In the wake of massive displacement following World War II, the U.S. Congress passed the first U.S. refugee legislation, the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. In the years following 1948, the U.S. accepted refugees for resettlement through a patchwork of ad hoc policies. The cornerstone of the U.S. refugee resettlement program is the Refugee Act of 1980, the first legislation to define “refugee” and create a uniform procedure for admissions. Three agencies in separate federal agencies process participate in the resettlement program: the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration in the State Department, the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security. Refugee resettlement is further segmented between the federal and local level as local nonprofit agencies provide the direct services associated with resettlement. This report examines the need for reform in the U.S. refugee resettlement program, with a focus on structural concerns. In particular, this report probes the transition from programs providing services overseas to those providing services on the domestic level. This examination is conducted through a literature review developed from recent academic literature. Additionally, the report will incorporate program evaluations, relevant legislation, and regulations from mixed sources, including academic literature, governmental documents and other public records. / text

At the end of the Second World War, in August 1945, the Allies met at Potsdam and passed the decision to expel millions of people of German heritage living in Eastern Europe. Among some 3 million expelled from the Sudetenland in the Czechoslovak borderlands, were the violin makers of Schönbach. After the expulsion, German integration authorities attempted to resettle the Schönbach violin makers in Mittenwald, Bavaria. Though the village of Mittenwald was famous for its violin making industry, the integration of the two communities failed and the Schönbach masters were relocated a second time. The failure was due in large part to the two communities' inability to integrate their distinct violin making cultures. The study addresses the resettlement process from the perspective of government officials, local Germans and expellees and the debates among these groups in the postwar era. It is through these interacting perspectives that one comes to understand the culture of each community, the agency of its members, and the complexity of the resettlement process on a local level. Using Mittenwald as a case study, I argue that the process of integrating two German cultures was problematic, as each community sought to maintain their own local, cultural identity rather than subscribe to a shared German national identity. The failure of the Mittenwald plan demonstrates the pertinence of the local culture of each community and the limitations of a national imaginary in general processes of forced migration and resettlement.

At the end of the Second World War, in August 1945, the Allies met at Potsdam and passed the decision to expel millions of people of German heritage living in Eastern Europe. Among some 3 million expelled from the Sudetenland in the Czechoslovak borderlands, were the violin makers of Schönbach. After the expulsion, German integration authorities attempted to resettle the Schönbach violin makers in Mittenwald, Bavaria. Though the village of Mittenwald was famous for its violin making industry, the integration of the two communities failed and the Schönbach masters were relocated a second time. The failure was due in large part to the two communities' inability to integrate their distinct violin making cultures. The study addresses the resettlement process from the perspective of government officials, local Germans and expellees and the debates among these groups in the postwar era. It is through these interacting perspectives that one comes to understand the culture of each community, the agency of its members, and the complexity of the resettlement process on a local level. Using Mittenwald as a case study, I argue that the process of integrating two German cultures was problematic, as each community sought to maintain their own local, cultural identity rather than subscribe to a shared German national identity. The failure of the Mittenwald plan demonstrates the pertinence of the local culture of each community and the limitations of a national imaginary in general processes of forced migration and resettlement.

At the end of the Second World War, in August 1945, the Allies met at Potsdam and passed the decision to expel millions of people of German heritage living in Eastern Europe. Among some 3 million expelled from the Sudetenland in the Czechoslovak borderlands, were the violin makers of Schönbach. After the expulsion, German integration authorities attempted to resettle the Schönbach violin makers in Mittenwald, Bavaria. Though the village of Mittenwald was famous for its violin making industry, the integration of the two communities failed and the Schönbach masters were relocated a second time. The failure was due in large part to the two communities' inability to integrate their distinct violin making cultures. The study addresses the resettlement process from the perspective of government officials, local Germans and expellees and the debates among these groups in the postwar era. It is through these interacting perspectives that one comes to understand the culture of each community, the agency of its members, and the complexity of the resettlement process on a local level. Using Mittenwald as a case study, I argue that the process of integrating two German cultures was problematic, as each community sought to maintain their own local, cultural identity rather than subscribe to a shared German national identity. The failure of the Mittenwald plan demonstrates the pertinence of the local culture of each community and the limitations of a national imaginary in general processes of forced migration and resettlement. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation analyses resistance to a regional development programme, which centred on the construction of a dam at Cerro de Oro, Ojitlan, Oaxaca, Mexico and the resettlement of the affected Chinantec population into an area of Uxpanapa, Veracruz. The resistance of the people of Ojitlan took various forms over a seven year period (1972-9), including political action, a syncretic millenarian movement, a reassertion of traditional forms of community fiestas and passive resistance to resettlement. Ojitlan has been affected by national economic and political changes since before the Spanish Conquest. Large plantations established in the tropical lowland areas in the 19th century ceded place to small "ejido" communities, set up under land reform in the 1930s. Control of land and the economic relationships of production are seen as factors affecting the patterns of resistance in Ojitlan. The dissertation reviews the anthropological literature on resistance and on ethnicity. The series of forms of resistance studied can be seen as multiple cultural articulations - attempts to "bridge the gap" between the established Ojitec life and the "modern" systems of work and life introduced by the development project of the Papaloapan River Commission. The Ojitec struggle with modernity involved dealing not just with the question of resettlement in the collective ejidos of Uxpanapa, but also with the reforms promoted in the Oaxacan Catholic Church. The traditional ritual of indigenous Catholicism offered a sphere of legitimate agency and autonomy for the Ojitec in the face of new models of agency and power. The dissertation suggests the usefulness of the concept of resistance, tempered with an analysis of accompanying processes of accommodation to change. Evidence from the 1990s indicates that ethnic identity continues to be important in political resistance to the state in Uxpanapa, a sign of the resilience of forms of Ojitec culture.

In the era of Global Climate Change, forced displacement and resettlement will affect coastal communities around the world. Through resettlement, the local production of culturally supportive environments can mitigate culture-loss. While previous vernacular architecture studies suggest that the influence of imported architecture leads to culture change, this study investigates the continuity of generative structures in the production of culturally supportive built-environments, demonstrating resilience. In addition, this study expands the discourse on the dialectic relationship between culture and the environment by investigating the role of Indigenous Design Knowledge in the production of culturally supportive space. The dissertation investigates the dialectic relationship between Marshallese culture and the built-environment and uncovers the continuity of deep cultural patterns (DCP) in the production of the Marshallese built-environment. These DCPs are forms of local knowledge production that generate culturally supportive environments. The study takes a theoretical position that persistent DCPs are resilient and provide cultural capital. A multi-sited case study was conducted across rural and urban communities in the Marshall Islands. Historical ethnographies and archaeological studies of the Marshall Islands were examined for cultural patterns present in the built-environment. Interviews, participant observation, site documentation, and a survey were assessed for persistent cultural patterns in the built-environment that supported everyday life. Qualitative analysis uncovered persistent patterns in everyday cultural behavior, such as the cookhouse, and quantitative analysis uncovered spatial and syntactic relationships that demonstrated persistent, underlying cultural structures, such as the shared genotype of urban and rural housing. While outside influence has impacted the production of the Marshallese built-environment and the Marshallese cultural evolution, I argue that DCPs generate everyday cultural spaces and aid in the reproduction of Marshallese place-identity. DCPs represent Indigenous Knowledge and should be applied to design frameworks for climate forced displacement and resettlement.

The Iraqi women in this study have made Australia their ‘home’ in the years following the Gulf War in 1991, and are the first generation to move to a small rural town in Australia. The experiences documented in this thesis are based on 15 months of ethnographic research, between March 2003 and June 2004, with twenty-six Iraqi women, sixteen service providers and members of the communities of which they are a part. The focus of the study is on Iraqi women’s experiences of resettlement, their sense of emotional wellbeing and belonging. By and large, studies of refugee mental health attribute ‘refugee suffering’ to pre-migration experiences, rooted to the cultures of peoples’ home countries, principally through war, persecution and trauma, and how this legacy impacts upon women’s emotional wellbeing and ability to belong in resettlement. In many ways, it is convenient for host countries to ascribe refugee mental health problems to pre-migration experiences because the power dynamics of integration, the complex micro politics and the consequences of encounters with the Australian system are made indiscernible. The emergent discourse not only obscures the economic, historical and social conditions that lie at the heart of processes of displacement, but also ignores, silences and speaks on behalf of refugees. / This thesis demonstrates that Iraqi women’s articulations of their experiences of displacement and resettlement are anchored in and deeply affected by the material, legal and cultural circumstances of the local and national places they inhabit. Accordingly, their accounts of emotional suffering are in part framed within the experiences of war and persecution, both past and present, but they are also entangled and embedded in their contemporary realities resulting from multiple social barriers in resettlement, including cultural and religious racism, social invisibility, exclusion and being ‘othered’ in their daily lives, which impacts upon their wellbeing and sense of belonging in Australia. The experiences documented in this thesis not only privileges Iraqi women’s own understandings of displacement and resettlement and the ways in which they frame the reality of their lives, but also implicates the Australian system and structural axes of inequality in their resettlement experiences, in an attempt to move beyond western epistemological explanations that define the form and content of refugee lives as well as their illness and wellbeing.

Forced resettlement is an issue of great humanitarian concern. The disruption it brings to the lives of the people it affects cannot be fully expressed. Many of such people lose the ability of restoring their lives, never to regain it till they die. What is more alarming is when forced resettlement is not caused by conflict or natural disaster but rather conscious development projects like dams, where it is expected that great energy will be channelled towards reducing and if possible avoid the adverse impacts of such forceful resettlement as a matter of human and citizenship right. Sadly, in many instances this never happen. The aim of this study is to find out how the lessons learnt from the Akosombo forced resettlement in Ghana has been used in planning and implementing the on-going Bui forced resettlement also in Ghana. This study also tries to investigate the impacts of the planning and implementation process of the resettlement on the affected communities and households. In order to achieve the above goals, qualitative research methods were employed. The study used in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, direct and participatory observation techniques in accessing the experiences and feelings of the people involved. The informants include the institutions and professionals which undertook the forced resettlement and the affected people. The modernisation and alternative development theories were reviewed to determine which of these approaches is in practice. However, since Ghana claims it is using the World Bank Operational Policy (4.12), which is following an alternative development approach, concepts such as participation and rights are used. Additionally, concepts such as compensation and forced resettlement are also reviewed. It is discovered that, although many lessons have been learnt from the Akosombo forced resettlement, these lessons have not been effectively translated into action plans in order to undertake successful forced resettlement in Ghana. The challenges and errors in planning the Bui resettlement have therefore marred its successful implementation. This has resulted in more adverse impacts on the affected people than good ones such as infertile lands, low farm yield, poor housing structures and total ban on fishing in the Black Volta without alternative fishing grounds.

Since the 1980s, nearly 5000 Arab and Muslim refugees have been resettled in New Zealand (RefNZ, 2007) as a result of political instability and wars that have riddled the Arabic-speaking region. Upon arrival in a resettlement country, refugees face many challenges in adjusting to their new environment (Simich et al., 2006; Valtonen, 1998). Arab Muslim refugees have specific concerns that are different to other refugee groups due to the major role Islam plays in the way Muslim people go about their lives, and due to the controversial image of Muslims in Western countries since the September 11th (USA) and July 7th (London) bombings. To date, relatively little attention has been paid to the various ongoing resettlement issues that these refugees deal with. This research attempts to fill in some of these gaps by addressing the resettlement experiences of Arab Muslim refugees in New Zealand. It is expected that this research will assist the policy making and migrant services sector (a) to understand the refugees' lived realities; (b) to confront the stereotypes associated with refugees in general, and the stereotypes associated with Arab Muslim refugees in particular; and (c) to address the issues and challenges faced by Arab Muslim refugees. The significance of this research is located in its potential to influence policy and practice in the fields of refugee resettlement, immigration, and counselling. In addition, this study will contribute to knowledge about Arab Muslim refugees, especially those living in New Zealand. Recently, studies in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and psychology on refugees and refugee resettlement have found that non-Western refugees experience a variety of resettlement and adjustment challenges when settling in Western societies. However, intensive research is needed on refugees' perspectives on their refugee journey, their resilience during resettlement, and the experiences that accompany the refugee journey. A deepened understanding of the phenomenon of the refugee journey may contribute to the development of appropriate support for refugees and foster welcoming host societies. It is therefore anticipated that this study of the refugee experiences of Arab Muslims will add to existing research on refugee resettlement and in particular Arab Muslim refugees in Western societies. Semi-structured, face to face interviews were conducted with 31 male and female Arabic-speaking Muslim refugees from Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Kuwait, and Tunisia. The participants had been "resettled" in New Zealand for at least six months and up to eleven years. Most of the interviews were conducted in Arabic and then translated to English. The interviews were analysed using an eclectic approach including thematic analysis with elements of life story narratives. The findings that emerged from this research suggest that whatever the national and ethnic background of the refugee, there are common key issues and themes relating to the refugee journey and the challenges experienced by refugees during their resettlement. The interviews revealed participants' experiences of their lives as refugees, which were described in three separate stages that I have termed the "three legs of the refugee journey." The first leg of the refugee journey included the refugees' pre-migration experience: reasons for fleeing their homelands, becoming a refugee, and the impact of the refugee label on their lives in their resettlement country. The second leg of the refugee journey involved their experiences in adjusting to their 'new' lives after leaving Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre (MRRC): their experiences with several resettlement agencies in NZ, their unforeseen resettlement challenges such as language barriers, unemployment, and their concern over raising their children in a non-Muslim society. The third leg uncovered the experiences participants went through after one year of their initial resettlement, and also explored methods of coping and resilience that participants used to overcome their ongoing resettlement challenges and mental health concerns, and their perspective on New Zealand as a resettlement country. This leg also included the participants' future aspirations and their long-term resettlement plans. Overall, participants were unprepared for the situation that faced them when they arrived in New Zealand. Their experience in the six weeks at the resettlement centre was disappointing for all of them and traumatic for some. Participants did not feel that they were equipped with "survival skills" for dealing with life outside the centre. All participants expressed that they had difficulties adjusting to their new life in New Zealand. In general, women found adjustment more difficult than men. Some participants expressed gratitude to New Zealand for accepting them as refugees. A minority were happy to remain in New Zealand, the majority were reluctant about staying, and a small number intended to return to their homeland or other Arab Muslim countries as soon as they could. It is significant that for the participants in this study, their identity as a refugee had an overwhelming impact on the way they talked about their lives. Participants had the perception that being labelled as refugees was a factor that alienated them from New Zealand society. Also, being Arab and Muslim as well as a refugee was seen as an additional disadvantage for resettlement opportunities in New Zealand and other Western countries. While Arab Muslim refugees share many of the concerns of other refugees, there are particular issues, including the challenge of maintaining their religious and cultural traditions, which they experienced as being in conflict with resettling in a Western country. Despite the fact that New Zealand has a long history in assisting in the resettlement of refugees, this research reinforces previous research in New Zealand which points to the inadequacies of the resettlement experience for refugees during all three legs of the refugee journey. The thesis therefore concludes with recommendations for improving refugee policies and services.

The Iraqi women in this study have made Australia their ‘home’ in the years following the Gulf War in 1991, and are the first generation to move to a small rural town in Australia. The experiences documented in this thesis are based on 15 months of ethnographic research, between March 2003 and June 2004, with twenty-six Iraqi women, sixteen service providers and members of the communities of which they are a part. The focus of the study is on Iraqi women’s experiences of resettlement, their sense of emotional wellbeing and belonging. By and large, studies of refugee mental health attribute ‘refugee suffering’ to pre-migration experiences, rooted to the cultures of peoples’ home countries, principally through war, persecution and trauma, and how this legacy impacts upon women’s emotional wellbeing and ability to belong in resettlement. In many ways, it is convenient for host countries to ascribe refugee mental health problems to pre-migration experiences because the power dynamics of integration, the complex micro politics and the consequences of encounters with the Australian system are made indiscernible. The emergent discourse not only obscures the economic, historical and social conditions that lie at the heart of processes of displacement, but also ignores, silences and speaks on behalf of refugees. / This thesis demonstrates that Iraqi women’s articulations of their experiences of displacement and resettlement are anchored in and deeply affected by the material, legal and cultural circumstances of the local and national places they inhabit. Accordingly, their accounts of emotional suffering are in part framed within the experiences of war and persecution, both past and present, but they are also entangled and embedded in their contemporary realities resulting from multiple social barriers in resettlement, including cultural and religious racism, social invisibility, exclusion and being ‘othered’ in their daily lives, which impacts upon their wellbeing and sense of belonging in Australia. The experiences documented in this thesis not only privileges Iraqi women’s own understandings of displacement and resettlement and the ways in which they frame the reality of their lives, but also implicates the Australian system and structural axes of inequality in their resettlement experiences, in an attempt to move beyond western epistemological explanations that define the form and content of refugee lives as well as their illness and wellbeing.