Topic: Syrian refugee relocation narratives, particularly their lives after resettlement
Primary sources:
Hardship, Hope, and Resettlement: Refugees from Syria Tell their Stories. Amnesty International Publications, 2015. ProQuest. Web. 5 Feb. 2020.
This book from Amnesty International Publications focuses mainly on pieces of harrowing interviews of Syrian refugees about their experiences in Syria, their experiences fleeing the country, and their life after resettlement, combining images with the interviews for greater emotional impact. This source is almost identical to our topic; the main difference seems to be the broad scope of the interviews. While this book describes refugee narratives from the beginning of the conflict in their country to their current living situation, we will focus more on the current living situation of refugees in the US with only a small background segment about their time in Syria and the transition to the US. Furthermore, we will likely have much longer interviews that go more in-depth, and hopefully are accompanied by audio narration. The particular argument briefly pitched in the beginning of the book is that there is a strong need for resettlement of Syrian refugees from countries surrounding Syria to different safe countries, specifically those of targeted demographics such as the queer community, unaccompanied children, and those with pressing medical needs. This claim is defended through the eight interviews they have compiled. The work appears to be written for the general public in hopes of raising awareness about violations of refugee human rights and causing them to become activists, either by joining Amnesty International or working on their own. The book was posted by a well-known human rights organization of over 7 million people, Amnesty International, in 2015.
Hawkey, Sean. “WCC FEATURE: One Refugee’s Story: From Syria to France.” PR Newswire Africa, English ed. ed., Jan 07 2016, ProQuest. Web. 5 Feb. 2020.
This story by Sean Hawkey from PR Newswire Africa is mainly an interview with a pseudonymized refugee, Azad, about his journey so far from Syria to The Jungle, an illegal refugee camp in Calais, France, and the terrible living conditions of the camp as well as the need for aid. While there is no verbalized argument in the piece, it is clear that Hawkey is writing to push people and governments to provide aid for illegal camps like The Jungle. This source is somewhat related to our topic; while Azad is in a camp, and therefore not permanently settled, he has made it to a third country where he could potentially settle. Furthermore, it discusses the amount of aid refugees are receiving from people and governments, something we want to delve into in our own work. However, his process of relocation is not over, differentiating the source somewhat from our project. The evidence Hawkey uses to push for aid is shocking information about the camp both from what he has observed and from the interview with Azad. The article appears to be written for the general public in the hopes that they will help push the government to provide more aid to refugees, particularly those in unrecognized illegal camps. Hawkey is a freelance photographer with work in The Guardian, The Independent, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and much more, and he published this article in PR Newswire Africa in January of 2016.
Secondary sources:
Lenette, Caroline. “‘I Am a Widow, Mother and Refugee’: Narratives of Two Refugee Widows Resettled to Australia.” Journal of Refugee Studies 27.3 (2014): 403-21. ProQuest. Web. 5 Feb. 2020.
Caroline Lenette’s article focuses on the definition and impact of widowhood on refugees through the comparison of different constructions of widowhood in different cultures as well as a case study on two widowed refugees living in Australia. While there are certainly several aspects of the article that differentiate it from our topic, such as the interviewing of refugees from South Sudan, as opposed to Syria, and the focus on widowhood, the source is still strongly related as its focus is still the narratives of refugees who have resettled in what is presumably their new home. Furthermore, we are interested in learning how children impact the experiences of their parents post-resettlement. Lenette calls upon several sources to support her claims, such as an article about UN women and the Loomba Foundation joining to empower widows, K-L Chou’s study of psychological distress in immigrants who are 50 or older, which depicted significantly more distress in widows and divorcees, and several more. Through these studies, as well as the case study, she begins to depict the difficulties, nuances, and opportunities of refugee widowhood, and concludes by pushing for further research and exploration of the term. The work seems to have been written mainly for specialists in the hopes of prompting further conversation and research about widowhood in the refugee community in various contexts throughout the world. Caroline Lenette, an Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, published this work in the peer-reviewed Journal of Refugee Studies in 2014.
Tertiary sources: None
Pledged: SJB
Leave a Reply