Journal of Refugee Studies

Displacement in Place and the Financial Crisis in Lebanon
Ali A
Displacement is underway in Lebanon after financial collapse, but not as events of migration, rather, as processual disruption to people's lives that begins in place, preceding the potential outcome of forced migration. Financial collapse has shifted the population into extremes of constraint, dispossessing them of assets needed to live in valued ways. Widely circulated claims of an exodus are premature. Historic mass emigration from Lebanon occurred in times of capital availability whilst today's financial collapse denies most people of the capital needed to emigrate. Migration remains limited to the few with social and cultural capital unaffected by the crisis. This article was prompted by the author's observations of financial collapse whilst living in Lebanon in 2020 and long-standing engagement with the country. Regardless of whether mass emigration occurs, perhaps after the economy's recapitalization, the displacement process already underway warrants attention from refugee and forced migration studies.
A Scoping Review of Social Support Research among Refugees in Resettlement: Implications for Conceptual and Empirical Research
Wachter K, Bunn M, Schuster RC, Boateng GO, Cameli K and Johnson-Agbakwu CE
This study reviewed social support research with refugees in resettlement by assessing the scope of scholarship and examining methodological approaches, definitions, theoretical frameworks, domains, and sources of support. The scoping review followed a systematic approach that retained 41 articles for analysis. The findings indicate that refugee resettlement studies seldom conceptualizes social support as a central focus, defines the concept, draws from related theory, or examines multifaceted components of the construct. The review nevertheless yielded promising findings for future conceptual and empirical research. The analysis identified a wide range of relevant domains and sources of social support, laying the foundation for a socio-ecological model of social support specific to refugee experiences in resettlement. The findings also indicate an imperative to examine and theorize social support vis-à-vis diverse groups as a main outcome of interest, in connection to a range of relevant outcomes, and longitudinally in recognition of the temporal processes in resettlement.
Journey to Health: (Re) Contextualizing the Health of Canada's Refugee Population
Newbold KB and McKeary M
Existing literature on refugee health has often focused exclusively on either the post-arrival or pre-arrival experience. We believe the totality of each individual social identity should be acknowledged, including life prior to becoming a refugee. Thus, health status must be contextualized within pre-arrival health status and living conditions, health-care access, flight experiences, combined with post-arrival status: a fluid journey-to-health arc. The following article offers a holistic view of refugee health as an outcome of the entirety of this journey captured in a series of in-depth interviews with long-term, established service providers in Hamilton, Ontario. Our findings illustrate the importance of viewing health issues within the context of time and space. Refugees embark on fragmented journeys, leading to multiple challenges for providers, such as limited case histories, the absence of documentation and cultural (in)competence in terms of practice.
Threatened or Threatening? How Ideology Shapes Asylum Seekers' Immigration Policy Attitudes in Israel and Australia
Canetti D, Snider KL, Pedersen A and Hall BJ
Can different political ideologies explain policy preferences regarding asylum seekers? We focus on attitudes regarding governmental policy towards out-group members and suggest that perceptions of threat help to shape these policy attitudes. Study 1 compared public opinion regarding asylum policy in Israel ( = 137) and Australia ( = 138), two countries with restrictive asylum policies and who host a large number of asylum seekers; Study 2, a longitudinal study, was conducted during two different time periods in Israel-before and during the Gaza conflict. Results of both studies showed that threat perceptions of out-group members drive the relationship between conservative political ideologies and support for exclusionary asylum policies among citizens. Perceptions of threat held by members of the host country (the in-group) towards asylum seekers (the out-group) may influence policy formation. The effect of these out-groups threats needs to be critically weighed when considering Israeli and Australian policies towards asylum seekers.
Predicting Stress Related to Basic Needs and Safety in Darfur Refugee Camps: A Structural and Social Ecological Analysis
Rasmussen A and Annan J
The research on the determinants of mental health among refugees has been largely limited to traumatic events, but recent work has indicated that the daily hassles of living in refugee camps also play a large role. Using hierarchical linear modelling to account for refugees nested within camp blocks, this exploratory study attempted to model stress surrounding safety and acquiring basic needs and functional impairment among refugees from Darfur living in Chad, using individual-level demographics (e.g., gender, age, presence of a debilitating injury), structural factors (e.g., distance from block to distribution centre), and social ecological variables (e.g., percentage of single women within a block). We found that stress concerning safety concerns, daily hassles, and functional impairment were associated with several individual-level demographic factors (e.g., gender), but also with interactions between block-level and individual-level factors as well (e.g., injury and distance to distribution centre). Findings are discussed in terms of monitoring and evaluation of refugee services.
The Invisible Refugee Camp: Durable Solutions for Boreah 'Residuals' in Guinea
Gale LA
What happens when refugees do not repatriate post-conflict? For those who remain in refugee camps, the remaining, durable solutions of resettlement and local integration may be neither feasible nor desirable. This study of Boreah camp in Guinea illustrates how refugees and refugee camps become invisible from the perspective of the host government and non-governmental organizations once assistance is rescinded and refugees refuse to avail themselves of the durable solutions offered. While refugees may cease to exist at the institutional level, ethnographic research reveals that those who continue to reside in defunct camps and/or continue to claim refugee status have eminently visible challenges. This article examines durable solutions-local integration in particular-from the perspective of refugees as well as the perspective of humanitarian actors.
Asylum applications in the European Union: patterns and trends and the effects of policy measures
Bocker A and Havinga T
"Statistics on asylum applications have been used in a highly selective way in the debates on refugees and asylum policies in Western Europe, to justify restrictive measures. This paper provides a more systematic analysis of these statistics. It focuses on the pattern of origins and destinations for asylum seekers in the European Union in the period 1985-1994.... When the patterns of origin and destinations are compared for separate years, it becomes clear that the destinations of asylum movements have been constantly changing. Though some of the more remarkable shifts were clearly related to policy measures in the relevant countries, many measures produced only limited effects or failed to have any effect at all."
Health, work opportunities and attitudes: a review of Palestinian women's situation in Lebanon
Zakharia LF and Tabari S
The socio-economic impact of the involuntary mass return to Yemen in 1990
Van Hear N
Mozambican refugee resettlement: survival strategies of involuntary migrants in South Africa
De Jongh M
The differential experience of Mozambican refugee women and men
Ager A, Ager W and Long L
Demographic manipulation in the Caucasus (with special reference to Georgia)
Hewitt BG
Information and repatriation: the case of Mozambican refugees in Malawi
Koser K