Challenges and Coping: Perspectives of Syrian and Iraqi Refugee Youth in Germany

Refugee youth constitute around a third of the refugee population in Germany. We studied the experiences of newly arrived Syrian and Iraqi refugee youth, aged 14 to 18 years ( N = 20), in Germany. We utilized semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis to investigate (a) the main challenges faced by youth and (b) their main coping resources to deal with these challenges. We grouped challenges into three levels: the individual level, the immediate social level, and the broader societal level. The most frequently mentioned challenges in our sample related to psychological wellbeing, school, friendship, accommodation, and discrimination. Youth reported relying on social support (friends, family, social services) and on themselves (through avoidance, persistence, activity seeking, active engagement) to cope with their challenges. Our findings provide insights into refugee youth’s experiences in Germany, encompassing the acculturative, developmental, and generational aspects of their lives and demonstrating their coping and resilience. We discuss our results in relation to the literature on refugee youth in high income countries.

Provocative insinuations

En este artículo analizamos oracio-nes que, sin constituir explícitamente discurso de odio, no obstante transmiten un mensaje de odio. Por ejemplo, en el titular “Refugiado iraquí es condenado en Alemania por violar y asesinar una chica adolescente”, la presencia de “refugiado iraquí” no parece arbitraria. Al contrario, invita una inferencia racista en contra de los refugiados iraquíes. Argumentamos que estas inferencias no pueden ser descritas como slurs, términos neutros utilizados como insultos, dogwhistles o implica-turas conversacionales. En cambio, proponemos caracterizar estas inferencias como insinuacio-nes, concretamente insinuaciones provocativas, debido a que ninguna respuesta parece efectiva a la hora de bloquearlas. In this paper we analyse utterances that, without explicitly constituting hate speech, nevertheless convey a hateful message. For example, in the headline ‘Iraqi Refugee is convicted in Germany of raping and murdering teenage girl’, the presence of ‘Iraqi refugee’ does not seem arbitrary. To the contrary, it is responsible for inviting a racist inference against Iraqi refugees. We defend that these inferences cannot be described as slurs, ethnic or social terms used as insults, dogwhistles or conversational implicatures. Rather, we propose that these inferences are insinuations, specifically provocative insinuations, as no conversational response seems effective at blocking them.

Protocol Paper: Conducting Life History Interviews to Explore the Journeys of People with Disability from Syrian and Iraqi Refugee Backgrounds Settling in Australia

This paper outlines a research protocol to be undertaken with people with disability from Syrian and Iraqi refugee backgrounds settling in Australia. Since 2012, the numbers of people with disability arriving from these countries has increased with limited understanding about the impact of their refugee journeys on their settlement. The aim of this small-scale exploratory study is to learn about the journeys made by people with disability from Syrian and Iraqi refugee backgrounds from their countries of origin, through transit countries, to Australia in order to understand the impact of these journeys on inclusion and participation in Australian society. This participatory action research study employs a bilingual co-researcher with disability from a Syrian background to conduct life history interviews with up to five participants. Participants will recount their journeys with a focus on the impact of their disability on this experience. The study design is informed by BenEzer and Zetter’s 2014 seminal paper on the importance of the refugee journey to settlement. This study has the potential to foreground the voices and experiences of people with disability from refugee backgrounds who are often absent, silenced or excluded in research and, in so doing, hopefully impact Australian refugee policy.

Trauma-Related Psychopathology in Iraqi Refugee Youth Resettled in the United States, and Comparison With an Ethnically Similar Refugee Sample: A Cross-Sectional Study

BackgroundConflict in Iraq has displaced millions of refugee youth. Warzone exposure and forced migration have unique acute and chronic impacts on youth, yet effects of exposure may not be universal across diverse refugee groups. Understanding how youth from various refugee groups are differentially affected by stress and trauma is critical to allocate resources and implement screening measures with the goal of providing early intervention.MethodTo identify the effects of warzone exposure and forced migration, a convenience sample of 48 Iraqi refugee youth ages 6–17 was assessed within the first month of arrival to the United States. Youth provided self-reported severity of posttraumatic stress and anxiety symptoms; symptom severity was then compared with an existing sample of 135 Syrian refugee youth to explore whether refugee youth of different nationalities experience the same effects of warzone exposure and forced migration. These data are the baseline for a longitudinal developmental study of refugee health, which also includes parental data.ResultsSeverity of separation anxiety and negative alterations in cognition and mood were the greatest symptomatic concerns in Iraqi refugee youth. Thirty-eight percent of responding Iraqi youth showed possible indication of an anxiety disorder. Severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms was lower in Iraqi youth compared to Syrian youth. For both Iraqi and Syrian refugee youth, separation anxiety was the most significant concern, with more than 80% of both samples showing a possible indication of clinically significant separation anxiety.ConclusionThe present observational study indicated that Iraqi refugee youth experience a range of anxiety and posttraumatic stress symptoms following warzone exposure and forced migration; posttraumatic stress symptoms were less severe in Iraqi versus Syrian youth. Comparing refugee youth of different nationalities is of particular importance, as our results demonstrate that findings from one refugee population cannot easily be generalized to another. Clinical and research efforts should prioritize interventions to address separation anxiety in refugee youth, which was of concern in both samples.

Forced Migration and the Quest for Normality: Post-Migratory Experiences of Traumatized Iraqi Refugees in Norway

The study investigates how a clinical sample of Iraqi refugee men speak about their lives in Norway, specifically on their experiences related to factors known to be influential in the restoration of normality in exile. Using thematic analysis (TA), the major themes extracted in this study relate to employment, finances and social support. These themes were all found to be influential in the lives of the participants, encouraging a sense of normality when in place. Drawing from Conservation of resources theory and The resource-based model of refugee adaptation, the key-findings suggest that (1) access to resources are regulated by social and political conditions and that (2) resource spirals perpetuate positive and negative cycles in the lives of the participants. We also engage in discussions on social inequality, discuss implications of the findings for service providers, and finally we make suggestions for future research.

Conclusion

The Iraqi refugee experience has taught us that the pathways and possibilities of belonging for refugees are complicated by the War on Terror’s reductive framing of Arabs and Muslims as terror threats. By staying with the Iraqi refugee story long after the world had turned its gaze to the next crisis, the conclusion to this book explains how the book attempts to restore a sense of humanity to people who are imagined as either victims or threats. This book is a witness to the struggle for belonging as it unfolded in the very human and quotidian dimensions of life—family, relationships, work, play, and faith. Belonging is claimed in the constant fight to become fully visible, to engage with the world in ways that allow for understanding and empathy.

Belonging 2.015

The year 2015 saw historic levels of refugee movements out of Syria, Iraq, and North Africa to Europe, which coincided chronologically with terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. The Republican presidential nomination campaign singled out refugees from Syria and Iraq as existential threats, and the “Islamophobia Industry” mainstreamed an anti-Muslim discourse in the presidential primary, naming Arab refugees as a potential fifth column, leading to the passage of the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act (HR 4038). The seismic sociopolitical shifts of 2015 shaped the experience of belonging among Iraqi refugee youths. Iraqi youths employed multiple strategies in confronting the disturbing ways in which they were being profiled in the public arena. One important strategy was in calling attention to a counternarrative—the proactive and positive ways that the local Muslim and Arab community was reaching out across cultural and religious barriers to mobilize against hate.

Belonging and Displacement

This chapter contains a series of individual and family migration histories that represent common experiences of the violent removal of belonging after the Iraq War, followed by exile and survival in surrounding countries, and finally the momentous decision points about asylum seeking and resettlement in countries outside the Middle East. While each of these individuals’ stories is unique, they illustrate commonalities of the Iraqi refugee experience. The chapter describes how it was only after intense lobbying by refugee advocates, Iraq War veterans, and organizations such as LIST: The Project, that the resettlement door was opened via the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act. Thus, the first significant waves of Iraqi refugees began to arrive in the US in 2008. A total of 124,159 Iraqi refugees would be resettled in the US between 2008 and 2015. Iraq would be the number-one refugee sending country to the US for four of the next seven years.