When ‘brothers and sisters’ become ‘foreigners’: Syrian refugees and the politics of healthcare in Jordan

Abstract

Does overseas development aid necessarily translate into more generous national policies for refugees? Evidence from Jordan suggests that this is not always the case. Since the arrival of an estimated 756,000 Syrian refugees, international funding has made Jordan one of the top seven recipients of foreign aid in the world. Despite sustained international financing, however, national policies towards refugees have become increasingly restrictive, especially when it comes to healthcare. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2019, this paper argues that Jordan’s healthcare policies towards Syrian refugees are not necessarily correlated to international financing, but are rather the product of political considerations aimed at maintaining domestic stability, increasing bargaining power in the global policymaking arena and resisting international pressures to integrate Syrian refugees. This paper contributes to filling a gap in the literature on the complex and interdependent factors which influence the evolution of national healthcare policies towards refugees in a country not only highly dependent on foreign aid, but also at the geopolitical crossroads of international interests in the Middle East.     

International Pressure and Domestic Precedent: Japan's Resettlement of Indochinese Refugees

Abstract

Why did Japan decide to admit more than 11,000 refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia between 1975 and 2005? The conventional explanation is that Japan admitted these refugees because of pressure from foreign countries, and particularly from the United States. In this article, I argue that, in addition to foreign pressure, there was another factor that was important in causing Japan to admit these refugee populations. Japanese leaders agreed to admit Indochinese refugees because they came to believe that this would not set a precedent that would make Japan into a major destination for refugee resettlement.     

To Help ‘Brotherly People’? Russian Policy Towards Ukrainian Refugees

Abstract

The essay focuses on Russian policy towards displaced persons from Ukraine’s war-torn territories from 2014 until mid-2019. The privileging of refugees from Ukraine relative to immigrants and refugees from other countries and, later, the granting of Russian citizenship to Ukrainian citizens from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, were interwoven with both influence-seeking in the Russian geopolitical neighbourhood and transborder nationalism and supported via direct presidential control of immigration. Despite a series of decrees and involvement of civil society in providing support, this essay detected a lack of efficient mechanisms for responding to the needs of the displaced.     

Asylum Seekers Along the U.S.-Canada Border

Abstract

Given the large numbers of people fleeing their homelands, social workers are likely to encounter refugees from all over the world. Although the social work profession has a mandate to work with disenfranchised populations, limited attention has been paid to providing services to refugees. Residents of the largest refugee shelter in the U.S. were interviewed about their claims. These findings can help social workers understand the situations refugees come from as well as processes they go through in applying for legal status. With this information, it is possible to identify roles social workers can play with this vulnerable population.     

Books received (I)

The Computer Revolution in Public Administration, D.C. Pitt and B.C. Smith (eds), Wheatsheaf, 1984, pp. 214, £16.95.

The Development of Planning Thought: A Critical Perspective, Cliff Hague, Hutchinson, 1985, pp. 345, £25.00.

Housing Defects in Manchester, Manchester City Council, 1985, pp. 36, no price given.

Public Policy Studies: The North East of England, Richard A. Chapman (ed.), Edinburgh University Press, 1985, pp. 186, £10.00.

A Workbook in Program Design for Public Managers, Leonard I. Ruchelman, State University of New York Press, 1985, pp. 123, $10.95.

Wychavon: The First Ten Years, Wychavon District Council, 1985, pp. 40, no charge.     

From Exclusion to Resistance: Migrant Domestic Workers and the Evolution of Agency in Lebanon

In addition to hosting a large population of refugees and displaced persons, Lebanon is home to an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 migrant domestic workers. Under Lebanese law, domestic workers fall under the kafala, or sponsorship, system. Existing literature has focused on the legality of the kafala system and the ensuing human rights violations resulting from workers' exclusion from Lebanese labor law. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2016, this article argues that migrant domestic workers in Lebanon have defied their spatial, social, and legal exclusion by organizing collective resistance, triggered in part by the July 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.     

‘There is such a shelter in each other’: women looking for homes in Zadie Smith's White Teeth,On Beauty and NW

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the different ways in which home is experienced by the female characters of the diaspora in Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000), On Beauty (2006) and NW (2013). In On Beauty, one of the characters declares: ‘There is such a shelter in each other’ (93). This implies that the sense of home may not be tied to a place, but to the intimacy of relationships. In these novels, Zadie Smith portrays women whose feelings of belonging to a place are threatened, due to their geographical displacements or to their complex transcultural identities. Using Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of territorialization and reterritorialization, I’ll explore how concepts of home and diaspora are reconfigured in Smith's novels.     

Shorter notices

The Future of Political Science. By Harold D. Lasswell. Tavistock Publications, 1964. Pp. xii+256. 50/‐.

Mass Persuasion in Communist China. By Frederick T. G. Yu. Pall Mall Press, 1964. Pp. viii+168. 40/‐.

The Emerging Elite: a Study of Political Leadership in Ceylon. By Marshall R. Singer. M.I. T. Press, 1964. Pp. xx+204. $7.50.

The Allocation of Economic Resources. By Moses Abramovitz and others. Stanford University Press, paper‐back edition, 1966. Pp. 244. 22/6.

The Ohlin‐Heckscher Theory of the Basis and Effects of Commodity Trade. By J. L. Ford. Asia Publishing House, 1965. Pp. viii+88. 25/‐.

Essays in Southern Economic Development. Edited by Melvin L. Greenhut and W. Tate Whitman. University of North Carolina Press, 1965. Pp. xx+498. 60/‐.

Scarcity and Growth: the Economics of Natural Resource Availability. By Harold J. Barnett and Chandler Morse. Johns Hopkins Press. 1965. Pp. 304. 18/‐.     

Investigating the Refugee Health Disadvantage Among the U.S. Immigrant Population

Much health-disparities research focuses on race and ethnicity, but nativity has proved to be a crucial factor in explaining the immigrant health advantage. Foreign-born subgroups with certain immigration statuses, such as refugees, may have an initial disadvantage. Using nationally representative survey data, we explore differences in health outcomes by analyzing two visa category subgroups in the United States: refugees and nonrefugee immigrants. Our findings show that refugees have a significant disadvantage across multiple health outcomes. This suggests that current refugee health-screening practices should be changed to take into account broader issues, such as chronic disease and functional limitation.     

Unpacking the Presumed Statelessness of Rohingyas1

ABSTRACT

The decades-old Rohingya problem, which has affected Myanmar and other Southeast Asia countries, has long been defined in terms of forced migration, statelessness, and humanitarian crisis. As the problems involving Rohingya refugees, forced migrants, and internally displaced persons are commonly believed to have stemmed from the highly discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law, international advocacy has focused on amending or repealing the law as the ultimate solution. Despite the law's several discriminatory provisions, this article argues that the real problem primarily lies in a lack of implementation by successive Myanmar governments and the Rohingya's arbitrary deprivation of the right to nationality and citizenship documentation.     

Humanitarianism,civil society and the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper reflects on responses to Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee crisis in the weeks that followed the increased numbers of Rohingya refugees who arrived from Myanmar after 24 August 2017. Drawing on literature on the local and international dimensions of humanitarianism, and the analytical lens of performance, it explores narratives of helping in relation to the shifting character of Bangladesh’s civil society, changing expressions of local and international religious sentiments, and the importance of understanding both formal and informal responses historically in the context of Bangladesh’s own experiences as a country born from a crisis in which citizens became refugees fleeing state-sponsored violence.     

Refugees,idps and Citizenship Rights: the perils of humanitarianism in the African Great Lakes region

Persistent civil warfare has created a crisis of protection for vulnerable refugees/returnees and internally displaced people ( idps ) in the African Great Lakes region. This is in the context of increasing state hostility towards refugees, intensified inter-group competition among citizens, and rising xenophobia towards African ‘foreigners’. Humanitarian solutions are often de-contextualised from struggles over entitlements, citizenship and exclusionary practices based on social hierarchies, ethnicity and indigeneity. Hence, they tend to contribute to rather than alleviate the marginality experienced by the displaced. This article argues for further exploration of the processes of identity construction that accompany displacement and humanitarianism and their problematic relationship with sovereignty and citizenship. It suggests that transcending marginality requires greater emphasis on political agency within refugee and idp communities—for their voices to be part of negotiations and conversations on repatriation and integration—in order for them to rejoin the political community.     

Recent research on women in development

I. Bourguignon, Erika, ed., A World of Women: Anthropological Studies of Women in Societies of the World. New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1980. Pp. xv + 342. Index. Hardcover £14.75, paper £6.50.

II. Chipp, Sylvia A. and Green, Justin, J. eds., Asian Women in Transition. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980. Pp. x + 262. Hardcover £9.60, paper £5.40.

III. Etienne, Mona and Leacock, Eleanor, eds., Woman and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1980. Pp. ix + 339. Index. Hardcover £16.00, paper £7.00.

IV. Huston, Perdita, Third World Women Speak Out: Interviews in Six Countries on Change, Development, and Basic Needs. New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1979. Pp. xix + 153. Appendices. Hardcover £12.75, paper £3.75.

V. International Labour Office, Women in Rural Development: Critical Issues. Geneva: International Labour Organisation, 1980. Pp. iii + 51. Paper SwFr 12.50.

VI. Latin American and Caribbean Women's Collective, Slave of Slaves: The Challenge of Latin American Women. London: Zed Press, 1980. Pp. 180. Appendices. Hardcover £12.95, paper £4.50.

VII. Leacock, E., E. Burkett, C. Deere, M. Towner, M. Vaughan, M. Apodaca, N. Hollander, M. King, M. Randall, D. Metzger, N. Chinchilla, M.de Riviera and I. de Carpio, Women in Latin America: An Anthology from Latin American Perspectives. Riverside, Cat.: Latin American Perspectives, 1979. Pp. 164. Paper $4.95.

VIII. Lindsay, Beverly, ed., Comparative Perspectives of Third World Women: The Impact of Race, Sex, and Class. New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1980. Pp. xi + 319. Index. Hardcover £16.00.

IX. Loutfi, Martha F., Rural Women: Unequal Partners in Development. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1980. Pp. iii + 81. Paper SwFr 12.50.

X. Nelson, Nici, Why Has Development Neglected Rural Women? A Review of the South Asian Literature. Volume One of series ‘Women in Development’. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979. Pp. 108. Bibliography, Appendix. Hardcover $30.00, paper $11.25.

XI. Poewe, Karla O., Matrilineal Ideology: Male‐Female Dynamics in Luapula, Zambia. London: Academic Press for the International African Institute, 1981. Pp. 140. Index. Hardcover £8.00/$19.50.

XII. Rogers, Barbara, The Domestication of Women: Discrimination in Developing Societies. London: Tavistock, 1981. Pp. 200. Index. Paper £3.95.

XIII. Sharma, Ursula, Women, Work, and Property in North‐West India. London: Tavistock, 1980. Pp. ix + 228. Indices. Hardcover £10.50.

XIV. Wikan, Unni, Life among the Poor in Cairo. Translated from the Norwegian by Ann Henning. London: Tavistock, 1980. Pp. ix + 173. Index. Hardcover £9.50, paper £4.95.     

‘The new Europeans’: the image of the African refugee in European literature

Abstract

This essay examines the representation of African refugees and asylum seekers in European literature in general, as well recent life writings and literature for young adults in particular. Examples will be drawn from writers as diverse as Benjamin Zephaniah and Senait G. Mehari. It is argued that the selected refugee stories invest in narrating an imagined community of ‘the new Europeans’ and thus invite readers to a plural reading of history. Following this train of thought, I am particularly interested in the interplay between images and motifs that evoke and shape various nation-states while illuminating an imagined European community. I therefore seek to excavate a transcultural imagery that characterizes refugee and asylum seekers as the ‘new Europeans’ by utilizing narrative strategies which reflect Paul Ricoeur's ideas about a new ethos for Europe.     

Book reviews

Iron Oxen: A Documentary of Revolution in Chinese Farming. By William Hinton. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1970. Pp. x + 225. $6.95 and £2.15.

Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution at Tsinghua University. By William Hinton. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972. Pp. 288. $7.95 and £3.15.

The Development of China's Steel Industry and Soviet Technical Aid. By M. Gardner Clark. Ithaca, NY: New York State School of Industrial and Labour Relations, Cornell University, 1973. Pp. vii + 104, appendices. $7.00.

Urban Unemployment in Developing Countries. By Paul Bairoch. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1973. Pp. v + 99. 12 Swiss F.

Fiscal Federalism. By Wallace E. Oates. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. Pp. xvi + 256, diagrams.

Foreign Resources and Economic Development: A Symposium on the Report of the Pearson Commission. Edited by T. J. Byres. Portland, Oregon and London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971. Pp. xi + 199, index. £2.75.

The Inter‐American Development Bank: A Study in Development Financing. By Sidney Dell. New York, Washington and London: Praeger Publishers, 1972. Pp. xv + 255. £6.25.

Money and Economic Development: The Horowitz Lectures of 1972. By Milton Friedman. New York: Praeger, 1973. Pp. x + 67, diagrams. £3.50.

Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon. By John Dunn. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Pp. 294, index, bibliography. £1 .40 (Paper).

Socialist Economic Development and Reforms. By J. Wilczynski. London: Mac‐Millan, 1972. Pp. xvii + 350. £5.

Reforms in the Soviet and East European Economies. Edited by L. A. D. Dellin and Hermann Gross. Lexington: D. C. Heath and Co, 1972, Pp. viii + 175. £4.

Politics and Society in Post‐War Naples. By P. A. Allum. London: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Pp. xvi + 410, appendices, maps, bibliography and index. £11.00.

Latin America Review of Books. Edited by Colin Harding and Christopher Roper. London and Leeds: Latin America Review of Books Ltd, No. 1 Spring 1973. Pp. 220. £3.00 (cloth), £1.25 (paper).

Rural Guerrillas in Latin America. By Richard Gott. London: Penguin Books, 1973. Pp. 637. £1.00.

Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution. By André Gunder Frank, New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1969. Pp. xviii + 409. £3.90.

Politics and Social Structure in Latin America. By James Petras. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1970. Pp. 382. £4.25.

The Politics of Land Reform in Chile, 1950–1970. By Robert R. Kaufman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. Pp. 321. £6.00.

Political Mobilization of the Venezuelan Peasant. By John Duncan Powell. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. Pp. 229.

Urban Challenge in East Africa. Edited by John Hutton. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1972. Pp. viii + 285, map, tables and photos. Shs. 42 in East Africa.

Employment, Incomes and Equality: A Strategy for Increasing Productive Employment in Kenya. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1972. Pp. xx + 600. 305 wf.

Arms and African Development. Proceedings of the First Pan‐African Citizens Conference. Edited by Frederick S. Arkhurst. New York and London: Praeger, 1972. Pp. xvi + 158. £7.75.

Man, State, and Society in the Contemporary Maghrib. Edited by I. William Zartman. New York: Praeger and London: Pall Mall, 1973. Pp. vii + 531, appendices with tables, maps, bibliographical essay. $13.50 and £5.67.

Histoire Economique du Québec 1851–1896. By Jean Hamelin and Yves Roby. Editions Fides: Montreal, 1971. Pp. 436, index. $10.00.

Indochina in Conflict: A Political Assessment. Edited by Joseph J. Zasloff and Alan E. Goodman. Lexington, Mass., Toronto and London: D. C. Heath and Co, 1972. Pp. xv + 227. £5.00.

The Dynamics of Indian Political Factions. By Mary C. Carras. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972. £6.50.     

Financial Stress and Depression Among African Refugees in the Southern United States: A Serial Multiple Mediation Analysis of Financial Self-Efficacy and Financial Anxiety

Abstract

As part of a larger community-based participatory research project exploring the postresettlement challenges of African refugees in the southern United States, our study investigated the phenomenon of financial stress and its relationship to mental health through a mediating chain of factors—financial self-efficacy and financial anxiety. Results revealed the mediating role of financial self-efficacy and financial anxiety on the relationship between financial stress and depressive symptoms. Findings provide discourses around financial stress and mental health in the migration context, critical to recognizing the unique experiences of African refugees and informing culturally responsive programs for financial inclusion and economic integration.     

On Being Black,Muslim, and a Refugee: Stories of Somalis in Chicago

Abstract

Somali refugees are considered one of the largest African refugee populations in the United States and the fourth largest refugee population globally. Yet, there is limited scholarship on their overall migration paths and the ways in which their intersectional identities may impact their resettlement and integration in the United States. Study findings are from a qualitative study on the migration and integration experiences of 15 Somali Americans in Chicago. Findings illustrate the complexities associated with the Somali refugee narrative and how this population is often positioned at the intersections of anti-Black, anti-Muslim, and anti-refugee racism and discrimination in the United States.     

Reconstructing Identity

Abstract

This article provides an account of the challenges faced by a group of women refugees in recreating shattered identities in the aftermath of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. As a result of civil war, national identities were challenged and changing roles involved negotiating new definitions of self. Participants developed a new identity to reflect the realities of their situation, and at the same time transcended national and ethnic boundaries to recognize a common humanity. The article concludes that further research should focus on the special challenges to identity for refugees from civil wars and encourages social workers to be sensitive to these particular issues.     

Entangled in Social Safety Nets: Administrative Responses to and Lived Experiences of Internally Displaced Persons in Ukraine

Abstract

This essay explores the citizenship experiences of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine. Since 2014, conflict in eastern Ukraine has forced over 1.7 million people to leave their homes. Unlike refugees, who are protected by international law, IDPs rely primarily on state support. Based on ethnographic research and analysis of secondary sources, the essay focuses on IDPs’ interactions with the state to highlight how displacement affects the provision of social guarantees. The discussion questions the distinctions between categories of migrants and citizens by offering insights into new modalities of controlled citizenship that displaced people live through.