlights ten participants' processes of adapting into a new environment, reconstructing their identity, and embracing change. Although the explored experiences represent only those who made a successful transition and reached a high degree of adaptation and assimilation in Canadian society, the results of this study provide a deeper understanding of Ethiopians in general, the integral role of culture, and its influence on individual identity to most immigrants. The study provides imperative information, as told by Ethiopians, to community, practitioners, professionals, and scholars as well as adds new knowledge about the complexity of Ethiopian immigrants' stories as no one had asked them before this study. The study found that participants whose tribal background was considered to be of a minority and experienced oppression and discrimination by the dominant tribe in Ethiopia, coped well with reconstruction of identity as well as with barriers in the Western world. Those who were rooted from the dominant tribe in Ethiopia, experienced adaptation and assimilation in the Western world difficult and at times intolerable. Similarly, the individual definitions of success and failure are associated with the strength of, or in-depth knowledge of one's sources of identity and the degree of connectedness and interdependency. The findings are comparable to explanations of identity patterns (individual, cultural, social, and political) found in similar studies of immigrants or refugees. However, one may notice that none of the participants in this study were from the same tribe and each participant's experiences and meanings either in Ethiopia or Canada are different. Nonetheless, the general sense of identity, roles, and influences of community found in this study validated the explanations and definitions posited in the literature (i.e., associated factors for self definition as well as influences on social and cultural identity). Furthermore, the extracted meanings also have confirmed sources of identity as being congruent to the adopted theory of this research as it linked to their roots, exposure to diversity, and creativeness not only in determining their skills of accepting or rejecting their new social, cultural, and economic values, but also allowing them to select (filter) values and beliefs that are desirable to become a member of the community in their new country. / Graduate