What is this research about?
When asylum seekers and refugees are displaced, how do they use communication technologies to maintain links with friends and family during flight and forced migration? When they are detained, what role does technology play in the ways asylum seekers communicate with the "outside"?
What do you need to know?
This discussion paper examines an 18-month qualitative pilot study (Leung et al 2009) that explored these questions. The pilot study provided an insight into how asylum seekers use communication technologies during conflict, flight, detention and displacement, to maintain links with their families and friends back home, with diasporic networks from their country of origin and with communities in the country where they are seeking asylum. It was also one of the first studies to examine how communication with the outside world occurs in immigration detention centres and to document asylum seeker perspectives on the communication restrictions encountered there.
It's useful to know that "the study emerged from the author's personal involvement with refugee advocacy groups and in visitor programs to immigration detention centres. As a sociologist of technology [and an outsider to the discipline of Refugee Studies], her interest was in how differences in technology- mediated communication occurred in the restrictive environment of immigration detention, compared with other contexts of forced migration, flight and displacement."
While in 2011 technology use by refugees had minimal investigation, that has certainly changed dramatically since the mass migration movements through Europe in 2015. This study provides some useful perspectives before much academic attention was focused on technology use by refugees.
What did the researchers do?
The research questions asked by the pilot study included: How are communication technologies used in the countries of origin, during forced migration and in the settlement process? How are their benefits and limitations perceived? How are relationships of power surrounding these technologies negotiated? What, if any, virtual communities surround these technologies? How does technology assist refugees in sustaining connections with their virtual communities?
The researcher analyzed 30 interviews and 43 surveys with refugees and asylum seekers about their use of communication technology across both contexts of displacement, detention and refugee camps. Participants were recruited from asylum seeker support networks and refugee communities in Sydney, Australia.
Refugee communities, advocates, international non-government organizations, resettlement services and researchers were invited to a community workshop that would disseminate the report's findings and identify potential solutions and actions that will support refugees and asylum seekers' use of communication technologies in displacement settings and during resettlement in Australia. The workshop focused on the experience of refugees and asylum seekers from Eastern and Western Africa.
What did the researchers find?
At the workshop, a brainstorm of initiatives or actions that could be undertaken in refugee camps and other types of displacement settings generated the following project ideas. The feasibility and merits of each idea could not be fully assessed during the workshop. Therefore, these project ideas are presented for further analysis and development:
How can you use this research?
While the context for this study was Australia, there are useful lessons for anyone interested in learning about refugee use of technology. The study's questions are still relevant today:
What is this research about?
Several studies demonstrate that immigrants use computers and the Internet more than non-immigrants or earlier immigrants. In this study, the researcher sought to answer these questions: What motivates immigrants to use information and communication technology (ICT)? What are the factors that influence immigrants’ ICT behaviors?
What do you need to know?
Several studies assessing immigrants’ struggles in adjusting to the host country’s environment have identified that ICTs—mainly computers and the internet—play pivotal roles in the successful resettlement of immigrants.
What did the researchers do?
The author chose 20 peer-reviewed articles published between 2001 and 2015 to study immigrants’ motivations for ICT adoption and use.
Six studies discussed the issues of immigrants in the U.S. Ten studies (two from each country) focused on immigrants in New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Germany, and The Netherlands. Two studies (one from each country) examined immigrants’ ICT adoption in Australia and Singapore. The two remaining articles were based on literature review. These articles demonstrated a trend that immigrants from developing countries (i.e., South America, Africa, and Asia) resided in developed countries in North America (U.S. and Canada), West Europe (Germany and The Netherlands), and Australia (Australia and New Zealand). Interestingly, two small but developed Asian nations (Israel and Singapore) were also among the countries that received immigrants.
Of the 20 articles, 17 were empirical studies. The three remaining performed meta-analysis on immigrants’ adjustment to their new environment, as well as their use of ICTs to facilitate their transition. Among the empirical studies: five used semi- structured interviews; five used survey methods; three used ethnographic studies; two used focus groups; and two used in-depth interviews. Of the three meta-analyses, two studies were based on literature review and one study used data from the Canadian Internet Use Survey-2010.
What did the researchers find?
The article discusses two motives for immigrants’ ICT use, as well as identify seven factors influencing adoption, non-adoption, use, and non-use.
The two key motivations for ICT adoption and use by immigrants are:
The seven factors influencing immigrants’ decisions to adopt and use ICTs were:
By using ICTs, immigrants can:
Several studies indicate that:
Immigrants’ Motivations for ICT Use:
How can you use this research?
Drawing from the selected articles, it was found that immigrants’ motivation for ICT adoption and use was unique and did not remain intact for a long time. Rather, immigrants’ communication with people back home slowly faded. In turn, interaction with local people in the host country gradually increased. This is useful for immigrant and refugee-serving organizations to understand.
As newcomer clients move through the various stages of settlement, it's important to note how their use of ICTs and the reasons why they use them shifts. It's also important to recognize the real digital divide among newcomers and how that can impact their access to information and services in an increasingly digitized world.
What is this research about?
This report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) discusses the implications of adding messaging apps to the range of communications channels currently used by humanitarian organizations, which includes face-to-face communication, print materials, SMS messaging, social media, radio and television. The report does not include detailed discussions of the uses or functionalities of these other channels, which have been discussed and researched extensively elsewhere (particularly in the context of natural disasters).
This report is intended as a first step towards understanding how messaging apps are used in the humanitarian sector, particularly in conflict situations. It also aims to clarify the opportunities and challenges this technology presents and identify avenues for future research and action.
What do you need to know?
The questions raised in this study very much overlap questions we need to be asking about, including creating the strategies and standards for use of messaging apps and technology more broadly in the immigrant and refugee-serving sector.
As smartphone ownership and messaging-app usage continues to rise, it is clear that messaging apps are here to stay. However, humanitarian organizations have so far only conducted limited research into where and how messaging apps could help improve their work. Using messaging apps also introduces critically important questions about security, data protection and privacy, and creates technical challenges for information management and data analytics.
These unresolved questions must be resolved. The practical uses of messaging apps as an operational tool, both for two-way communication with local communities, and for internal coordination, information-sharing and management, offer an opportunity, but one that must be well harnessed.
What did the researchers do?
This report is based on a survey of relevant literature, interviews with staff working in humanitarian organizations (including technology specialists, logistics officers and field workers), representatives of messaging app companies, and organizations that focus on providing technology for humanitarian organizations.
Interviewees were identified through the authors’ and advisory groups’ networks, and through responses to an open call publicized on mailing lists and through social media. In total, researchers spoke with more than 45 people working in Asia, Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
What did the researchers find?
Humanitarian organizations need to better understand how to make use of the opportunities that messaging apps offer. To do so, they should establish strategies and standards to determine where messaging apps might be appropriate, how to use them effectively and how to meet the responsible data challenges they pose.
The researchers offer a number of recommendations from:
How can you use this research?
Review the principles and incorporate them into your work. International humanitarian organizations' work overlaps with immigrant and refugee-serving organizations. In some cases, you will actually serve the same people (refugees) in different contexts. The principles and practices outlined in this document are useful for all in the immigrant and refugee-serving sector.
The authors provide useful information about how organizations are using messaging apps in their work. They also outline the challenges and risks.
Usefully, they also provide an appendix examining features offered by ten messaging apps: Facebook Messenger, imo, LINE, Skype, Snapchat, Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp, Signal and FireChat.
What is this research about?
This research was conducted by inaugural recipients of the New America Public Interest Technology fellowship. The authors' intention is to shine a light on different methods public interest technologists are trying, share common struggles, or and create a gut check for the may people wondering, “Am I the only one feeling/seeing/thinking this way?” Their message for these people: You are not alone. You are part of a wonderful, frustrating, thrilling, hair-pulling moment in time. Whether it seems like it or not, you are doing good work, and you are part of a national cadre of people who are right there with you, whether you know them or not.
What do you need to know?
Public interest technology is a field funders and foundations are trying to build. The inspiration for the name “public interest technology” comes from public interest law. By investing in “public interest law” in the 1970s, civic-minded people who attended law school built careers, using law degrees, to serve the public good. Forty years later, many are interested in a parallel playbook for people with technology expertise in and around government, nonprofit, NGO, university, public sector, and social services spaces. Public interest technology overlaps with “civic tech” or “civic technology”–– related phrases used by practitioners and the media over the last decade–– particularly in reference to people working in or around government with a focus on incorporating technology, technology practices, and “technologists.”
Today, however, both “public interest technology” and “civic technology” stand at odds with the first theme the authors discuss in this report: It’s not about technology. Or, rather, not only about technology. Or always about technology. And thus, neither are the people doing the work. Rather than what people called themselves, we saw common language around what people said they do: solve problems, “making government services work for the people who need them most.”
The authors suggest that this report will be of interest to a wide range of readers:
It is also of interest to those outside of government. In particular, those funded by government to provide community and social services.
What did the researchers do?
In 2017 and 2018, researchers interviewed problem-solvers working across federal, state, and local government in the United States on improving the state of government services. This movement is small compared to the number of government agencies running business as usual, but it is growing. Innovation teams, digital service teams, technologists, researchers, policymakers, lawyers, funders, and service designers are rethinking how government functions, reshaping how people solve problems, and helping to restore citizens’ faith in governing bodies.
They focused on people improving government services through technology and citizen-centered thinking. They interviewed people from major cities to smaller locales; chief innovation officers and city managers to service designers, product managers, and engineers.
What did the researchers find?
It’s Not About the Technology. The conversation needs to move beyond technology. Technology is “the easy part” compared to improving business processes, and implementing and maintaining technical solutions, we heard.
However, even though practitioners said that technology often wasn’t the most difficult piece of solving a larger problem and wanted to be recognized for bringing more to the table, they also found others in government often downplay the degree of technical complexity many projects entail, to the point that unqualified people get assigned, resulting in technical disaster.
Even though technology often isn’t the solution, and is frequently undervalued or misunderstood, it serves as an entry point to tackling larger problems in government. The reality is that it will only increase in scope, influence, and importance. Ariel Kennan, former director of design and product at the New York City Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity notes:
“Competency in technology is essential if you're delivering public services in the twenty-first century. You may not be delivering a service via a website, but you probably have a case management system or data analytics or metrics or something that has something to do with technology. You have to be literate in it at some level.”
The authors found that public technology technologists are interested in shifting the thinking in their city or government agency toward service design and solving process problems. It is essential to expand the innovation workforce. But sourcing this talent should not come from technologists alone. It is everyone's work to become technically literate, aware of and open to the possibilities, as well as pitfalls that technology can bring to service delivery.
The authors provide a snapshot of what this work looks like now, how there is a need for practitioners to recognize that they are a unique sector and require convening and professional development, and as they explore what model innovation teams should follow they are left with more questions than answers in the evolving field.
How can you use this research?
This report reflects many of the things people often wonder about at work, whisper in corners at conferences, save in browser tabs, or jot in the margins at meetings to think over later: Where are we seeing solutions? Where are we seeing pain points? Who else is doing this? How are they approaching it? How do I find them?
The authors started their work wanting to find tactics, and create a roadmap or playbook to guide others. They quickly realized no one has it all figured out. As a community, public interest technologists are still trying to answer the most basic questions. What do we call ourselves? This work? Is this a field? What do we really mean by innovation? With so much work to be done, where do we start? What’s the best way to hire people? What’s the best way to keep them once they’ve been hired? How do we affect culture change? How do we get the work done? How do we know when we’ve succeeded? How do we know when it’s time to quit?
The immigrant and refugee-serving sector is similarly made up of a growing number of disjointed public interest technologists. The work in this book can help guide you to connect with similar peers in government, across your own sector, as well as across other non-profit sectors.
What is this research about?
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) contracted Open North to conduct a small study to better understand the needs of existing and potential users of open data as released by IRCC on open.canada.ca, and to inform ongoing efforts to unlock the potential applications of open data to support newcomer settlement and integration in Canada.
What do you need to know?
This is a small scale study. But it is one of the only studies that looks at this question in the Canadian immigrant and refugee-serving sector. While it would be impossible to extrapolate Open North's findings to the entire sector, there are a number of useful findings and recommendations that the sector should review with its largest funder, IRCC.
What did the researchers do?
Open North designed and shared a data user survey with 48 questions for fifteen stakeholders (e.g. employers, settlement service providers, academia, government) provided by IRCC.
The survey completion guidelines encouraged stakeholders to consult individuals within their respective organizations who are responsible for compiling research, inputting data into data management systems, writing reports, creating online tools and services, or who are involved in the use and management of data and information.
Eight completed surveys were collected, including two submissions by different individuals from the same organization. Seven agreed to be listed as participants in the study:
What did the researchers find?
All stakeholders view data as essential (fairly important, or very important) in carrying out their mission and work, and all have several staff members dedicated to collecting, assembling and analyzing data. Wervice providers were interested in qualitative data as a complementary source of information that helps contextualize quantitative datasets and their analysis, as well as the experience of service users.
There is very limited knowledge about open data itself among stakeholders. Many also found IRCC's open data online catalogue difficult to navigate.
There is a lack of usable provincial and municipal data, either produced by these orders of government, or available by breakdown at the provincial and municipal levels. Data granularity is also problematic in some parts of the country, like the Atlantic provinces, where labour force and immigration survey data are lumped together. Enabling settlement organizations to track the movement of populations through the analysis of data sources on the demand for services is also problematic.
Navigating open data is cumbersome, as is communications around them. Survey participants suggested a forum be created with IRCC in order to increase collaboration between the research community, stakeholder organizations and IRCC. There are successful examples. The example of how IRCC tracked the arrival of Syrian refugees was praised, especially by settlement organizations. The access to frequently updated data such as the plane number, arrival schedules, number of passengers on each plane, which was presented on an interactive map, helped stakeholders plan their responses. However, as one stakeholder observed, it has become difficult to track the whereabouts of refugees after they arrive. This is especially the case for privately sponsored refugees.
The sector's literacy with regards to the legal and technical aspects of open data is low. Organizations are unaware of the licensing issues around open data. When it comes to technical literacy, most have difficulty forming an opinion on data encoding and data formats, so much so that most cannot seem to identify specific challenges regarding these issues. However, one thing is clear: most are seeking a better standardization process and a more user-friendly interface.
How can you use this research?
This study provides a useful starting point for sector organizations to look at publicly available data that can be incorporated into their work, including funding applications. Open North made a number of useful and practical recommendations for IRCC to increase and improve sector access to and literacy with open data. This includes investments in data literacy programs (including open data principles, and technical skills and knowledge) for front-line organizations, as long as it doesn’t pull them away from service delivery. Investments should be made to increase capacity, not try to do more with less.
This report fits into a broader sector conversation about improving data, how it is collected, as well as used, by sector organizations with the explicit goal of improving newcomer outcomes. Increasing sector literacy and capacity in accessing not only government data, but their own client and community data is essential to ensuring and measuring service effectiveness.
What is this research about?
Networked technologies are a key tool for today’s refugees; not only on the move but also upon arrival in their new surroundings. Where mobile Internet access is affordable and infrastructures are stable, as in Europe’s metropoles, refugees can use smartphones to cope with everyday challenges. This paper presents findings from a qualitative interview study with Syrian refugees who settled in Vienna, Austria.
What do you need to know?
Even though the interviewees were experienced in using a smartphone, only some were aware that smartphone affordances and services would differ in Europe from those in Syria. Accordingly, the process of appropriating the smartphone evolved gradually as an extension of contexts of use and an accompanied acquisition of digital skills in the local app economies. Over time, the participants discovered ways to include the devices into their everyday life until the smartphones were indispensable, deeply embedded problem-solving tools.
The interviewees could self-reliantly make use of a broad range of apps and YouTube videos, also thanks to the work of other immigrants and engaged native speakers producing the free content. Adapting to technologies of their new location is important for newcomers, in the same way that it is important for settlement workers to adapt to the technologies of their clients.
What did the researchers do?
The study implemented a three-fold methodology, combining face-to-face interviews, WhatsApp chats, and participant research. Results are presented from a localized appropriation notion (the act of making use of local specific media environment when drawing a media technology into one’s life) identifying practices in the contexts of: place-making and geographical orientation; information access and self-help; language learning and translation; and ‘doing family’. Hence, refugees are both emotionally attached to and technically dependent on their devices. The article concludes that smartphones hold an untapped potential for integration processes.
The interview guide covered three main topics:
What did the researchers find?
None of the interviewees mentioned having been informed by either the national or municipal government about apps being helpful in everyday life situations. Considering the potential to boost localized appropriation processes and thus finding a way into a host society, this is a sobering finding.
Smartphones became a key tool in several areas of the participants’ lives and helped them in coping with everyday challenges. Researchers asked the interviewees to name their five most important apps. Most often named were Facebook, WhatsApp, qando Wien [Viennese public transport app], Google Maps, and Google Translate. Of all the about 90 different apps and functions mentioned in the data, none had been specifically designed for immigrants or refugees. This is in stark contrast to the heavily mediatized prevalence of apps-for-refugees and apps-for-Syrian-refugees – a Google search in January 2018 pro- vided half-a-million results for both phrases. The researcher categorized the attributes of the apps and the related practices into four themed categories:
How can you use this research?
This research has relevance for the discovery of technology as a tool for settlement work - "While drawing the technology into their life world, users in fact expand their life world and do things, they did not expect themselves. They see their capabilities in a new and expanded light and are able to do more than they expected." Newcomer social networks are being accessed by newcomers settlement agencies want to reach and serve. Should agencies simply be encouraged to make use of existing apps which clients are using and use them in a way that also meets client needs? It is fairly difficult to try to compete with apps that come pre-installed on a smartphone, or are already perceived as useful in daily life compared with an app that may come from an as of yet untrusted source.
It is essential to understand that newcomer and community information practices before agencies embark on technical development. It also impacts the creation of information and orientation materials, as well as how they are marketed to potential audiences. This is a useful finding and should provide sober information about the idea of the need to create new apps by individual settlement agencies. Are newcomers going to actually download them if they're agency vs city specific?
This study also brings attention to the relevance of localized digital migration practices for social integration, in which ‘settlers struggle to move from the familiar information landscapes of their previous lives towards the new, established landscape that constitutes their new environment.’ The article traces how refugees pushthe limits of using the smartphone, thus, opening up ‘spaces of agency’ in their everyday lives, and seeks to follow a ‘humane viewpoint in which the agency and subjectivity of the refugee is emphasized rather than their inescapable victimhood and despair.'
As the researchers point out:
"The findings of the study have policy implications. The issue of refugees with smart-phones has the potential to be approached more productively by municipalities with a genuine interest in supporting newcomers with the local integration process. Providing a list of freely available apps for the host city’s everyday context would be an efficient, low-cost way to support informal, autonomous learning – and thus accelerate social inclusion (Lloyd et al., 2013). As the findings presented here illustrate, many refugees own personal, permanently connected smartphones and already eagerly search for means to expand their devices’ usefulness. A ‘decreed’ use of smartphones for mobile learning would also facilitate a re-framing of the smartphone from the luxury item that stereotypically renders refugees as undeserving of asylum (Leurs & Ponzanesi, 2018) to a mandatory device for immigrant education in the hands of new arrivals."
What is this research about?
This report examines the theory, research and measurement frameworks informing evaluation strategies in the nonprofit sector and considering their impact on resilience related to immigrant settlement in Canada. The authors outline an opportunity to empower service providers, drive better performance assessments, improve newcomer outcomes and promote more equitable, inclusive, vibrant and resilient communities for all.
What you need to know:
Resilience is defined as the ability to rebound and adapt to change, disruption, adversity and/or stress. It is concerned with the return to a state of stability or even prosperity or greater functionality. For immigrants and their families, resilience relates to their ability to settle, adapt and prosper in their new country with the aid of the settlement service system.
The authors suggest that the resilience of the immigrant settlement sector and the newcomers they serve is dependent on a number of factors. Among these, in terms of resilience, is an underappreciated component centered on accountability and performance measurement by funders.
Funder accountability and performance measurement systems are not neutral tools. They have for example, been connected to excessive organizational operational structures and reporting burdens that shift nonprofits’ accountability focus away from newcomer clients and immigrant communities toward an excessive emphasis on addressing funder accountability ‘needs’.
What did the researchers do?
The authors examine the theory, research and measurement frameworks informing evaluation strategies in the nonprofit sector and consider their impact on resilience related to immigrant settlement in Canada. The complexity and heterogeneity of settlement services delivery and the current state of the IRCC’s accountability and performance measurement system are investigated. The authors detail the opportunity to empower service providers, drive better performance assessments, improve newcomer outcomes and promote more equitable, inclusive, vibrant and resilient communities for all.
What did the researchers find?
Non-profit organizations (NPOs) apply evaluation to support social innovation, identify program improvements, motivate and engage staff, assess partnerships, build capacity, facilitate strategic decision-making, measure the impact of and/or inform the evolution of their organization’s mission and most frequently, as an instrument of accountability and legitimacy.
Accountability can be described in terms of its relationships: upward in relation to funders; downward with respect to its obligations to clients and communities served; and, internal accountabilities to an NPOs mission, staff, volunteers, partners, and management boards. An important distinction exists between instrumental accountability relating to transactions between an NPO service provider and its clients, donors or suppliers and expressive accountability that concerns value driven accountabilities to the community and organizational mission (e.g., advocacy, advancing values and extending caring functions).
Nonprofits operate in resource constrained environments and funding type has been shown to have a profound impact on how NPOs prioritize accountabilities and on the measurement strategies pursued. Research illuminates the dominance of upward accountability requirements in public service contracting which privilege instrumental accountability and short-term burdensome control mechanisms at the expense of capacity building, deeper impact and the expressive mission-focused activities that drive long-term social change. Higher proportions of government funding have also been associated with an increase in using evaluations for symbolic purposes (i.e., obtaining a “seal”). Further research demonstrates how short-term program metrics, such as cost per client measures, can work in opposition to long-term client success. For example, in many human services domains, studies have demonstrated that approaches advancing client agency, self-esteem and independence may take longer and result in non-linear paths; however, these client-led models are more effective, leading to better, more sustainable client outcomes. NPOs recognize the critical importance of nuanced staff judgements and the intangibles that drive results; however, these factors are largely ignored in the dominant funder logic models and measurement frameworks.
An evaluation of Canada’s performance with respect to newcomer integration and settlement must address full and equitable participation, recognition and belonging, both economically and in all aspects of Canadian society. This represents the public interest. Measurement of this nature would appropriately describe the gaps in performance and highlight the place of government intervention, investment and scale of collaboration, innovation and partnership with NPOs required, in order to effectively support newcomer resilience. Regrettably, our analysis revealed the IRCC’s approach to be transactional, onerous and challenging NPO capacity.
In this critical sector, NPO capacity building is essential but funding is insufficient. The government’s emphasis on instrumental accountability (e.g., contract management) at the expense of expressive, mission-focused accountability appears to be odds with the data and analysis required to address urgent settlement system needs.
The authors recommend a more balanced measurement framework that:
How can you use this research?
This research builds on previous research that recognizes immigrant and refugee-serving organizations' resilience. It also acknowledges their difficulties building and resourcing the capacity they know they need in order to help newcomers achieve better settlement and inclusion outcomes. This research is useful in ongoing advocacy efforts with major funders to continue the conversation about client outcomes and the resources organizations need to optimize them.
Abstract
“This article analyzes the experiences of refugee claimants in Toronto’s everyday healthcare places, like walk-in clinics, doctor’s offices, and hospitals, in the aftermath of the 2012 Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) revisions. By drawing upon critical migration scholarship that prioritizes (non)citizenship, as well as semi-structured interviews, I highlight how the social positioning of refugee claimants is modulated in ways that justify and extend the IFHP revisions to effectively deny access to healthcare, demonstrating the indeterminacy of access. I understand this process through the concept of irregularity, a non-juridical status that is contingently configured and enforced by state and non-state actors when one is (re)constructed as ‘out of place,’ hence limiting access to resources and rights. In accordance with citizenship, it indicates how we can think of the (re)fashioning of people and groups particularly within the everyday. I follow this with a critical analysis of the contestations that emerged to challenge the IFHP revisions and the irregularity of refugee claimants so as to capture the politics of irregularity.”
Conclusion
“The confusion and barriers created through the IFHP revisions came to an end in April 2016 when the program was fully restored to its pre-2012 levels under the newly elected federal Liberal government; it was further expanded in April 2017 to refugees awaiting resettlement to Canada. However, concerns continue to be raised about the healthcare barriers faced
by refugee claimants and other un(der)insured and nonstatus persons (Caulford & Rahunathan, 2017; Chen, Gruben & Liew, 2018; Wright, 2018), alerting us to how this program perpetuates health inequality and contributes to the (re)irregularization of refugee claimants. In this article, I draw on critical citizenship and migration scholarship (Baines & Sharma, 2002; Castañeda, 2013; Hepworth, 2014; Isin, 2002), to highlight how the irregularity of refugee claimants was (re)constructed during the time of revisions (2012-2016) in ways that led to denied access to healthcare coverage and services. I also reveal how healthcare providers resist irregularity – as acts of citizenship – and the consequences of such forms of resistance and struggle. In this regard, I emphasize how irregularity entails regulatory and resistive elements, which accentuates the messiness that defines (non)citizenship and the experiences of precarious status noncitizens. Through the lens of irregularity, this paper draws further attention to how the healthcare rights and entitlements of refugee claimants within Canada are circumvented by way of (re)constructing a non-juridical status at both national and local scales.
The rights and overall wellbeing of refugee claimants are also challenged outside of the healthcare sector. Refugee claimants face barriers to affordable, long-term shelter (Kissoon, 2013; Rider, 2018), and female refugee claimants navigate a system that often does not recognize their genuine fear of domestic abuse (Bhuyan, Vargas & Pintin-Perez, 2016). Furthermore, Canada continues to differentiate asylum claims based upon country of origin, while Canadian citizenship is increasingly being rendered a ‘conditional privilege,’ leading to ‘citizenship stripping’ and de facto statelessness (Stasiulis, 2017, pp. 2-3). Coming to terms with irregularity within this context will allow scholars and activists to critically confront the naturalness with which the virtuousness of citizenship is portrayed, and the barriers to justice and equity that it upholds.”
Source:
Research at a Glance is designed to inform the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) community and other interested parties about recently published, policy-relevant research from government, academic and NGO sources. The views expressed in the documents described do not necessarily reflect those of IRCC.
Highlights
Abstract
“This study explores the effect of human rights violations in countries of origin on migrants' mental health, using archival data on human rights violations from 1970-2011, merged to a representative probability sample of 2,412 adults living in a large Canadian metropolitan area. The context of exit is defined at the country level, as opposed to self-reported individual experiences of trauma. While most studies start from a question about direct exposure to human rights violations, they may miss the effect of the national-level social context - threat, instability, disruption of lives, and uncertainty - on mental health. Findings indicate that high levels of human rights violations in countries of origin have long-term effects on migrants’ mental health. The impact of human rights violations is substantially explained by the combined effect of stressors both before and after migration, suggesting a cumulative process of stress proliferation following this context of exit.”
Discussion & Conclusion
“This study used individual and country data to examine the effect of human rights violations in countries of origin at the time of exit on migrants' mental health. Findings indicate that human rights violations in countries of origin have a significant effect on migrants’ mental health, even after controlling for closely related country-level forms of stress. In general, migrants from countries with moderate-to-high levels of human rights violations experience more psychological distress than migrants from countries with low levels of human rights violations. Those from countries with high levels of human rights violations also experience more psychological distress than the native-born.
This finding is not restricted to the experiences of refugees, it is not a short-term adjustment issue, and it is not based on the self-reports of individuals about the direct experience of human rights violations. Instead, we emphasize the important possibility that the entire national-level climate accompanying human rights violations has a long-term effect even among those not directly exposed, because the context of exit socializes constant vigilance in the face of threat, insecurity, and uncertainty.
Our analysis indicates that the effect of human rights violations on migrants’ mental health is substantially explained by the effect of pre- and post-migration stressors. While the effect of moderate level of human rights violations is explained by stressful life events experienced before migration, the effect of high levels of human rights violations is explained more by post-migration stress experiences. Discrimination, acculturative stress, and economic hardship are post-migration stressors that help explain the higher levels of psychological distress in migrants from countries with high levels of human rights violations. Because individual sociodemographic characteristics including race/ethnicity and refugee status are controlled and have little influence on the effect of human rights violations net of other controls, this suggests that migrating from a high human rights violations context leads to more stress exposures after migration.
Broadly, results are consistent with the concept of stress proliferation (Pearlin, 1989, 1999) and the argument that contexts of exit may lead to more stress before and after migration (Torres & Wallace, 2013; Vega & Rumbaut, 1991). They also add to those of Steel et al. (2009) by showing the effects of human rights violations contexts on the mental health of refugee and non-refugee migrants, and by highlighting the explanatory role of stress before and after migration.
Some potential limitations, however, must be considered in interpreting the results. First, in our analysis, we treated stressors over time additively, but it is also possible that earlier stress may either sensitize or de-sensitize migrants to the effects of later stress. We tested this possibility in analyses not shown, by testing interactions between pre-migration stress and post-migration stress. We found in these analyses that greater exposure to pre-migration stress does not elevate the effect of post-migration stress on distress, with the one exception of acculturative stress. The coefficient for the interaction between pre-migration stress and acculturative stress was positive and statistically significant (1.822, p = 0.001). This interaction, however, changed little the results we report or the mediating role of stressors overall. Second, the list of items used to measure stressful life events that occurred before migration do not capture all traumatic events experienced under situations of severe and systematic human rights violations. A special emphasis in future research should be placed on the effect of human rights violations at both the individual-level and country-level. Third, mental health was measured only at the time of the interview. Obviously, longitudinal data would allow tracking of real-time changes after arrival. Fourth, the effects reported in this study were examined in a sample of English-speaking adults living in Toronto, Canada, which could reduce the generalizability of the findings. These effects, and differences in exposure to stress may be smaller given that non-English speaking migrants were not included in the sample. However, we note that the average percent of residents speaking English as one of their daily languages is 96% in Toronto Census tracts in 2006, and that in 85% of the tracts with a high number of migrants, at least 90% speak English (Census, 2006) Moreover, we note that Canada has a “points system” for entry that weights language skills, and that all primary applicants must pass English tests. This is not true of sponsored spouses and refugees, but we sampled English-speakers in households when a targeted respondent did not speak English. The data are also weighted by migrant status and other socio-demographic variables, meaning that the sample was fairly representative of the population living in the census tracts that were selected for the survey (O’Campo et al., 2015). Relatedly and fifth, migrants in Canada are quite a heterogeneous group and there is of course a risk that not all this heterogeneity has been captured by the controls.
Despite these, this study advances our understanding of the impact of human rights violations in countries of origin on migrants' mental health by considering how human rights violations as a macro-level form of stress at the country level affect migrants’ mental health, and potentially in the long-term. Results clearly show that a context of exit defined by high levels of human rights violations is associated with more distress after migration than a context of exit defined by low levels of human rights violations. An overly specific or insufficient measure of the challenges presented by stress after migration will misrepresent the life course consequences of migration from human rights violations conditions and its effect on long-term mental health for migrants. The quite generalized deployment of stressors used here allowed the explanation of differences in distress between and across a diverse set of migrant groups from a very large and diverse set of countries of origin.
This study advances also our understanding of how social contexts at exit influence migrants’ mental health. Guided by the stress proliferation argument, this study showed that social contexts at exit may have an effect on long-term migrant mental health. One pathway for this effect is through the effects of the cumulation of stress both over time and across social contexts.”
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Research at a Glance is designed to inform the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) community and other interested parties about recently published, policy-relevant research from government, academic and NGO sources. The views expressed in the documents described do not necessarily reflect those of IRCC.
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