published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

"Literacies in Motion: Transnational Lives and Lifelong Learning in the US and Nepal," is a multi-sited, ethnographic case study of adult Bhutanese refugees' English language and literacy learning in the transnational contexts of the Bhutanese Diaspora and subsequent refugee resettlement. Specifically, I look at two refugee education programs that provide intensive English language training, the Pima Community College Adult Education Refugee Education Project (REP) in Tucson, Arizona and Caritas-Nepal's Spoken English Center at the site of the Bhutanese refugee camps in Jhapa, Nepal. As a teacher engaged in classroom inquiry in the REP program in Tucson, I was interested in how multilingual adults who strategically and complexly identified as refugees also understood themselves as English language learners and what effect these orientations might have on learning processes and classroom dynamics, especially related to literacy instruction. This initial classroom research gradually expanded to include research in the homes and community spaces of the Nepali-speaking Bhutanese students who invited me to participate as a teacher-researcher in their cultural events and neighborhood meetings and, eventually, to global sites of inquiry in the Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal. Altogether, I conducted ethnographic research over a period of 5 years, including classroom observations, teacher and learner interviews, and literacy artifact collection in homes, schools, and community spaces. My findings show that while linguistic inequalities within the communicative contexts of refugee resettlement worked to constrain adult language learners' second language literacies in the classroom, refugees' own mobile knowledge networks and global language investments allowed for more flexible multilingual and multimodal literacy resources and practices. Furthermore, while there is a profound, collective investment in English language learning in refugee camps in Nepal prior to resettlement, this investment is complex and learners often demonstrate deeply ambivalent attitudes toward the benefit of learning English especially later in life. While much local effort is invested in "empowering" teachers and adult learners through English education, true fluency among older adults in the refugee camp remains extremely limited to a truncated classroom repertoire (i.e. copying from the board, repetition, and simple greetings). Instead, adult learners, especially women, flourished in other ways through language center leadership, recruitment, and coordination involving translingual, transcultural, and multimodal skills. By considering the ways in which women refugees' expanding communicative repertoires outside of class operate in the refugee camp, and then travel through the migratory space of refugee resettlement, this study supports the work of emerging voices in the field of rhetoric and composition (i.e. Rebecca Lorimer Leonard's "traveling literacies") as well as those more established in literacy studies and applied linguistics (i.e. Jan Blommaert's "grassroots literacies" and "mobilization of language resources") to forward a mobile literacies construct that helps to explain the affordances and constraints of traveling language resources in a globalized world. Discrepancies found in both US and Bhutanese refugee camp contexts between the truncated English language repertoires of adult learners in class and their expanding translingual and multimodal repertoires outside of class, suggest important implications for translocal language policy and planning for multilingual learners.

Bakgrund: Flyktingar lider ofta i hög utsträckning av ohälsa. Arbetet med denna patientgrupp ställer krav på sjukvårdspersonal, vilka bör besitta en djupare förståelse för de individuella behov som kan förekomma hos flyktingar. Syfte: Syftet med föreliggande arbete var att beskriva personalens erfarenheter av arbetet och mötet med patienterna på en vårdmottagning för flyktingar. Metod: Studien är av deskriptiv kvalitativ design med intervjuer som datainsamlingsmetod. Urvalsgruppen var samtlig verksam sjukvårdspersonal vid utvald vårdmottagning. Data insamlades med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuerna transkriberades och analyserades enligt Graneheim och Lundmans innehållsanalys. Resultat: Personalen upplevde arbetet på vårdmottagningen som tidskrävande och oförutsägbart. Särskild kompetens som personalen gav uttryck för att de själva besatt var bland annat ett intresse för asylfrågor och transkulturella relationer, erfarenhet av att arbeta med flyktingar samt vana av att samarbeta med tolk. Känslomässiga svårigheter i arbetet som identifierades var bland annat att ta del av patienternas traumatiska bakgrund, samt känslan av otillräcklighet då patienterna många gånger var i behov av mer än bara sjukvård. Patienternas behov av stödsamtal var större än resurserna räckte till. En önskan om utökade personaltjänster och lokaler uttrycktes, dock betonades vikten av att verksamheten skulle förbli en samlad enhet. Slutsats: En medvetenhet om hur kulturella kontexter påverkar människor samt en medvetenhet om sin egen förförståelse och eventuella fördomar, visades vara eftersträvansvärt hos sjukvårdspersonal som vårdar flyktingar. Egenskaper som visade sig vara viktiga hos sjukvårdspersonal, som vårdar flyktingar, var att ha ett öppet förhållningssätt, ett holistiskt synsätt på individen samt en övertygelse om människors lika värde. / Background: Refugees often suffer from a high degree of illness. The work of this group of patients requires that health care professionals should possess a deeper understanding of the individual needs that may affect refugees. Objective: The aim of this study was to describe the staff’s experiences of the work and the meeting with patients at a health clinic for refugees. Method: A descriptive qualitative study using interviews as data collection method. The selection group were all the active health care staff who worked at the clinic. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed according to Graneheim and Lundman’s content analysis. Findings: The staff experienced work at the medical clinic as time consuming and unpredictable. Special skills that the staff expressed that they themselves possessed included an interest in asylum issues and transcultural relationships, experience of working with refugees and accustomed to working with an interpreter. Identified emotional difficulties in the care of refugees was to take part of the patients’ traumatic background, and the feeling of inadequacy when the patients often were in need of more than medical care. Patients’ needs for counseling were greater than available resources. A need for increased staff services and working space were expressed, however the importance of the care unit as one single unit was emphasized. Conclusion: Awareness of how cultural contexts influence people and awareness of her own preconceived ideas and possible prejudices, was found to be desirable of clinicians who care for refugees. Characteristics that proved to be important for health care professionals, caring for refugees, was to have an open approach, a holistic approach to the individual and a conviction of human equality.

The object of the dissertation covers World War II refugee in Lithuania, their coming, staying and leaving Lithuania in 1939 – 1940. The first chapter of dissertation discusses similarities and differences of terms foreigner and refugee according to domestic legislation. Furthermore, the peculiarities of foreigners in pre war Lithuania and World War II refugees are analyzed and the features of refugee integration are depicted. The following aspects have been under discussion as well: the circumstances of war refugee legislation, the situation of Lithuanian legislation according to international conventions. The second chapter analyses the life of Polish internees in Lithuania. Organizational work of establishing internee camps, the changes of camps’ network and its liquidation are discussed there. Separate subchapters analyze the subordination of internee soldiers to army units, the everyday life of internees in camps as well as internees repatriation to the territories occupied by Soviet Union and Germany. The third chapter concentrates on the civil refugees. The first subchapter analyses the aspects of refugee administration in Lithuania by Lithuanian Red Cross and Commissariat for refugee affairs. The absolute majority of refugees in Lithuania were Jewish and Polish. Due to that, the third chapter is divided into subchapters by refugees’ nationalities. Subchapters analyzing Polish refugees present the status of Polish refugees and newcomers in Lithuania and the aspects of... [to full text] / Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabėgėlių patekimo ir buvimo Lietuvoje istorija dar nėra sulaukusi išsamių ir detalių tyrimų. Šiandien tyrinėtojams prieinama istoriografija tik epizodiškai aprašo Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabėgėlių buvimo Lietuvoje raidą, jų santykius su Lietuvos administracija, vietos gyventojais. Disertacijos tyrimo objektas: Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabėgėliai Lietuvoje, jų patekimo, buvimo ir išvykimo iš Lietuvos Respublikos 1939–1940 m. raida. Pirmoji darbo dalis skirta pristatyti svetimšalių ir karo pabėgėlių sąvokų panašumams ir skirtumams remiantis Lietuvos teisiniais aktais aptarti. Antroji dalis skirta internuotiesiems Lenkijos kariams. Joje aptariama Lenkijos karių internavimas, internuotųjų stovyklų steigimas, stovyklų tinklo kaita bei jų likvidavimas. Atskiruose skyriuose nagrinėta internuotų karių gyvenimo stovyklose kasdienybė, karių repatriacija į Sovietų Sąjungos ir Vokietijos užimtas teritorijas bei internuotųjų karių perėmimas iš sovietų pusės 1940 m. vasarą. Trečioji disertacijos dalis skirta civiliams karo pabėgėliams. Parodomi pabėgėlių administravimo aspektai remiantis Komisariato karo atbėgėlių reikalams tvarkyti ir Lietuvos Raudonojo Kryžiaus veikla. Kadangi absoliučią pabėgėlių daugumą sudarė lenkų ir žydų tautybių pabėgėliai buvo aptarta kiekviena tautinė grupė atskirai bei Lietuvos pilietybės suteikimo problematika. Stengtasi parodyti lenkų pabėgėlių bei Vilniaus krašto gyventojų „ateivių“ teisinį statusą Lietuvos Respublikoje. Bandyta... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Refugees abound the world over due to various factors, such as human rights violations, wars, ethnicity-related problems, political instability and so on. In South Africa, refugees have a high rate of unemployment and no one knows what they are going through. Unemployed refugee women suffer more than men and bear the burden of unemployment. South Africa is a developing country and many of its citizens are unemployed, thus refugees are not protected by refugee laws that exist in other countries. This study aims to explore the life experiences of unemployed professional refugee women from Rwanda who live in the Durban inner city. Moreover, the research objectives also encompass discovering contributing factors behind their unemployment, as perceived by professional refugee women from Rwanda, and to explore their livelihood and coping strategies in their quest to earn a living. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

For decades UNHCR and refugee hosting governments have been looking for strategies to deal with the problem of mass exodus. Depending on the nature of the problem, various approaches have been exercised to address the problem of the displaced people. Recently, there has been a remarkable alteration of approaches in the way the international political community and refugee-hosting governments deal with forced migrants. Returning refugees to their "homes" has been the most favoured approach. Though voluntary repatriation as an "ideal" solution to the refugee problem has been exercised since the 1970s, it is with the end of the post-cold war era, circa 1991, that it came to be seen as the most desirable and preferred approach towards ending the plight of exilees (Winter, 1994: 159; Rogers, 1992:1112; Toft, n.d:3). For a number of reasons, the 1990s have added more colour towards adopting this approach as the most preferred "durable solution." To give more colour to voluntary repatriation as the best alternative strategy to refugee problems, the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, has gone so far as to declare the 1992 to be "the first year in a decade of repatriation." Since then, repatriation as a desirable approach and a viable solution to the world refugee problem has gained much prominence in the UN arena, refugee hosting countries and refugee generating countries (Allen, 1996; Chimni, 1999; Barnet, 2001)' This study discusses the issue of organised voluntary repatriation in a newly-born tiny African county, Eritrea. In brief, it examines the overall process of socio-economic rehabilitation, repatriation and re-integration of refugee returnees in selected returnee resettlement sites located in the Western lowlands of Eritrea. The study is descriptive-cumanalytic in its nature and has employed a triangulation approach in its data collection (namely, open- and semi-structured interview, focus group discussion and archival documents). The aim of the analysis is to understand refugee repatriation processes by exploring how participative the returnees were in the decision-making process of reintegration that enormously impacts in their lives back at 'home.' Post-repatriation social relationships between repatriates and 'stayees/locals' as well as returnees' economic conditions are also scrupulously examined. By so doing, the study attempts to address the 'research gap' in refugee studies by shedding light regarding the complicated nature of refugee repatriation endeavour as a 'durable solution.' In investigating the socio-economic condition of Eritrean refugee returnees, the study looks at the dynamics of power-relations and variations in interests among various stakeholders (particularly between the returnees, the government of the refugees' origin and UNHCR) within the repatriation process. It asserts how home- and hosting governments as well as UNHCR operate as "technologies of power," that dictate the behaviour of their "clients." Eventually, the thesis calls for 'working with' rather than 'working for' or 'working to' the end-beneficiaries of the repatriation project that have great deal of impact in the livelihood of refugee returnees as end-beneficiaries of repatriation programs. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

Catherine Dauvergne probes the global pressures that are challenging the state of immigration laws in Canada and around the world.

Bill C-31 represents an important piece of policy in the history of Canadian citizenship. It takes its place in a dialog of policy and resistance about who ‘gets in’ and who is excluded from Canadian citizenship. By critically reading the text of Bill C-31 through other policy texts, academic arguments and research, and activist texts, this analysis elucidates historical connections between relations of capital, immigration, labour, and the criminal justice system. It works from a materialist feminist framework, critical of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation as systems that work through one another in dialectical and historically specific ways. The analysis argues that Bill C-31 is a continuation of relations of capital and that a dialectical conceptualization can yield strategies for a revolutionary praxis that offers hope for the transformation of existing social relations towards new and more humane ways of relating to one another.