Negotiating Belonging in Place: Refugee Families and Youth Experiences of Resettlement

Keywords: refugees, belonging, youth, family
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 13

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of refugees in the news and a surge in research on refugees, there is a relative lack of research on their resettlement experiences that moves past the mental health view of wellbeing, narrowly defined as acculturative stress, and towards more nuanced understandings of belonging and wellbeing. This paper examines how refugees negotiate belonging in particular places and on multiple scales, from community centers and schools to a broader national sense of belonging. The focus on familiality and space exhibits how refugees create belonging as a family unit and as individuals within a family as well as how space and place play a role in belonging. Specifically, this paper seeks to address how current US rhetoric and policy affect the way refugees create a sense of belonging; how refugee parents and youth differ in their approach to creating a sense of belonging; and how those differences affect relational family dynamics. To do so, this paper draws on data from participant observation, interviews, and focus groups carried out with primarily African refugee youth and adults and key-stakeholders in the refugee community in Greensboro, North Carolina. These methods highlight how refugees actively create belonging and home post resettlement in multiple spaces and on multiple scales within the family unit. This paper has implications for researchers and practitioners as it provides insight from refugees on what hinders and helps them as they create belonging after resettlement and addresses how familiality, space, and place impact their experiences.