Investment in addressing structural stigma and discrimination against refugees in resource-poor urban areas is both needed, and possible. The large population of refugees residing in resource-poor urban areas is likely to grow, and tensions in a number of settings are now documented. Without interventions to adequately address such tensions, both the protection needs of refugee populations and the stability of hosting countries could be affected. Through qualitative analysis of an urban refugee dataset in Uganda, this dissertation identified community-level drivers of structural stigma and discrimination as safeguarding one’s body and property, defending status, and perpetuating exploitation. The designs of potentially successful programs to address these drivers were then identified though systematic review, and included one or more of the following: 1) the utilization of multiple intervention components; 2) direct information provision (e.g., lecture, role-play, other active engagement) or direct contact with stigmatized groups; 3) cooperative work between community members and stigmatized groups to better livelihoods; 4) popular opinion leaders who have authority to make change, and 5) traditional ceremonies valued by the communities for cleansing and healing. One such design involving an agricultural livelihood program in a resource-poor urban area of the Northeast United States was costed, utilizing a primarily bottom-up approach and a societal perspective in the collection of both financial and economic costs. The unit cost per participating family was significantly lower than government services that provide comparable nutritional support, but did not include components of working with the community to reduce stigma and discrimination. Thus, the studied program provided more services for a lower cost. In addition, it empowered stigmatized refugees to advocate for and support themselves, and engendered goodwill in the community by involving community members to work alongside refugee participants, improving upon a neglected piece of land, and providing fresh produce. Further research is needed to better measure the social and financial dividends of programs to address structural stigma and discrimination, particularly against urban refugees. Such research can only come in tandem with further investment, the imperative and potential of which are compellingly clear.

With unique historical, political, and social perceptions, the experiences of refugees, and later, their children, contribute to a more complex narrative of remembrance, citizenship, and belonging in the United States. Often framed as creating a disconnect between generations, intergenerational trauma may be addressed by surfacing different forms of affective and embodied remembrance. Recognizing the unique identities and subjectivities that the second-generation, Southeast Asian American (SEAA) population embodies (and the implications that those have for how the U.S. perceives and produces itself), this project engages narrative inquiry and participatory visual methodologies to explore how the children of Southeast Asian (SEA) refugees make meaning of their family histories and themselves through negotiating generational memories. This project shows that SEAA young people are actively engaging with the legacies of their families and communities as they move through the world. Through a series of individual interviews, participant creations, a whole group sharing circle, and a group co-created artifact, my analysis shows the ways that SEAA continually look inward and turn outward, seeking to understand, build, and re-member as they negotiate generational memories. As SEAA move toward continuity through a deep recognition and, ultimately, acceptance of rupture, they engage in healing practices. Drawing from the ways that a feminist refugee epistemology asserts the refugee as knower and centers their rich, complicated daily experiences and the ways that healing justice centers the transformation of institutions and relationships to facilitate individual and collective healing, this project offers continued opportunities to theorize the connections between historical understandings and how young people with legacies of displacement see themselves as actors in relation to those around them.

Events such as conflicts, natural disasters, online deplatformings, and economic collapses can force people away from their long-standing social networks and require them to rebuild their social lives in new locations or settings. How do social networks shape the effects of these disruptions on communities? How does social behavior respond to violence? In this dissertation, I investigate the dynamic relationship between violence and social networks. In two essays, I analyze the effect of violence on social behavior in two contexts, using data from conflict-affected communities in Myanmar and Ukraine. In the third essay, I formally study the relationship between civilians’ social network characteristics and the optimal violence strategies for states. The first essay investigates the effects of exposure to violence on social network composition and formation among internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kachin State, Myanmar. Using original survey data from 5 camps, I find that those exposed to violence on the extensive margin have fewer initial, new, and close ties and those exposed on the intensive margin have fewer new ties within the camps. However, those exposed to violence do not form ties with other exposed IDPs at a higher rate than with non-exposed IDPs. The second essay asks, how does exposure to violence affect the ability of forcibly internally displaced people (IDPs) to integrate into new communities? I introduce and test a demand-side theory of integration using the case of internally displaced people in Ukraine. Using original survey data, I show that those directly exposed to violence are less successful in integrating into their new communities. Moreover, I show that the results are consistent with a psychological mechanism: those directly exposed to violence are more likely to exhibit symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. The third essay asks, how does the structure of civilians’ social networks shape the optimal form of violence to be used against them? Theories explaining why states choose to use targeted or indiscriminate violence against civilians hinge on the state's capacity to gain information about whom to target and its ability to do enough damage to prevent defection to the rebel's side. In contrast to these theories, I show that the choice of strategy depends on the characteristics of the community experiencing the violence, not the state employing it. This essay argues that even when states can target certain civilians, they may choose to employ indiscriminate violence due to characteristics of civilians' social network structure. The state's optimal strategy of violence is driven by two factors: the degree distribution of civilians' social networks and the correlation between citizens' motivation to leave a network and citizens' value to other nodes in the network. When the degree distribution is uniform, and motivation and value are positively correlated, indiscriminate violence is more often preferred.

Refugee women face several health and well-being risks in conflict settings. Intimate partner violence (IPV), military violence, poor sexual and reproductive health (SRH), early marriage, and unemployment are some of the competing challenges that refugee women face globally. IPV has been associated with mental health problems,1–3 unwanted pregnancy, pregnancy complications, STIs, and unsafe abortion practices,4 HIV,5–8 long term disabilities, chronic pain, and increased mortality and morbidity in refugee settings.9–12 Likewise, low, inconsistent, and ineffective use of modern spacing methods (MSM) of contraceptive has been linked to unplanned pregnancies, risk of abortions and unsafe abortions, maternal, infant and child morbidity and mortality, human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV), sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and obstetric complications as well as high fertility and poverty. Similarly, low economic engagement and/or unemployment of refugee women has proven to cause significant social, economic and health cost.13 Refugee women’s health and well-being are associated with individual, interpersonal, and societal level factors such as their age, education, social norms around fertility, household size, and age at marriage, contraceptive use, decision-making agency, socio-economic conditions, access to and affordability of health services and care, and acculturation in host countries among other factors. This dissertation examines how some of these multi-level factors influence women’s IPV experiences, contraceptive use, and economic engagement in income-generating activities. The first dissertation paper examines the prevalence of lifetime IPV among a sample of 191 health-care seeking women refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia. Using Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological framework and integrated theory of gender and power, I examine multilevel factors associated with lifetime IPV. I also examine the relationship between contraceptive use and lifetime IPV. About one-third (28.30 %) of refugee women reported having experienced lifetime IPV. My hypotheses were partially supported in this study. There were significant associations between marital status, household size, contraceptive use, and food insecurity and lifetime IPV experiences in the bivariate analysis. Age, education, gender-based violence, time spent in Malaysia, and clinic were women were recruited from were not significant in the bivariate analysis. There were no associations between socio-demographic variables like age, education, household size, time spent in Malaysia and the clinic in the unadjusted as well as adjusted models. However, there were significant relationships found between marital status, contraceptive use, and food insecurity and lifetime IPV experiences in the adjusted model. Widowed, separated, and divorced refugee women were significantly more likely to report lifetime IPV experiences relative to women who reported themselves as married at time of survey [OR: 2.56, 95% CI: 1.09, 6.03] compared to women did not report lifetime IPV experience in the adjusted multivariable logistic model, rejecting my hypothesis. Also, in line with my hypothesis, women who reported using permanent methods of contraceptives were significantly more likely to report lifetime IPV experiences than no contraceptive use [0R: 8.70, 95% CI: 1.95, 38.64] compared to women who did not report lifetime IPV experiences in the adjusted multivariable logistic model. In line with my hypothesis, women who reported themselves as being food insecure were more likely to report lifetime IPV experiences than no food insecurity [OR: 0.40, 95% CI: 0.18, 0.89] compared to women who did not report lifetime IPV experiences in the adjusted multivariable logistic model. The second dissertation paper examines the prevalence of types of MSM of contraceptive use (female controlled MSM of contraceptives such as intrauterine devices (IUDs), implants, injectables, oral contraceptives (OC); male involved MSM of contraceptives such as condoms; and no contraceptives) among a sample of 307 married Syrian refugee women in Jordan. Using Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological framework and integrated theory of gender and power, I examine multilevel factors associated with MSM of contraceptive use. I also examine the relationship between early marriage and contraceptive use and the relationship between past-year IPV and contraceptive use. About two-fifth (38.44%) of women reported using female controlled MSM (IUDs, injectables, pills, and implants), a little more than one-tenth (11.73%) reported using male involved contraceptives (male condoms), and half of them (49.84%) reported using no contraceptives (includes natural methods and no forms of contraceptive methods). My hypotheses were partially supported in this study. Socio-demographic variables such as age, head of household, and reproductive health care services received in the past six months were significant in the bivariate association between socio-demographic variables and types of MSM of contraceptive use. And early marriage, education, children under the age of five, past-year IPV experience, Syrian governorate, and time in Jordan (acculturation) were not significant in the bivariate analysis. Women who were married prior to the age of 18 years were significantly more likely to report female controlled MSM of contraceptive use than no MSM of contraceptive use at time of survey [RRR: 1.83, 95% CI: 1.07, 3.13] compared to women who were married past 18 years of age in the adjusted multinomial logistic model. Women with children under the age of five were less likely to report male involved MSM of contraceptive use than no MSM of contraceptive use [RRR: 0.32, 95% CI: 0.12, 0.84] compared to women with children older than five years of age in the adjusted multinomial logistic model. Women who reported reproductive health care services received in the past six months were significantly more likely to report female controlled MSM of contraceptive use than no MSM of contraceptive use [RRR: 2.21, 95% CI: 1.98, 3.80] compared to women who reported not receiving reproductive health care services in the past six months in the adjusted multinomial logistic model. Contrary to my hypothesis, women who reported themselves as head of household were less likely to report female controlled MSM of contraceptive use than no MSM of contraceptive use [RRR: 0.40, 95% CI: 0.18, 0.89] compared to women who reported their husbands or family members as head of households in the adjusted multinomial logistic model. No associations between socio-demographic variables like age, education, past-year IPV, Syrian governorate, time spent in Jordan and MSM of contraceptive use in the adjusted multinomial logistic regression model were found. The third dissertation paper examines the prevalence of husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity among a sample of 344 married Syrian refugee women living in non-camp settings in Jordan. Using Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological framework and integrated theory of gender and power, I examine multilevel factors associated with husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity. I also examine the association between no lifetime IPV and husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity and the association between head of the households and husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity. I further examine if the relationship between no lifetime IPV and husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity is moderated by women’s agency measured by if they reported themselves as head of the household. About one-third (65.12 %) of women reported husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity. My hypothesis was partially supported in bivariate and multivariable logistical regression analysis. Age, education, previous work experience, head of the household, no lifetime IPV, and time in Jordan were significant in the bivariate analysis between multi-level/socio-demographic variables and husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity. Of the less than half (44.77%) of women who did not experience lifetime IPV, more than one-third (70.8 %) of women reported husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity relative to those who reported lifetime IPV experience (70.78 % versus 29.22 %; P=0.05). Of the more than one-fifth (22.97 %) of women who reported themselves as head of household, more than four-fifth (83.54 %) of women reported husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity relative to those who did not report themselves as head of the households (83.54 % versus 16.46 %; P=0.000). In line with my hypothesis, in unadjusted (OR=1.58 95% confidence interval, CI=1.00-2.48) and adjusted (aOR=1.60, 95% CI=0.98-2.563) models, not experiencing lifetime IPV were associated with increased odds of husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity. Similarly, in both the unadjusted (OR=3.44 95% confidence interval, CI=1.80-6.54) and adjusted (aOR=2.65, 95% CI=1.33-5.29) models, women who reported themselves as head of the households were associated with increased odds of husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity, supporting my hypothesis. Likewise, in both the unadjusted (OR=7.97 95% confidence interval, CI=2.40-26.40) and adjusted (aOR=5.82, 95% CI=1.66-20.40) models, women who reported no IPV experiences as well as who reported themselves as head of the households were associated with increased odds of husbands’ no opposition to wives’ economic activity relative to women who reported lifetime IPV experiences and who did not report themselves as the head of the households, supporting my hypothesis. Age and education were also significant in the adjusted model. These findings affirm that IPV, contraceptive use, and women’s economic engagement are serious health and well-being issues. Results fill in the literature gaps on multilevel factors associated with IPV, contraceptive use, and women’s economic engagement. The first study contributes to the literature on how contraceptive behavior, refugee women’s marital status, and food insecurity, measured as a proxy of poverty influences refugee women’s IPV experiences. The second study contributes to the literature on how marrying at an early age, having children in the households, and receiving reproductive health services influences refugee women’s contraceptive behavior. Third paper contributes to the literature on how refugee women’s lack of IPV experiences and their improved agency/household decision making power influences their economic engagement in the host country. These findings have potential to inform health, sexual and reproductive health, social norms, and economic empowerment interventions. The implications of these findings for social policy, practice, and future research for each paper are discussed in relevant sections as well as in the conclusion section.

This is a three-paper dissertation on placemaking, urban space, and the Southeast Asian American (SEAA) experience in San Francisco. The first part is a quantitative spatial study of SEAA demographic patterns in the San Francisco Bay Area, the second part is an archival study of community formation through the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation archives, and the third part is a volunteer ethnography with a community organization. Part 1 explores three methods of reporting residential patterns: (1) concentration profiles, (2) density maps, and (3) proximity profiles. I analyze U.S. Census data to map and evaluate the residential patterns for Southeast Asian Americans in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Drawing from the field of urban planning, I report two measures of segregation and concentration (a) dissimilarity indices and (b) spatial proximity indices, and I discuss their limitations. Since mapping and spatial statistics are essential to understanding the histories, development, and advancement of Southeast Asian American communities, it is important to promote their broad usage. The paper's findings lend evidence to three arguments: (1) pioneering moments (the establishment of new immigrant communities) can in fact start path dependent community growth, (2) clustering and dispersion to some extent can be predicted by classic theories of spatial assimilation, but new dynamics are playing out in today’s communities from Asian and Latino origins, including Southeast Asian American communities, and (3) residential clustering cases are circumstantial, dependent on unique local circumstances. Part 2 draws from Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) archival materials, housed in the San Francisco History Center at the San Francisco Public Library, to present a case study of how the SEAA residents and a collection of actors collectively affected the local Southeast Asian American space (1980–2000). This article (1) examines the discourse of ‘neighborhood stabilization’ amidst housing precarity, (2) discusses the implications of refugees as ‘revitalizers’ and ‘entrepreneurs,’ and (3) documents the role of community partnerships and urban planning in building a SEAA community in the heart of San Francisco. Overall, the article argues that efforts to build affordable housing within a unique urban planning environment were instrumental in the formation of the Southeast Asian American community of San Francisco, and it demonstrates how local affordable housing and the built environment in refugee resettlement sits at the nexus of competing discourses about development and about inclusion. Part 3 documents a volunteer ethnography. Thousands of Southeast Asian American (SEAA) refugees and immigrants have called San Francisco’s Tenderloin District home, and their role in placemaking, community advancement, and cultural contributions are harbingers of future demographic dynamics in the North American metropolis. However, this community has been largely invisible in the urban planning and public policy literatures. In this ethnographic work, I document my experiences volunteering with a nonprofit and advocacy organization (referred to as The Center) that has served the SEAA community for several decades. Through these experiences, I find that (1) The Center provides a concrete anchor for the community, consistent with recent urban planning literature on placemaking, (2) the organizational motivations and self-narrative helps staff to confront logistical and contextual challenges, and (3) that volunteerism brings pragmatic resources and provides a critical lens for documenting and recording the history of the organization. The case study illustrates key elements of the political-economy of the social service industry in which the dynamics of immigrant placemaking, community advancement, and urban politics coalesce.

Globally, an estimated one in four women have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetimes. IPV has enormous physical, mental, and social consequences across ecological levels of human experience. These consequences extend to the children of adult women survivors of IPV and are worsened by intersecting experiences of racism, classism, sexism, and xenophobia. Service systems purporting to help, such as child protective services (CPS) and health service systems, can either create additional harm for women and their children or offer services that women may have difficulty accessing due to cost, isolation, and other factors. These harms can be especially pronounced among (a) Black women who have used drugs, who have children, and who are in community supervision programs (CSPs) in the U.S. and (b) Syrian refugee women with children living outside camps in Jordan. These populations of women face particular challenges getting basic needs met while navigating safety for themselves and their children – both due to IPV and from systems themselves (e.g., risk of losing custody of their children, sociocultural risk of interference in family life). Yet, limited research exists on the relationship between experiencing IPV and service involvement within these two populations. The following dissertation aims to address these research gaps in three papers, using descriptive and bivariate data as well as logistic regression analyses of E-WORTH and Women ASPIRE studies, as informed by ecological theory. The first paper (E-WORTH), guided by ecological theory, aims to determine the prevalence of and test hypothesized associations between psychological, physical, and sexual IPV and CPS involvement among Black women who have used drugs, who ever had children, and who are in CSPs in New York City (N=247). I hypothesized that women who ever had children, were in CSPs, and had ever experienced psychological, physical, and/or sexual IPV by male partners would have higher odds of being involved with CPS in their lifetime than women who ever had children, were in CSPs, and had not experienced IPV by male partners. Using self-reported data from Black women who have used drugs and were recruited from CSPs in New York City, I found that 70.85% of women who ever had children and who were in CSPs reported ever experiencing psychological IPV by a male partner, 70.04% reported ever experiencing physical IPV by a male partner, 48.58% reported ever experiencing sexual IPV by a male partner, and 40.89% reported ever experiencing psychological, physical, and sexual IPV by a male partner. Further, I found that 55.87% of women reported ever having had an open case with CPS. Multivariable logistic regression analyses revealed that women who had experienced lifetime sexual IPV had significantly higher odds of ever being involved with CPS than women in the study who had never experienced sexual IPV (OR: 1.81; 95% CI: 1.09, 3.01). Similarly, women who experienced multiple forms of IPV (psychological, physical, and sexual) also had significantly higher odds of being involved with CPS (OR: 1.81; 95% CI: 1.07, 3.04). However, these associations did not hold in adjusted models. Paper 2 (Women ASPIRE) aims to (1) compare the prevalence of mental health symptomology (anxiety, depression, and PTSD) among Syrian refugee women with children under age 18 living outside camps in Jordan who have and who have not experienced physical and/or sexual IPV in the past year; and (2) examine the relationship between IPV and mental health symptomology among Syrian refugee women with children living outside camps in Jordan. Based on ecological theory as my conceptual framework, I hypothesized that Syrian refugee women with children who had experienced IPV in the past year would have significantly higher odds of meeting screening criteria for anxiety, depression, and PTSD as compared to Syrian refugee women with children who had not experienced IPV in the past year. I found high rates of IPV, anxiety, depression, and PTSD among women in the sample (N=412). Furthermore, using multivariable logistic regression models from the Women ASPIRE dataset, I found that women with children who had experienced physical and/or sexual IPV in the past year had significantly higher odds of meeting screening criteria for all three mental health conditions – anxiety (aOR: 3.68, CI: 2.28-5.94, p<0.001), depression (aOR: 3.03, CI: 1.83-4.99, p<0.001), and PTSD (aOR: 6.94, CI: 3.75-12.84, p<0.001) – than women with children who had not experienced IPV in the past year. Despite these findings, at least one-fifth of women with children reported an unmet need for mental health or protective services, and less than one-third of women were aware of the availability of these services in their local communities. The third paper (Women ASPIRE) aims to (a) examine the prevalence of physical and sexual IPV among health service-seeking Syrian refugee women with children in non-camp settings in Jordan and (b) compare the differences in health service use between women with children who had and who had not experienced IPV (N=412). Informed by experiences across levels of ecological theory, I hypothesized that women with children who had ever experienced IPV would have lower odds of using each type of health service (i.e., general, specialist, reproductive, mental health, and emergency health services) – and would have higher odds of using limited numbers of services – than women with children who had never experienced IPV. I tested my hypothesis using binary logistic regression models and an independent samples t-test. I found that nearly 60% of Syrian refugee women with children living outside camps in Jordan had ever experienced physical and/or sexual IPV by their current or most recent husband. Contrary to my hypotheses, I found that women with children who had ever experienced IPV had over three times the odds of using mental health services and were significantly more likely to use a greater variety of health services (including mental health services) than women who had not experienced IPV (aOR: 3.10, 95% CI: 1.92-5.00, p<0.001; mean 3.26 vs. 2.84 types of services respectively, t [410] = 03.71, p<0.001). Findings affirm that IPV is a serious public health issue among the affected populations and that access to needed services remains crucial to affected populations. Results fill gaps in existing literature by confirming that women with children in each study population have high odds of system involvement, particularly with CPS and mental health service systems, thereby offering social workers within those systems opportunities to intervene effectively. Thus, this dissertation can help social work practitioners and clinicians offer more responsive, accessible, and relevant services to clients within the study populations. Policymakers and administrators can fund development and testing of interventions across multiple ecological levels to promote the safety, health, and well-being of women and their children. Researchers can build on these findings through quantitative and qualitative studies on intervention effectiveness and accessibility among women engaged with system.

Thesis (MDF)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / In many developing countries, culture and tradition have contributed to the disempowerment of women. In these countries, a women's time is divided between the reproductive role of creating a family, the productive role of feeding the family, and balancing all the demands. This has resulted in 1) higher unemployment rate for women than men in virtually every developing country as reported by the World Bank gender statistics database, and 2) women having low self-confidence and self-esteem. Furthermore, when living outside their country with little or almost nothing, refugee women live in camps, temporary shelters, collective centres or rent a house in a host country where they compete with the local populations for property as well as natural and social resources, while being excluded from some of the basic rights through restrictive regulations imposed by the host country. Building upon the widely known facts that women more likely reinvest their earnings in a business and their families and spend more of their extra income on things that help develop human capital, better sanitation, better nutrition and also better health care and education, this study addresses the application of microfinance with the objective of empowering Congolese refugee women in the Western Cape in South Africa. The theoretical contributions of this study are twofold. Firstly, an analysis of the situation of the Congolese refugee women is presented in terms of their predicaments and opportunities in SA, using a survey. Secondly, building upon the conclusions of this survey, a support and empowerment microfinance approach adapted to the Congolese refugee women community is derived. As practical contribution, this study proposes the development of a business model that will cater for Congolese women refugees and its implementation through the creation of a non-governmental organisation in the Western Cape.