Jay Marlowe

Refugee Resettlement and Parenting in a Different Context

This article discusses the family dynamics of South Sudanese parents who arrived in New Zealand as quota refugees. It investigates how they experience parenting in relation to language barriers, gender roles, and cultural differences in raising children. The article reports on in-depth interviews with four solo mothers and two married fathers during which participants commonly expressed tensions between finding a workable relationship between traditional parenting and current expectations in New Zealand. This study identifies some potential pathways for working with refugee families who are raising children in resettlement contexts and highlights several key considerations concerning settlement support and gender.

‘Walking the line’: Southern Sudanese masculinities and reconciling one's past with the present

This paper discusses an ethnographic engagement with Southern Sudanese men and their experiences of resettlement as refugees in Adelaide, Australia. They use the phrase ‘walking the line’ to convey the multiple challenges of reconciling ones past within thepresent contexts of life in a new host country. This geographic metaphor hints at the contested borderlands of masculinity, social relations and raising children that highlight the dynamic complexities related to gender and institutional power. The participant voices provide helpful perspectives on the endeavour of forging ones identity in forced migration and resettlement contexts.

Lessons from disaster: the power and place of story

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to view the human experiences of the Canterbury earthquakes through a varied set of disciplinary lenses in order to give voice to those who experienced the trauma of the earthquakes, especially groups whose voices might not otherwise be heard. Design/methodology/approach – The research designs represented in this special issue and discussed in this introductory paper cover the spectrum from open-ended qualitative approaches to quantitative survey design. Data gathering methods included video and audio interviews, observations, document analysis and questionnaires. Data were analysed using thematic, linguistic and statistical tools. Findings – The themes discussed in this introductory paper highlight that the Canterbury response and recovery sequence follows similar phases established in other settings such as Hurricane Katrina and the Australian bushfires. The bonding role of community networks was shown to be important, as was the ability to adapt formal and informa...

Teaching trauma: Critically engaging a troublesome term

How the social work profession supports people to live through experiences of trauma and helps to facilitate recovery represents an important base of our practice. Whilst the impacts of trauma in peoples lives cannot be discounted, there remains significant scope to further inquire into how people respond to traumatic situations and locate their own sources of healing, hope and survival. Drawing on two different case studies—one with resettled Sudanese refugees in Australia and another involving critical incident debriefing—this paper looks to address the complex intersections between trauma, well-being and the roles of social work pedagogy and practice.

Children with Disabilities and Disaster Risk Reduction: A Review

Children with disabilities are often excluded from disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiatives and, as a result, can experience amplified physical, psychological, and educational vulnerabilities. Research on children with disabilities during disasters is lacking, and their potential value in helping shape inclusive policies in DRR planning has been largely overlooked by both researchers and policymakers. This article highlights the existing research and knowledge gap. The review includes literature from two areas of scholarship in relation to disasters—children, and people with disabilities—and provides a critique of the prevailing medical, economic, and social discourses that conceptualize disability and associated implications for DRR. The article analyzes the different models in which disability has been conceptualized, and the role this has played in the inclusion or exclusion of children with disabilities in DRR activities and in determining access to necessary resources in the face of disaster. Finally, the study explores possible pathways to studying the contribution and involvement of children with disabilities in DRR.

Resettled refugee community perspectives to the Canterbury earthquakes: Implications for organizational response

Purpose – This research project examined resettled refugees’ perspectives on the Canterbury Earthquakes to better understand the organisational implications for disaster preparedness and response with culturally and linguistically diverse groups. Design/methodology/approach – The method of data collection for this exploratory pilot study involved conducting semi-structured focus group discussions during January 2012 with the Bhutanese, Afghani and Ethiopian communities. The project was conducted in partnership with Refugee Services Aotearoa which is New Zealands primary refugee resettlement organisation. Findings – The participant comments identify the importance of local ethnic community responses to a natural disaster. The need for a pre-established meeting centre(s) and community liaisons with key support organisations was highlighted as vital. Central to recovery is how organisations can work alongside refugee communities in disaster preparedness and response opportunities. Originality/value – The pa...

The New Zealand Refugee Resettlement Strategy: implications for identity, acculturation and civic participation

The process of resettlement as a refugee often involves adapting to, and reconciling with, a new social reality. The complexities associated with acculturation across age, gender and family dynamics are navigated within greater social contexts that may encourage or hinder the processes of adjustment and settlement. This paper addresses the recent New Zealand Refugee Resettlement Strategy in light of contemporary theoretical developments with regard to the segmented assimilation thesis and the forms of social capital that, when available, may be mobilised to help refugee-background individuals, families and communities to forge new routes for participation and belonging. In particular, we examine the strategy and its five main goals of self-sufficiency, participation, health and well-being, education and housing as these relate to the possibilities and tensions at play in the wider acculturation experiences of New Zealands diverse refugee populations.

Rejecting Ahmed's ‘melancholy migrant’: South Sudanese Australians in higher education

This paper draws on related research studies in two urban centres (Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia) with South Sudanese men and women engaged in varying degrees with higher education. The co-authors examine some gendered differences in the process and demands of resettlement, including within employment and education, and its implications for rapidly changing public versus private gender roles. We argue against essentialising discourses of the ‘liberatory’ nature of education in the west, versus constructions of ‘cultural knowledge’ as innate, burdensome, and less useful in western contexts. Drawing on Ahmeds critique of discourses of the ‘melancholy migrant’ which position western knowledges and gendered practices as progressive and therefore more desirable, the authors interrogate the possibility of multiple forms of knowledge and new migrants – especially South Sudanese – as enriched by their previous experiences and knowledges, rather than impoverished by them.

Shifting from research governance to research ethics: A novel paradigm for ethical review in community-based research

This study examines a significant gap in the role of providing ethical guidance and support for community-based research. University and health-based ethical review committees in New Zealand predominantly serve as ‘gatekeepers’ that consider the ethical implications of a research design in order to protect participants and the institution from harm. However, in New Zealand, community-based researchers routinely do not have access to this level of support or review. A relatively new group, the New Zealand Ethics Committee (NZEC), formed in 2012, responds to the uneven landscape of access for community-based research. By offering ethical approval inclusive of the review of a project’s study design outside institutional settings, NZEC has endeavoured to move beyond a gatekeeping research governance function to that of bridge-building. This change of focus presents rich possibilities but also a number of limitations for providing ethical review outside conventional institutional contexts. This paper reports on the NZEC’s experience of working with community researchers to ascertain the possibilities and tensions of shifting ethics review processes from research governance to a focus on research ethics in community-based participatory research.

Children with disabilities and disaster preparedness: a case study of Christchurch

An estimated seven million children with disabilities worldwide are affected by disasters annually. This significant figure emphasises the particular vulnerability of these children in facing natural hazards. However, their needs as well as their capacity and role in disaster risk reduction have largely been overlooked by researchers and policymakers. This paper draws on a case study in Christchurch to identify insights, realities, possibilities and obstacles in relation to the involvement in disaster preparedness of children with diverse disabilities. It reports on findings from focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with children who have disabilities, their teachers and caregivers to explore childrens preparedness and potential responses to a disaster. The findings indicate a considerable variation in how children with disabilities access available resources and perceive, face and cope with natural hazards. This paper shows their potential contribution to disaster preparedness and provides further suggestions for policy and practice.