Browsing by Subject "Refugees"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
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    Challenges to food and nutrition security among low-income communities
    (2021-10) Karnik, Harshada
    This dissertation highlights challenges to food and nutrition security, and the practices households adopt to overcome these challenges. In the first essay, I use primary data to study social capital and food security through the case study of Somali refugee households in the Midwest. In the second essay, I evaluate the impact of two interventions designed to increase nutrition awareness -- succinct nutrition labels displayed on the shelf and nutrition education workshops -- on food purchase choices of shoppers in grocery stores in rural Kansas. In the third essay, I study how the store format choices of households receiving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits change over the benefit month and how additional benefits received are distributed across store formats and over the benefit month using SNAP administrative data from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area.I find that non-monetary constraints add to the costs households incur and that reducing these costs can improve food and nutrition security. In the Somali-American community, social capital enhances food security possibly by reducing obstacles that would have otherwise increased cost. Among rural residents reducing the cost of information empowers them to make healthier choices. SNAP recipient households tend to redeem more benefits at grocery stores indicating their preference for grocery stores, yet they make a small number of redemptions at convenience stores every month suggesting their need to rely on convenience stores. The findings of this doctoral research suggest that cash transfer programs are necessary to help families overcome financial constraints, but creative solutions could help to overcome non-monetary challenges and reduce costs to access sufficient and nutritious foods and consequently promote more equitable health outcomes for all.
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    Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain Experiences of First Generation, Middle Aged Somali Women: A Descriptive Qualitative Study
    (2019-01) Swartz, Kristin L.
    Chronic pain is one of the most prevalent and costly health conditions in the United States. In refugees and immigrants, chronic pain is more prevalent and the severity of pain is higher. Musculoskeletal chronic pain is one the most common forms of pain that refugees and immigrants experience. In collaborating with a local community clinic, practitioners shared that middle-aged Somali women experienced a high incidence of non-specific musculoskeletal chronic pain that practitioners struggled to address through typical treatment measures. In a review of the literature it was found that no studies described chronic musculoskeletal pain for middle-aged Somali women, nor factors that contribute to their interpretation and management of pain. To date, there are no studies that specifically address chronic musculoskeletal pain in a refugee group in the United States, and few studies utilized a social ecological approach to describe the influence of environmental, societal, and immigration experiences in the management of pain. In this community-informed, descriptive qualitative study, musculoskeletal chronic pain experiences of first-generation, middle aged (40-65) Somali women living in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area are described. Utilizing the social ecological model and the dynamic biopsychosocial model, twelve core themes emerged that show the biological, psychological, social, and environmental factors that influenced participant experiences with pain. For Somali women in this study, the physical sensation of pain originated in the biological level and extended through the psychological and social levels of the microsystem. This physical experience of pain created a catalyzing influence that extended across the levels of the social ecological model. The core themes were: physical experience of pain, daily function and career, self-care practices, emotional experience of pain, recommendations for others experiencing pain, recommendations for community and clinics in treating pain, relationships with others, experience accessing care, financial impact, insurance affect, religious practice, traditional medicine and country of origin pain management, and sociopolitical issues. For these seventeen, first-generation, middle aged Somali women, pain was complex and multidimensional, and the physical experience of pain was only one aspect of chronic pain experience. Sociopolitical experiences were profound and triggered worry and fear that influenced pain. Insurance & financial issues compounded complexity with chronic pain management. Traditional medicine, memory of Somalia, and experience in Somalia were valuable resources and points of reference for managing pain. Pain influenced a Somali woman’s ability to secure a steady job. Pain management strategies were diverse and included integrative modalities. Religious practice was a key resource to pain management and overall pain experience. Participants sought alternatives to medications and used medications when necessary; and recommended and used exercise to manage pain. Health care providers played a key role in Somali women’s pain management. Many of these findings aligned with previous literature; however, the extensive multidimensionality of pain across the levels of the social ecological model is a new finding that should be further studied. In addition, further research is needed to expand knowledge related these findings and their potential to be generalized to other Somali women and men, and immigrants and refugees from other countries. In particular, to explore and define “Pain all over”, to investigate practitioner experiences in working with Somali patients and pain and how they approach the clinical interaction, and to examine outcomes of religious practice in pain-management. The implications of this research are several. Findings suggest the importance of story in working with Somali women to understand the meaning and cause of pain, in addition to the positive influence of health care providers when participants felt heard. Insights into how discrimination and an intense sociopolitical climate may influence the health and well-being of Somali women also emerged. Concerns were raised on language interpretation services and a need for further oversight and regulation was identified, in addition to the barriers participant’s experienced in understanding the ever-changing insurance landscape. More effort is needed to educate the greater community on experiences of immigrants and refugees in order to make informed changes in our communities, health systems, and political environment. These findings show that this social ecological approach to chronic pain treatment and management may be helpful in understanding the lived experience of pain for Somali women.
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    Entwined in the Complex Tapestry of Schooling: The Experience of Being Somali Newcomer Students in Outstate Minnesota High Schools
    (2015-06) Moriarty, Sheila
    Abstract The lives of Somali born high school students are complicated by intersections with both race and religion. They often carry refugee histories of trauma and displacement that are further exacerbated during the resettlement process. Schools are struggling to make the kinds of accommodations that will honor the Somali Muslim identity. This study uses hermeneutic and post-intentional phenomenology to look deeply at the lives of these young people. Bachelard's reverie is used to place the researcher critically within the analysis in an attempt to create a transparent and meaningful look at understanding the complexity of their experiences. Educators are called upon to recognize the hegemonic forces that marginalize these students as well as recognize how these forces are traumatic in their lives. Educators are also encouraged to adopt critical pedagogies that open themselves up to the life experiences of their Somali born students. Keywords: Somali, high school, refugee, critical pedagogy, adolescent trauma, cultural humility, intersectionality, hermeneutic phenomenology, post-intentional phenomenology, Bachelard's phenomenology of the imagination
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    An exploration of alcohol use in Karen refugee communities in the context of conflict-related displacement
    (2013-07) McCleary, Jennifer Simmelink
    Refugees who are displaced due to political conflict often experience a range of traumatic events throughout displacement and resettlement including exposure to events such as imprisonment or gender-based violence, protracted periods of time in refugee camps or resettlement related stress. Refugees who are displaced across borders bring cultural beliefs and values with them, although often the structures that support culture such as family and community are disrupted due to displacement. All of these factors can influence patterns of alcohol consumption and the consequences of alcohol use. Traditionally, high levels of alcohol consumption in refugee communities have been explored using models of self-medication of trauma symptoms or acculturation (Ezard, 2011). There have been almost no studies conducted of refugee alcohol use that qualitatively explore refugees' perceptions and experiences of alcohol use from their own perspectives. This dissertation describes a qualitative that study drew from critical ethnographic and phenomenological methodologies to explore the experiences and perceptions of alcohol use in Karen refugee communities displaced by political conflict. I collected data through focus group and individual interviews (N=62) and participant-observation in two locations: refugee camps in Thailand and a resettlement community in St. Paul, Minnesota. Analyzing the data using domain analysis (Spradley, 1979), I found that both culture and displacement related traumatic experiences contributed to increased levels of problematic alcohol use and negative consequences of alcohol use after displacement. I also discovered that geographic location may have played an influencing role on patterns of alcohol use. Participants said that many cultural structures and patterns were disrupted during displacement and this disruption of culture led to increased problems related to alcohol. Finally, Karen participants described people with problematic alcohol use as people who had stopped thinking about community and family and had begun to think only of themselves, which is counter to traditional Karen ways of thinking communally. These findings contain knowledge that will contribute to the development of culturally relevant treatment programs that consider the cultural, historical and political factors that contribute to alcohol use in Karen refugee communities as well as the ways in which communal cultural values impact both use of alcohol and quitting problematic alcohol use.
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    Forced migration processes and global refugees at the borders of Europe in Ukraine
    (2014-08) Rechitsky, Raphi Konstantin
    As of 2013, nearly half of the world's refugees stay in camps adjacent to countries of origin, largely in the Global South. Yet it is those people on the move able to seek asylum near Global North countries that have become objects of control and exclusion. This dissertation explores this asylum paradox with an extended case study of refugee migration to Ukraine, asking why do refugees stay or move again from this buffer country to the European Union (EU). It does so by exploring the impact of social network formation, household resources, and international refugee policy on the capacity, motivation, and execution of either onward mobility or settlement. Using interviews and observation in three Ukrainian cities with urban refugees from 25 countries, triangulated with legal aid case files, this project shows that questions of social action, such as why people move, are best answered by taking seriously first person narrative research methodologies. Specifically, findings demonstrate (1) the security of social networks drives capacity to move or stay; (2) access to different resources influences exit, voice, or adaptation; and (3) refugees seek to settle or move on regardless of EU-funded humanitarian policy for their local integration. This study challenges the transnational paradigm in migration studies, bridging literatures on how migration is sustained with political sociology and refugee studies. The contribution links micro and macro levels in the sociology of migration, building on recent studies of migration trust networks, Bourdieu's view on the transfer of capital in everyday life, and the role of international institutions in the extraterritorial "remote control" of asylum.
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    From Displaced Persons to Exiles: Nationalism, Anti-Communism, and the Shaping of Latvian American Diaspora
    (2016-06) Ankrava, Arta
    This dissertation explores the shaping of the Latvian American exile from temporary settlement in Displaced Persons (DP) camps in post-war Europe, to resettlement to the U.S. following the DP Act of 1948. Specifically, Latvian diasporic discourses of nationalism, transnationalism, and anti-Communism are analyzed through the lens of Latvian-language exile periodicals. These are conceptualized as a transnational space, a locus of intersection of diasporic, national and hybrid, and sometimes competing identities. Building on archival research conducted at the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, the project uses newspaper articles to identify the variety of discourses present in major diasporic periodicals and draws out points of contention as well as agreement on the shaping of the Latvian nation both pre and post USSR dissolution. The dissertation’s main goal is to explore how the Latvian American exile community was shaped by the Cold War, and how Latvia as nation was imagined and re-imagined in diasporic press. Through secondary source analysis of Vietnamese refugee experience later in the twentieth century, this project also aims to question notions of “exile” and “refugee” as such, and interrogates how they were used in relation to different Cold War era anti-Communist immigrant groups to the U.S. Finally, the dissertation also addresses post-USSR collapse Latvian identity politics, including exile and homeland relations, as well as suggesting avenues for future research.
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    Healthcare providers' perspectives on parental health literacy and child health outcomes among Southeast Asian American immigrants and refugees
    (Elsevier Ltd., 2016-06-08) Khuu, Belle, P.
    Lowhealth literacy has emerged as an important area of research because of its close linkwith health disparities. In this study, we used a qualitative approach to investigate healthcare providers' perspectives on the health literacy of immigrant and refugee parents and its association with children's health. Sixteen health and mental health professionals serving immigrant and refugee parents and children in various clinical settingswere recruited through a purposive sampling method and interviewed. Six broad themes were identified: (1) multi-dimensional components of parental health literacy; (2) parent characteristics and native country experiences; (3) host systems and their interactions impact on parental health literacy; (4) diverse aspects of help-seeking; (5) culture- based parental help-seeking; and (6) child health outcomes. Within these larger themes, the complexity of parental health literacy and its various effects on children's health outcomes among immigrant and refugee parents were evident. Future research includes more population-based quantitative studies of parental health literacy and culturally relevant clinical approaches among immigrant and refugee parents.
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    Identification and Outreach to Persons with Disabilities Memorandum to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
    (Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, 2014-05-05) Dorsher, Patricia; Kim, Yoontaik; Krzyska, Amy; Perna, Amy; Wolfish, Jonathan
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    The mental health sequelae and treatment of massive community violence in West Africa
    (2008-12) Hess, Daniel Burton
    Sierra Leone is one of several countries in sub-Saharan Africa in which great deposits of diamonds have been exploited to fund regional wars. These wars have resulted in 3.7 million deaths (Amnesty International, 2007a), and massive and systematic human rights atrocities in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Although many international agencies overcame innumerable challenges during this period to provide in-camp relief services for refugees, conventional wisdom in this field suggested that ongoing data collection could not be done in the politically unstable, critically underfunded, and frequently unsafe conditions of a refugee camp. This paper explores the mental health sequelae of the massive violence perpetrated against the people of Sierra Leone and Liberia, and the relations between post-trauma symptomology, daily functioning, social support, and counseling while following survivors living in United Nations' refugee camps, internally-displaced-persons camps, and back to their home communities in West Africa. A secondary, cross-sectional analysis of data initially collected from 2001 to 2006 for program evaluation and the clinical assessment of 4010 adult clients attending a counseling program showed that reported exposure to violence was related to psychosocial symptomology and problematic functioning; worse symptoms were related to worse functioning; refugees who reported exposure to torture had worse symptoms, but no difference in functioning than refugees who reported no torture; females had worse symptoms and worse functioning than males; younger age was related to greater exposure to violence and worse symptoms; greater substance use was related to greater exposure to violence, worse symptoms, and male sex; and access to informal social support was related to better symptoms and better functioning. From the original dataset of 4010 completed intake assessments, a subset of data from 1186 clients who had been successfully tracked for two subsequent assessments was examined. Substantial improvement in symptoms, functioning, and social connectedness was found one month into an 8-to-10-week counseling program and at three-months. Also of significance, this study demonstrates that data can be effectively collected over an extended period under difficult and dangerous conditions, and that ongoing program evaluation and clinical assessment can be reasonably included as a regular component of refugee relief field-programs.
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    No Asylum For Mankind: The Creation Of Refugee Law And Policy In The United States, 1776-1951
    (2018-03) Taparata, Evan
    This dissertation examines America’s forgotten era of refugee regulation. Although modern refugee policy in the United States is often perceived as an invention of the twentieth century, the regulation of refugees has been central to American history since the nation’s founding. With analysis of legal documents, the records of local, state, and federal government agencies, and texts authored by refugees, this study examines in comparative perspective the United States' foundational examples of refugee policy-making during the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Mexican Revolution, and World Wars I and II. I argue that America’s earliest examples of refugee regulation were entangled with the dispossession of Native people, the marginalization of African Americans before and after emancipation, and the exclusion of so-called “undesirable” immigrants. Biases concerning race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and ability influenced distinctions about who was and was not a legitimate “refugee” in the US. Those biases also shaped conceptions of who did and did not belong within US borders and the legal and political infrastructure that enforced them. Refugee regulation thus did not emerge after World War II, when the United States rose to a position of unprecedented power on the world stage. The creation of American refugee law and policy was a process that went hand-in-hand with defining the nation and consolidating the US nation-state’s authority at home and abroad. By using the United States to explore the role that nation-states play in the production and regulation of refugees, this dissertation historicizes the global challenges of population displacement and persecution that persist in the present.
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    A social ecology of stress and coping among homeless refugee families.
    (2011-08) Im, Hyojin
    Refugee families undergo multiple challenges and hardships that tend to cause tremendous psychological distress in the migration and resettlement processes. This dissertation research was designed to explore refugee families' mental health in the social ecological contexts of displacement and homelessness and to investigate stressors and coping in relation to transition of resources including social capital of refugee families. With three theoretical frameworks, a social ecology theory, stress and coping theory, and social capital theory, the author developed a series of hypothetical statements as well as research questions to modify and refine hypotheses on stress and coping processes of refugee families. A modified analytic induction method was adopted for analysis of interview data from 26 Hmong and Somali families in Twin Cities area. The findings of this study revealed that psychological distress was deeply associated with challenges and transition in resources at various levels. Rearrangement of resources (cultural resources in particular) occurred after resettlement, which tended to impede coping capacity of refugee families and cause acculturation stress. Social capital, both bonding and linking, functioned as a critical form of resource for refugee families to resettle and adjust to the host community by supplementing personal, family, and cultural resources that are often sparse in refugee communities. The results of the current study imply that it is a critical coping strategy for refugee families to build or increase social capital, which sometimes leads families' secondary migration in search of better bonding social capital. This study also demonstrated high levels of psychological distress among refugee families, ranging from traumatic experiences before migration to acute stress after homelessness. Exposure to traumatic events before and during migration was salient in refugee families, while a lack of resources and frustrated coping strategies contributed to tremendous distress, which has been a chronic condition for the refugee families. This dissertation underscores the importance of social work practice focusing on culturally responsive resettlement services considering various challenges and cultural coping of refugee families. Policy interventions promoting family and bonding social capital are also critical to improve resettlement outcomes as well as refugee mental health.