In 1997, the Virginia Refugee Health Program coordinated a protocol and reimbursement structure to encourage health departments to perform initial health screenings on refugees settling in the Commonwealth by establishing four recommended levels of assessment. This thesis is concerned with these initial health-related services provided to refugees by Virginia's health departments, the quality of these services, and how they vary from one district to another. For this study, I interviewed health department staff representing 13 of Virginia's 19 districts that rendered health screenings in 2000. Information such as the level of assessment provided, and the types of procedures and services offered were the main foci of the interviews. I found that of the 13 districts, three (the cities of Alexandria and Virginia Beach, and Prince William County) offer only the required minimum to refugees. The variations I discovered in the services that health districts provide suggest, conceptually, the workings of both "structure" and "agency." Each health department is formally and informally structured in terms of staffing, services, and resources in accordance with its individual needs and initiatives. The structure of current funding at both the state and local level acts to inhibit some health districts from providing all four levels of assessment. In addition, human agency in the form of personal interest in meeting refugee's health needs as well as district collaboration with local resettlement agencies, also plays an important role in the extent of refugee services rendered. / Master of Science

Yes / Asylum-seeking and refugee women currently residing in Europe face unique challenges in the perinatal period. A range of social support interventions have been developed to address these challenges. However, little is known about which women value and why. A critical interpretive synthesis was undertaken using peer reviewed and grey literature to explore the nature, context and impact of these perinatal social support interventions on the wellbeing of asylum-seeking and refugee women. Four types of interventions were identified which had varying impacts on women’s experiences. The impacts of the interventions were synthesised into five themes: Alleviation of being alone, Safety and trust, Practical knowledge and learning, being cared for and emotional support, and increased confidence in and beyond the intervention. The interventions which were most valued by women were those using a community-based befriending/peer support approach as these provided the most holistic approach to addressing women’s needs.

The purpose of the study is to better understand how Afghan refugee women develop their identities through their higher education experiences. The study design is a qualitative, narrative, collective case study. I applied Holland and Lave’s social practice theory of self and identity as the guiding theoretical framework. I focused on women who had fled Afghanistan when the Taliban took over because the ability to continue their higher education was a primary factor in their decision to flee. The following themes related to the complexity of identity experiences for refugee women pursing higher education emerged: (1) past identity experiences in the figured world of Afghanistan frame Afghan refugee women’s perspectives of present experiences in the figured world of an American university as points of reference for contrast, comparison, and interpretation; (2) Afghan refugee women frame their past experiences as a resource from which to draw for wisdom and motivation to continue to pursue their higher education; (3) Afghan refugee women idealize the impacts of higher education on their senses of selves; (4) in reality, experiences in U.S. higher education can both support and harm Afghan refugee women’s identity development; (5) Afghan refugee women confront the enduring struggle for agency and self-authorship in negotiating identities within themselves and in interactions with others through their college experiences; and (6) Afghan refugee women work towards self-humanization of their identities during college.

This thesis aims to improve historical knowledge of Australian refugee policy between 1976 and 1983, a unique and transitional moment in the nation’s history and in international refugee movements. The discussion will be based on original evidence drawn from archival records and oral history interviews, and informed by a broad literature which recognises that refugee policy is a product of varied political imperatives and historical context. First, Chapter Three reveals that because the Fraser government could not deport the Indochinese boatpeople who sailed to Australia, it sought to approve their refugee status in order to legitimate its announcements that only ‘genuine’ refugees were being admitted. In doing so, the Fraser government was required to defend the processing of boat arrivals to the public and within the bureaucracy. Chapter Four finds that historical and political considerations informed the Fraser government’s choice not to reject or detain boat arrivals but to instead introduce legislation against people smuggling. The chapter presents new evidence to disprove claims expressed in recent academic and media commentary that the government’s Immigration (Unauthorised Arrivals) Act 1980 (Cth) marked a particularly harsh stance and that passengers on the VT838 were deported without due process, and draws from ideas within the literature concerning the need for states to promote the integrity of the refugee concept. Chapter Five contributes to international literature on refugee status determination procedure by studying the Australian government’s assessment of non-Indochinese. Through a dataset created from UNHCR archives it is found that the quality of briefing material and political considerations could influence deliberations on individual cases. Chapter Six contributes to literature on in-country processing, revealing how Australia’s programme in Chile and El Salvador was a means of diversifying the refugee intake but caused tensions between the Department of Immigration and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The lives of Palestinian refugee women are complex and layered, embedded in the constraints and dictates of a patriarchal class system within a conservative culture that has been shaped by resistance to the Israeli military occupation since 1948. Over six decades of Israeli military occupation, ongoing national resistance, poverty and a maledominated society are a few of the forces that continue to shape the lives of refugee women today. The Israeli occupation has obstructed the development of a viable Palestinian economy and legal institutions that could serve as a framework for attaining women’s rights. In addition, Palestinian women, especially refugee women have limited employment and education opportunities due to the military violence which serves to strengthen patriarchal norms that discourage women seeking either higher education or work outside the home. Military occupation and traditional patriarchal society are therefore two inter connected processes central to the formation of gender identities and roles for women living in refugee camps. Palestinian refugee women are also part of a unique experience of being refugees on their own land. A central question arises as to whether, in the absence of an independent Palestinian state, refugee women can be agents of transformation in their personal, familial and community relations. I t is necessary to explore the potential for resistance and empowerment at the local level as defined and expressed by women and men in Jabaliya camp in an effort to assist in responding to this question. The everyday experiences of women explored in this study from the standpoint of women and men in Jabaliya refugee camp and their interpretations and perceptions of those experiences, are the basis for identifying everyday acts of resistance and potential avenues of empowerment among women in the camp. Everyday resistance and the process of empowerment are evident in the lives of women. The data show both subtle and open acts of defiance to oppressive ideas and social structures as well as a clear development of a critical understanding of women’s roles and status in the camp.

Currently, over 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes; among them are nearly 21 million refugees. Thus, the discussion of refugees and refugee camps on a global scale is ever more salient given the recent heightened attention to the global crises. This thesis uses an interdisciplinary Science, Technology, and Society (STS) approach to analyze the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) policies, refugee camps, and their implication in the greater society.

No description available.

The UNHCR reports an anticipated growing number of migration movements in Africa that will increase the amount of prolonged refugee situations, with the international debate regarding refugee policies discussing local integration as a durable solution. Local integration policy is dependent on the acceptance and willingness of the host population and can engender tensions between refugees and hosts, which could be a result of their uneven power distribution, with one group possessing more social power, leading to more opportunities in the community. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between refugees and host community in a settlement and seeks to expose any tensions that could arise between the groups from an uneven power distribution by using an analytical framework based on Norbert Elias’ book The Established and the Outsiders, which focuses on community problems between two groups. This thesis draws on a field study of the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in southern Uganda that has a refugee policy partially aimed towards local integration. The data has been collected through semi-structured interviews and observations as part of an ethnographic approach. The interviewed key stakeholders have been refugees and host populations living within the settlement as well as government officials and representatives from international organisations, IGOs and NGOs. Using Elias’ theory as a universal analytical tool showed us that there are established-outsider constellations creating tensions in a community, however these tensions do not fully rely on the qualities of the relationship. Moreover, results from the study indicate that the relationship between nationals and refugees in the settlement and the tensions it fostered are to a very large degree influenced by external factors, more specifically by the Ugandan government and international organisations as well as the complexity of group dimensions and situations, which contributed to a weakened host population.

The aim of Sweden’s refugee settlement policy is that refugees should be offered an             initial place of dwelling in a municipality with available accommodation and a good             labour market within commuting distance. Refugees risk long-run unemployment, if             initially placed in a municipality with bad labour market opportunities (see Edin et             al., 2004 and Åslund et al., 2006). It is therefore important to know to what extent             the state of a municipality’s labour market (and not only availability of apartments)             drives the willingness to receive refugees. No such study has previously been con-             ducted. This paper thus aims to bridge this gap in the research by analyzing data             between 2006-2010 for all 290 Swedish municipalities and their contracts with the             Swedish central government regarding refugee reception. The main findings are,             when accounting for municipality-fixed effects, that neither unemployment nor             available apartments affect the probability of signing a contract. Additional govern-             ment grants, on the other hand, has a positive effect on the likelihood of signing a             contract. Among municipalities which do sign contracts, the agreed number of refu-             gees is negatively affected by higher municipality unemployment and positively             affected by additional available apartments.

The aim with this study is to examine and analyze how the employees at two residential care homes for unaccompanied refugee children work with the children during their pending decision for asylum in Sweden. The purpose is to gain insight into the employees’ daily work with the target audience and how they handle decisions with the children. The method to collect data is to carry 6 interviews with the employees at the residential care home. The interviews were semi-structured with purpose of letting the interviewee lead the content of the interview. The results of the interviews show that the employees have very varied types of duties within their profession. The employees must also maintain many different roles, for example family, teacher and friend. The employees do often have to face very difficult situations with the children during their wait for a residence permit decision. The result was analyzed with theories as Integration Theory and Coping theory. The conclusions of this study are that the employees at the residential care homes for refugee children have very multifaceted work tasks with a very important target group. The increased amount of unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents escaping to Sweden has led to a situation that the Swedish society haven’t had time to adjust to. Clarifying how the employees work and treat the unaccompanied children can contribute to spreading this knowledge to other community stakeholders.