Paul Dudman's Public Library

"Critical gerontology views aging as a social construction that reflects the intersections of micro-processes with the macro-level forces of individual aging experiences. In the contexts of immigration and transnationalism, however, the macro-structural conditions, dynamics and experiences of aging have become further diversified and complicated. The dearth of empirical and explanatory knowledge in this area has inhibited us from comprehending aging in a changing world. Drawing on data from a study of Chinese grandparents' experiences of transnational caregiving in Canada, this article examines the impacts of such experiences on three interconnected dimensions – spatial, temporal and cognitive – of aging. Although the practice of transnational caregiving allows skilled immigrant families to mobilize care resources outside Canada, it has not only ruptured the traditional trajectories of aging for their elderly parents, but also complicated the inequalities that they have to bear on individual, familial and transnational levels. I argue that the critical examination of aging in the context of transnational caregiving helps us take into consideration those dimensions (such as place, space, time, and knowledge) that are changed by immigration processes, and rethink aging from a broader perspective that links seniors' experiences with their relationship with their adult immigrant children's families and macro-structures outside national borders."

newjournalarticles

"Under recent reforms, the UK government has eroded state funding for civil legal aid. Funding cuts affect asylum and immigration law as produced, practiced, and mediated in the course of interactions between case workers and their clients in legal-aid-funded Law Centers in South London. The article explores the contradictory character of one-on-one relationships between case workers and clients. Despite pressure to quantify their work in “value for money” terms, the empathy that often motivates case workers drives them to provide exceptional levels of aid to their clients in facing an arbitrary bureaucracy. Such personalized commitment may persuade applicants to accept the decisions of that bureaucracy, thus reinforcing a hegemonic understanding of the power of the law. The article, however, challenges the assumption that, in attempting to shape immigrant/refugees as model—albeit second-class—citizens, case worker/client interactions necessarily subscribe to the categories and assumptions that underpin UK immigration and asylum law."

newjournalarticles

"The authors investigated the effectiveness of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) in comparison with an evidence-based intervention, trauma-focused cognitive–behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) with traumatized refugee children aged 6 to 13. Thirty-one traumatized refugee children were randomly assigned to participate in CCPT or TF-CBT in the elementary school setting in the northwest United States. Results indicated that both CCPT and TF-CBT were effective in reducing trauma symptoms according to child and parent report. Findings support the use of CCPT in treating traumatized refugee children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)"

newjournalarticles

"By the time Rwanda gained independence from Belgium in 1962, 200,000 Rwandan Tutsi had left to seek exile in neighbouring states. Drawing on British archives, this article traces international responses to this refugee crisis in Uganda, arguing that the political subtleties of this displacement are often overlooked.

British officials' anxious responses to the Tutsi exodus in 1959 were dominated above all by concern for Ugandan decolonisation. Yet after independence in 1962, the Rwandans were quickly re-imagined by Ugandan actors who had previously supported their right to remain in the territory as a threat to Ugandan national citizenship. This political exclusion of the Tutsi elite prompted increasing refugee militarisation, yet the resulting inyenzi raids only provided further justification for the international community to pursue a humanitarian rather than a political course in responding to the Rwandan crisis.

The article concludes that recognising the complexities of this early refugee movement and international responses to the crisis is important. Such study allows a more critical analysis of prevalent narratives around histories of exile and return in Rwanda, and underlines the role that international refugee protection policies may play in creating protracted refugee crises."

newjournalarticles

"In October 2011 the US announced the deployment of 100 special force troops to assist the Ugandan army against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). For several years the originally northern Ugandan rebel group has been active in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan. The announcement generated mixed responses, but has generally triggered a strong upsurge in support for an international military approach to deal with the LRA, almost invariably accompanied by a call for enhanced civilian protection. Among the strongest supporters of the deployment, and the military approach that this embodies, have been humanitarian groups who have advocated such a policy in the name of the humanitarian use of force. The present article points out that the promotion of this approach has occurred without a careful assessment of the military requirements necessary for its success, even against a weakened LRA. The article provides this military assessment and concludes, after examining the many challenges and limitations confronting the anti-LRA forces, that the necessary requirements for success are highly unlikely to be met. Given that unsuccessful military operations against the rebels have typically resulted in LRA retaliation against civilians, the paper urges caution in pursuing such options and awareness of likely civilian consequences. First, do no harm."

newjournalarticles

"In the last couple of decades, Turkey has become an important country of immigration. In parallel, a new scholarly field has developed to study this largely unrecognized phenomenon. In this paper, I take stock of this new literature. I first show how students of immigration into Turkey had to define the field in relation to the powerful existing fields studying emigration from Turkey and internal migration in Turkey, as well as how they distinguished between “old” and “new” immigration. I then study the emergence of this field under the lead of Ahmet İçduygu and Kemal Kirişci. Later, with the establishment of two central research centres (CARIM and MiReKoç), the field gained important institutional anchors and attracted many new scholars. Today, the field is characterized by a strong dynamism, a plurality of talented scholars and a diversity of concerns and approaches. Even though the field is still at an early stage, it is bound to grow rapidly, as the phenomenon of migration into Turkey remains a highly strategic and lasting phenomenon. It is therefore crucial for the field to become self-aware of its strength and weaknesses. Consequently, in the final section, I identify important future directions for the field, especially the need for scholars to better understand the diverse political ramifications (foreign and domestic politics) associated with immigration into Turkey."

newjournalarticles

"Using data from a customized household survey in Fiji, we assess the extent to which remittances are motivated by the migrants’ commitment to provide social protection to their families back home. We test this hypothesis by estimating econometrically the responsiveness of migrants’ remittances to the perceived financial need of recipients. We extend a mixed-motives model of private transfers, incorporating household-specific, subjectively assessed welfare in place of the more generally used poverty-line measure of welfare. We find stronger evidence that remittances provide important social protection for the poorest when using our extended model. We also find a positive, but relatively much weaker, relationship for those above the poverty threshold, implying support for switching of motives once the household’s welfare has reached a level that is deemed adequate. We consider the possibility that welfare improvements in migrant-sending countries could increase or decrease remittance flows depending on pre-transfer welfare levels and other intervening factors. In relation to policy, we caution against policy interventions that could undermine the functioning of the informal social protection role of migration and remittances. We also caution against unwarranted concern over the use of remittances for consumption spending and the associated, misplaced policy measures to address this."

newjournalarticles

"Internal and international migration increasingly continues to be of global importance for development policies and programmes, but the dearth of data on migration for African countries and the limited focus on the structural conditions that motivate migration from specific localities within the region remain glaring. In this study, we examine the patterns and drivers of migration in Cameroon, focusing on the dynamics of rural–urban migration, migrant circulation, regional economic migrants and refugees, international migration, brain drain and returns from emigration. Consequent upon regional conflicts and instability, we highlight the refugee problem in Cameroon and significant challenges in addressing it. Finally, we underscore the policy and research challenges necessary to harness the potentials of internal and international migration for national development."

newjournalarticles

"In this paper, we contribute to the analysis of fertility differentials between female migrants and the native-born by examining the transition to first child using event history analysis. We use event history as a quantitative translation of the life-course approach. The data examined are the Italian Families and Social Subjects (FSS) survey, conducted in 2003, and the Russian Parents and Children, Men and Women in Family and Society survey, conducted in 2004. We examine the data sets separately and contrast the results. The objective of the study is twofold. First, we seek to determine whether differences exist in the decision and timing of childbearing between native and immigrant women in Italy and in Russia. Second, we aim to compare the experiences of immigrants in the two countries, to determine whether there may be any commonalities inherent to the immigrant populations despite moving into widely different contexts. Our results suggest that the age profiles and marital status similarly affect the immigrant regardless of whether she is migrating to Russia or to Italy. In Italy, educational attainment is positively correlated with first-birth intensities for immigrants – the opposite of what is observed for the native-born. In Russia, education is not a significant determinant for immigrants. This leads us to the following conclusion: the similarity in the risk profiles of our immigrants into vastly different country contexts is more suggestive of immigrants following a distinct life course, with common risk profiles for bearing their first child, than assimilating or conforming to the native fertility patterns. Social capital in particular may play a different role in determining fertility patterns for immigrants, as it does for the native-born."

newjournalarticles

"The growing flow of migrants’ remittances has generated much interest in understanding the socio-economic consequences of household migration for individuals and families in migrant-sending areas. In this paper, I examine the effect of household migration on health status, as measured by nutritional status, of adults who have remained behind in rural Indonesia, a setting with a high rate of out-migration and poor nutritional profiles. Assuming that remittances may improve household economic resources and thus change dietary intake and health-related investment, household migration may be associated with the risks of both undernutrition and overnutrition. The analyses use longitudinal data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey and fixed-effect regressions. The results show that adults in emigrant households were significantly less susceptible to being underweight than those in non-migrant households, but that they did not have an increased risk of being overweight. The improved nutritional status was restricted to people in households with labour migrants, highlighting the role of remittances in improving nutritional intake. The health gain was also concentrated among women, increased with the number of out-migrants and was revealed over time as remittances arrived. Overall, this study demonstrates the beneficial role of household migration, and especially the resulting remittances, in the health status of household members in resource-constrained settings. Improving transfers of remittances would be helpful in reducing the problem of undernutrition in poor migrant-sending areas."

newjournalarticles

"This is a rare work of scholarship that achieves a genuine integration between legal and political analysis. Vandeginste's central preoccupation is to explore the means by which transitional justice policy in Burundi can be informed by international humanitarian and human rights law, and thereby become less amenable to political instrumentalization. His proposal is to empower Burundi's Constitutional Court, and he evaluates this idea by focusing on the substance of Constitutional Court case law, specifically the legal and normative criteria that have been applied, the extent to which international legal commitments informed judges' reasoning, and the impact of Constitutional Court judgements on the political calculus of domestic elites. In so doing, the author's analysis convincingly accommodates political science fundamentals such as institutions, power, elite interest, and state sovereignty. "

newjournalarticles

"This article analyses forced displacement through a gender lens, focusing on the experiences of women and also of female headed households. It uses a set of qualitative as well as quantitative data, covering internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sampur, Sri Lanka. The study revealed that women have particular protection and assistance needs that exceed the needs of men. In addition, the coping mechanisms used by displaced women were sometimes found to be more effective than those used by men. Moreover, there are economically significant differences between the ways female and male headships pool resources to cope with displacement. The fieldwork was carried out in August 2007 and in April 2008, at welfare centres in Batticaloa which received the IDPs from Sampur in 2006. This group remains displaced at the time of writing. "

newjournalarticles

"Sandra Evers and Marry Kooy begin their edited volume by noting that ‘the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean has received increasing attention from media, politicians and commentators over recent years’ (p. 1). To this list they might have added academics, and it is not difficult to understand why. The archipelago is strategically located and host to one of the most important military bases in the world (the US base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands); it is a ‘pristine’ natural environment, which the British government on 1 April 2010 declared a marine protected area; it is the subject of an ongoing sovereignty dispute between the UK and Mauritius; and it is also the scene of a gross abuse of human rights in the 1960s and 1970s, when the indigenous Chagos islanders were expelled ahead of the construction of the base on Diego Garcia. There is therefore ample reason why scholars from various disciplines have come to put the Chagos Islands close to the heart of their research. Studying the Chagos archipelago, however, is different from studying the Chagossian people, no matter how sympathetic to the Chagossians' cause some extant accounts of Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands might be. "

newjournalarticles

newjournalarticles

"Abstract
Among immigrant children whose parents have historically had lower education, the study explored which immigrant children were most likely to have coverage based on maternal region of origin. The direct and indirect relationship of acculturation on immigrant children’s coverage was also assessed. A subsample of US-born children with foreign-born mothers from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten Cohort was analyzed using multinomial logistic regressions (n = 1,686). Children whose mothers emigrated from the Caribbean or Indochina had greater odds of being insured compared to children whose mothers emigrated from Mexico. Moreover, Latin American children did not statistically differ from Mexican children in being uninsured. Maternal citizenship was positively associated with children’s coverage; while living in a household with a mother who migrated as a child was negatively associated with private insurance. To increase immigrant children’s coverage, Latin American and Mexican families may benefit from additional financial assistance, rather than cultural assistance. "

newjournalarticles

"Abstract
African immigrants and refugees—almost half of them from Somalia—account for one of the fastest-growing groups in the United States. There is reason to suspect that Somali-Americans may be at risk for low completion of recommended preventive health services. This study’s aim was to quantify disparities in preventive health services among Somali patients compared with non-Somali patients in an academic primary care practice in Rochester, Minn. It also examined the effect of medical interpreters, emergency department visits, and primary care visits on the completion of preventive services. Rates of pap smears, vaccinations (influenza, pneumococcus, and tetanus), lipid screening, colorectal cancer screening, and mammography were assessed in Somali and non-Somali patients during the second quarter of 2008. Data were collected regarding the utilization of medical interpreters, emergency services, and primary care services among Somali patients. Results were reported using standard descriptive statistics. Of the 91,557 patients identified in the database, 810 were Somali. Somali patients had significantly lower completion rates of colorectal cancer screening, mammography, pap smears, and influenza vaccination than non-Somali patients. Use of medical interpreters and primary care services were generally associated with higher completion rates of preventive services. There are significant discrepancies in the provision of preventive health services to Somali patients compared with that of non-Somali patients. These findings suggest the need to identify the root causes of these discrepancies so that interventions may be crafted to close the gap. "

newjournalarticles

"Abstract

Background Despite their essential role in the National Health Service, there is limited research on the experiences of refugee interpreters. Aims To explore Kurdish refugee interpreters' experiences of working in UK mental health services. Method Six participants were interviewed and data collected were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results The results showed that interpreters often felt overwhelmed by the emotional impact of interpreting in mental health services, particularly at the beginning of their careers. Interpreters struggled to negotiate complex and unclear roles and responsibilities. Interpreting for refugees with shared histories was particularly challenging. Conclusions The study recommends that interpreters working in mental health services receive training on mental health issues and self-care and are assisted by frameworks to help make sense of the impact of the work, such as supervision."

newjournalarticles

"Abstract. This research explores relationships between diversity of local populations and economic well-being: specifically, the connections between foreign-born populations, other measures of community diversity, and local economic health. Using data from the population of mid-sized Canadian cities, I conclude that there is a significant relationship between immigration and health. Several other aspects of diversity—language, visible minority status, and religion—are also related to economic health, but only the correlation with foreign born remains significant in multiple regression. The extent that population growth is dependent on immigration and the clear dispersion of immigrants to mid-sized communities in Canada is an argument for greater attention to public policies that facilitate settlement both on humanitarian grounds and to foster local economic development."

newjournalarticles

"In recent years, there has been an increase in students with refugee experience in the UK, the US, Europe and Australia. These students face many barriers to education, and appropriately educating this diverse student population presents many challenges to schools and education departments. We argue that a whole of school approach that includes school structures, culture and pedagogy is needed to provide equity for students with refugee experience. This approach to reform requires that the ‘structures and programs [that] are designed for a dominant group’ (DETE, South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework, South Australia 2001), and which disadvantage minority groups, are challenged and changed. Implementing such change raises many practical difficulties, and there are few documented examples of good practice. This prompted the authors’ ethnographic study of a South Australian primary school, with a New Arrivals Program, which positions itself as taking a whole of school approach to educational reform for refugees. This paper reports on the structural changes the school has implemented in its class organisation, staff roles and curriculum. We consider the effects of government funding and neoliberal education policy on these reforms. "

newjournalarticles

"Some anthropological examinations of documents have emphasized their role as regulatory technologies that enact control and legibility over both citizens and “aliens.” This article shows, however, that documentary practices and forms both reinforce and undermine attempts to make persons governable. My analysis centers on the “pink card,” the identity document issued to asylum seekers in Greece, which in 2010 was the European country with the highest number of asylum cases pending in limbo. Examining how both state functionaries and asylum seekers engage with it, I show how the pink card takes on unpredictable meanings with indeterminate effects, which can disrupt the regulatory functions of the asylum procedure. Through ethnographic data drawn from encounters between asylum seekers and police, interviews with asylum seekers, and case material, I argue for a consideration of how things themselves govern—that is, dispose, position, and shape—the activities and tools of state regulation."

newjournalarticles