abstract: The current immigration flow to the United States from Mexico has been polarized by politicians and anti-immigration groups, with a rhetoric that immigrants are a danger to the sovereignty of the country and an economic burden. These accusations ignore the role played by trade agreements in causing such migration patterns by displacing Mexican migrants and how U.S. immigration policies subsequently condemn these economically displaced migrants into illegality. This thesis examines the role national governments and laws of both the United States and Mexico play in formalizing the undocumented flow and the contestation of these economic migrants. I challenge the contemporary view of trade agreements as pull factors by showing how they also function as problematic push factors of migration through displacing Mexicans from their land and any meaningful form of economic security. Once displaced, these communities seek opportunities by migrating to the U.S., where they cross into illegality. Together, examining displacement and subsequent illegality, this thesis reveals the problematic, yet hidden role played by trade agreements in Mexican migration to the U.S. and gaps in current U.S. immigration laws that has preserved the injustices created when neoliberal economic policies and immigration politics provide no protection to impacted indigenous communities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Interdisciplinary Studies 2019

Immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, and stateless persons, collectively known as “persons of concern,” often have unmet mental health and wellness needs as a result of trauma. With a diverse variety of interventions and approaches, the use of music therapy has the potential to meet the needs of persons of concern. In the present study, the researcher conducted an integrative review to examine the use of music therapy with persons of concern. After conducting a hand-search of music therapy journals and an advanced keyword search through internet databases, the researcher found 17 studies that met inclusion criteria. There were ten studies in which participants were immigrants, six studies in which participants were refugees or asylum seekers, and one study in which participants were displaced persons. Refugees’ countries of origin were: Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Chile, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iran, Liberia, North Korea, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Vietnam. Immigrants’ countries of origin were: China, Haiti, India, Korea, Latin America, Malaysia, Mexico, Romania, Russia, and Vietnam. Interventions used in the studies were (in order of frequency) singing, songwriting, instrument play, improvisation, lyric analysis, music listening, music imagery, and music-based relaxation. The needs of persons of concern, music therapy interventions, the rigor and quality of music therapy research, and implications for future clinical practice are discussed.

What explains the variations in refugee status granting among states? How is refugee status determined? The purpose of the study is to analyze if politics affect refugee status granting to asylum-seekers. Despite the political implications revolving around refugee issues, forced migration studies are still a neglected topic in international relations research. However, scholarly works that focus on forced migration often overlook broad political themes, and do not thoroughly examine how politics affect refugee status rates across countries. This dissertation examines state responses to forced migration. It quantitatively investigates the research questions across countries between 2000 and 2013. It argues state interests affect refugee recognition rates. Specifically, it hypothesizes that bilateral relations between states and the domestic politics of the host state affect refugee recognition rates. This study finds rival host states grant refugee status recognition rates greater than non-rival host states. The results also find refugee status rates increase in dyads that are in alliances compared to dyads that are not in similar pacts. It also finds asylum rates decrease as bilateral trade increases. Most of the models show the more democratic a state becomes, the less asylum is granted. However, the results also demonstrate democracies grant asylum slightly more than non-democracies, and autocracies grant asylum less compared to non-autocracies. However, opposite results are found for democracies and autocracies that are not signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol. The study also finds minimal support for refugee recognition rates decreasing during years of national, executive elections. While the results did not find support for all hypotheses, this study concludes that on average, political and commercial relations between states affect refugee recognition rates.

The global refugee crisis worsens day-by-day, with millions of refugees forced to seek safe haven abroad. Pre-migration trauma exposure contributes to disproportionately higher rates of psychopathology, especially among torture survivors and women. The extant literature has largely focused on the effects of pre-migration factors; however, increasingly, researchers recognize the critical impact of post-migration living difficulties (PMLD) in exacerbating refugee mental health. One example of a PMLD is stigma, defined as a socially devalued attribute (e.g., minority race, ethnicity, sex). A robust literature documents the deleterious effects of stigma on psychological functioning, but few studies of refugees have explored stigma, which is surprising because refugees often possess multiple stigmas. Given this gap in the literature, the present study examined the impact of stigma on psychological well-being in a sample of resettled refugees of mixed ethnic/racial and religious origins. Specifically, analyses tested (1) the independent effect of race among African and Asian refugees, (2) a linear model of multiple stigmas predicting mental health outcomes, and (3) between-group effects of race among Muslims and of religion among Asian refugees. Results showed that race significantly predicted posttraumatic stress symptoms among African and Asian refugees when controlling for sex and torture status, with Africans reporting higher levels of posttraumatic stress than Asians. Findings suggest that the effect of multiple stigmas on mental health outcomes is non-linear. Finally, results indicated that Muslim refugees experienced equivalent levels of anxious and general symptoms across racial groups; among Asians, significant between-group effects by religion were found for general symptoms. By understanding key factors impacting refugee mental health, more appropriate and efficacious interventions may be developed to treat this vulnerable population.

This thesis provides a criminological perspective on the Australian state???s responses to unauthorised migrants. In particular, it attempts to build on recent criminological literature on state crime by contrasting the alleged deviance of unauthorised migrants with the organised and deviant human rights abuses perpetrated by the Australian state. The main argument of the thesis is that through the systematic alienation, criminalisation and abuse of unauthorised migrants, particularly refugees, the Australian state is engaged in state crime. While this can partly be measured by breaches of international humanitarian law, the acts in question are criminal according to the broader sociological understanding of state crime as ???state organisational deviance involving the violation of human rights???. The thesis develops this argument by locating the phenomena of forced and illicit migration within an increasingly globalised world economy in which the needs for international human migration are confronted by the restrictive migration policies of the dominant Western states. In this context, the Australian state has played a pivotal role in the development of three major Western exclusion zones, which are designed to contain unauthorised migrants in the developing world and are enforced by measures that systematically abuse human rights. The fundamental criminological dynamic of the Australian exclusion zone is its systematic assault on the movements and by definition, the rights, of forced migrants. This operates at a number of levels: unauthorised arrivals are alienated by their lack of legal status; they are denied access to a full refugee determination process; their status as refugees is subordinated to that of the resettled refugee; their experiences are denied and delegitimised through their construction as queue jumpers; they are criminalised through their participation in smuggling enterprises; they are punished and abused through the use of detention, dispersal and forced removal; and they are put at greater personal risk by the measures employed to enforce the zone. The thesis traces the development of this zone from the formation of the white Australia policy through to the Pacific Solution and critically analyses the ways in which current policy draws on and reinforces the exclusionist traditions of Australian nationalism.

There is international concern over the refugee increase in many parts of the world and the international community is bearing the responsibility of assisting refugees with relief, rehabilitation, integration and possible repatriation programs. This has created unprecedented challenges for the international community since the amount of assistance has had to increase and resources have had to be diverted from development programs in countries with serious economic and social problems. The current study addressed important issues related to refugees with disabilities living in the Dadaab Refugee Camp Complexes in Kenya. After a pilot study to investigate the feasibility of the major study, 200 individuals with a disability were interviewed, and focus group discussions were held with individuals and groups supporting people with disabilities. The study was guided by the following research objectives: 1. To determine the prevalence of disability among Somali refugees and clarify the concept of disability as it relates to the Somali community; 2. To identify and discuss the nature and the causes of disability among the Somali refugees in Kenya; 3. To gain a picture of the basic needs, aspirations, and challenges of Somali refugees with a disability; 4. To examine and evaluate the prevailing educational and rehabilitation approaches to disability in the context of Somali refugees in Kenya; and 5. To develop a framework for a comprehensive approach to community rehabilitation relevant to refugees with a disability in Kenya. The research found that, while war in Somalia and related factors have contributed significantly to disability amongst members of the Somali community, cultural mindsets perpetuate disability and undermine the existing efforts to alleviate the conditions that people experience. Education and rehabilitation, which would be viable means of addressing the issues associated with disability, are inadequate in the refugee camps. The study acknowledges the efforts made by international agencies to help and support people with disabilities. However, it notes that more needs to be done if the Somali refugees with disability are to live dignified and functional human lives. This study draws the following conclusions: • Although war in Somalia is, reportedly, the main actual cause of disability among the Somali refugees in the Dadaab camps in Kenya, culturally, curses are considered to have led to disabilities by major sections of the Somali community. • The concept of disability as culturally and socially constructed is inadequate. Consequently, in order to address disability effectively, these cultural constructions need to be carefully evaluated and transformed. • The current efforts aimed at assisting refugees with disability are commendable but there is a need to improve the educational and rehabilitation approaches used to provide services to refugees with disability. The community rehabilitation approach would seem to offer the best opportunities for assisting to engage and support the empowerment and acceptance of refugees with disabilities.

Asylum seekers have become the primary symbols of - as well as participants in - contemporary struggles over geo-political, intellectual and moral terrain. By moving place, by their mere presence in western industrial states, by demanding their refugee status claims be examined, by exposing themselves to all the techniques of scrutiny and evaluation in the presentation of their claims, asylum seekers displace traditional western ways of feeling at 'home,' and of knowing about and acting in the world. In doing so, they reveal the extent to which the legal system of rights upon which the international refugee regime is based is a messy zone of contested demands, refracted by the varying material circumstances and political power of participants. This thesis looks at asylum in Aotearoa New Zealand from the perspective of those most involved; asylum seekers, lawyers, adjudicators, members of non-government organisations and medical professionals. Situated mid-way between abstract human rights talk and the details of individual claims, it presents refugee status determination as a complex negotiation through culturally-laden frameworks of understanding and operation that are as prevalent as they are often camouflaged. In doing so, it explores how we are to evaluate the credibility and legitimacy of representations of the cultural 'other.'

In recent years an extensive body of discursive research has accumulated on race, immigration and asylum seeker debates in western liberal democracies. This work has primarily focussed on oppressive discourses that are employed to exclude and marginalise minority groups. Comparatively, however, there has been significantly less research on anti-racist and pro-asylum seeker accounts in these debates, despite the potential of such work to provide a greater understanding of contemporary race and immigration discourse, and to contribute to the development of anti-racism and refugee advocacy. The present thesis adds to the further analysis of exclusionary discourse and asylum seeking, and examines this in the as yet unexplored context of the Australian parliament, but its primary focus is on refugee advocates' accounts. Using critical discursive social psychology ( Wetherell, 1998 ), this thesis examines Hansard transcripts of speeches made in the Australian parliament on the new restrictions against asylum seekers introduced in 2001. Analysis focuses on the interpretative repertoires that proscribe and deny responsibility for asylum seekers, and those that are used to construct ' the nation ' and ' racism '. These repertoires are explored with a view to tracing their intellectual history, the subject positions for asylum seekers and Australia/ns they make possible, and the rhetorical tools and strategies used in building them. It was found that those supporting the new legislation positioned asylum seekers as having made a personal choice to come to Australia, and presented the legislation as : a rational, practical response to the emotionally-driven, unreasonable demands of humanitarianism ; as the necessary defence of sovereign rights, the national space and Australian citizens from the incursions of asylum seekers ; and as non-racist. These discourses reproduced the liberal valorisation of reasonableness and rationality, the liberal concepts of sovereign and citizens' rights and individualism, and utilised new racist strategies to present their position as ' not racist '. On the other side of the debate, advocates criticised the legislation as a violation of : the duty of care owed to those who have been persecuted ; human rights and the liberal principle to assist those in need ; and of Australia's national values. Advocates also worked up some aspects of the new laws and the debate on this issue as racist. These repertoires drew upon the liberal discourses of internationalism, human rights, humanitarianism, multiculturalism, equality and egalitarianism. Although these advocacy discourses have considerable cultural currency, they were constrained and marginalised by the hegemonic representations of asylum seekers as ' bogus ' and ' illegal ', of humanitarianism ( as refugee advocates understand it ) as dangerous, and of the new legislation as an assertion of threatened sovereign rights. In addition, some of these discourses, such as multiculturalism and a construction of racism as ' generated by politicians ', functioned to minimise and deny racism. On the basis of this analysis, I conclude that the study of anti-racist and pro-refugee discourse contributes to a broader understanding of the language of contemporary debates about race, ethnicity and immigration as a dynamic, argumentative dialogue, and to critical evaluations of the discourses used in these contexts. However, I also argue that discourse analysis may not offer the requisite tools for developing, as well as critiquing, anti-racist and refugee advocacy discourses. I also suggest that there may be sites of resistance other than political discourse where change to refugee policies may be better effected. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Psychology, 2006.

<p>Posttraumatiskt stressyndrom (PTSD) kännetecknas av tre huvudsymptom: undvikande, förnekande och hyperspändhet. Även koncentrationssvårigheter, ångest, depression, flashbacks och mardrömmar är vanligt förekommande hos individer med PTSD. Flyktingar i Sverige som har varit med om krig kan uppvisa dessa symptom. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka terapeuters upplevelser av arbete med patienter med krigsrelaterat PTSD. Intervjuer med åtta terapeuter utfördes. Gemensamma mönster i deltagarnas svar var att det är fördelaktigt att skapa en bra relation till patienter. Det är viktigt att prata om krigstrauma och de som får behandling mår bättre. Patienter är präglade av sorg och skuld och det är viktigt för dem att känna tillit och trygghet. Kropp och själ hänger ihop och det är olika och beroende på många faktorer hur individer drabbas av krig. Ofta är det andra svåra upplevelser som förvärrar krigstrauma. Terapeuter upplever sitt arbete som roligt samtidigt som tungt och anser att det är viktigt med teamarbete.</p>

<p>Syftet med denna undesökning var att ur ett ekologiskt perspektiv undersöka betydelsen av interna och externa resurser för integrationen för nyanlända flyktingar i Fagersta kommun, och om något upplevts särskilt viktigt för integrationen som bidragit till känsla av hopp och framtidstro. Två delstudier genomfördes. En kartläggning gjordes av lagar och regleringar som påverkar flyktingpolitiken samt en dokumentanalys av lokala policy- och styrdokument i Fagersta kommun. Åtta semistrukturerade ntervjuer genomfördes med fyra kvinnliga och fyra manliga flyktingar bosatta i Fagersta. Resultatet, som överensstämmer med tidigare forskning, visade att flyktingar behöver ges möjlighet att vara aktiva i sin egen anpassningsprocess. Slutsatsen är att flyktingar som känner sig delaktiga mår bättre vilket främjar integrationen.</p> / <p>The purpose of this paper was, from an ecological perspective, to study the importance of internal and external resources for the integration process for new refugees coming into the Fagersta community. Also to study whether the refugees benefited from any particular part of the integration process that contributed to an increased personal sense of hope and belief in their future. Two studies were carried out. Firstly, a chart of the laws and regulations affecting the integration politics was undertaken. Secondly, an analysis was made of the local policy and regulation dociments in the Fagersta community. Eight semi structured interviews were carried through with four female and four male refugees that had previously settled in the Fagerta community. The results of these interviews supported earlier studies that confirmed that refugees need the opportunity to be active in their own adjustment process. The conclusion is that refugees that feel they are allowed to, and are able to, participate in their own integration process experience a greater sense of well-being which, in turn, contributes to a more successful integration within their new community.</p>