Browsing by Subject "Refugees"
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Item Adapting housing and water sector infrastructure to population dynamics(2020-01-29) Faure, Julie Charlotte; Faust, Kasey M.In a world increasingly urban and subject to large and sudden population displacements—resulting from factors such as political instabilities, urban mobility, or disasters—understanding interdependencies between infrastructure and population dynamics is critical for decision-makers to be able to face challenges in the near future. To help provide such an understanding, this dissertation addresses two complimentary aspects of population dynamics in urban environments of developed countries and their impacts on the housing and water sector infrastructure. On the one hand, this dissertation analyzes the institutional response of the housing and water sector to influxes of displaced persons during the European Refugee Crisis of 2015 and 2016. Semi-structured interviews of 52 German stakeholders were conducted and qualitatively analyzed to understand decision-making processes during this period of emergency. On the other hand, hydraulic simulations of the effects of population dynamics occurring during gentrification were performed to determine the relative criticality of changes in socio-economic statuses versus changes in population density. Arising from the results are the following recommendations to decision-makers of the housing and water infrastructure sector when facing large and rapid population dynamics: (1) Develop new and unusual collaborations. The interviews conducted in Germany revealed that large-scale in-person meetings between all organizations involved (e.g., firemen, governmental agencies, non-profits) were critical to effective responses to the Refugee Crisis. (2) Seek accurate information about the type of population dynamics. In the case of gentrification, it is critical to quantify the fluxes of populations, and to assess sociodemographic characteristics of populations involved. In cities such as Washington, DC, overlooking sociodemographic characteristics can hinder the ability of utilities to provide adequate water services. In the case of the Refugee Crisis, making uninformed assumptions about displaced persons’ habits and needs can lead to poor decision-making. (3) Use moments of crisis as an opportunity to improve institutional resilience. This dissertation shows that, during crises, most stakeholders can be enthusiastic about committing to responding to such event, regardless of their political opinion. However, results indicate that these efforts should be monitored and continued in the long-term to enhance the ability of institutions to react to future crises.Item Armenian Iranian identities in the institutional home visit : a case study(2014-12) Cameron, Adam Dean; Atwood, Blake Robert, 1983-In recent years, many ethnic Armenians from Iran have come to the US as refugees, resettling in a diverse landscape that already includes large Armenian and Iranian diaspora communities. Soon after arrival, they also interface with US institutions in a home visit from a refugee resettlement case worker. In this thesis I adopt constructivist understandings of identity-in-interaction to examine the identity work that older Armenian Iranian immigrants do during these visits, reproduced here as life history interviews. I argue that Armenian Iranians use the home visit to discursively construct an Armenian Iranian identity that addresses the tension between institutional and community pressure to represent themselves as uniquely discriminated against in Iranian society while still identifying with an Iranian national identity. The more localized and temporary identities and interactional roles that speakers – including the researcher – adopt in the interviews also contribute to gender asymmetries in the interactions to the effect that men most often command the floor. Therefore, while the home visit format provides insight into the ways Armenian Iranians articulate an identity that is at least in part “Iranian” amidst normative pressures to do otherwise, it can also translate into an interaction that privileges men’s perspectives and allows them to largely determine its direction and content.Item Central American Refugees in Mexico: Barriers to Legal Status, Rights, and Integration, PRP 206(LBJ School of Public Affairs, 2019) Leutert, StephanieMexico’s migratory laws outline a robust framework for refugee integration, but there are challenges with fulfilling the legal mandates. One primary challenge is a lack of institutional support for improving refugee integration at the federal, state, and municipal levels of government. In particular, financial resources and personnel have not kept pace with the increasing number of refugee applications, leaving COMAR without the capacity to fully address the current situation. To fill the gaps, civil society actors have stepped in, but their efforts cannot substitute for developing long-term institutional capacity. In addition to large-scale structural barriers, refugees face challenges in attempting to access employment, healthcare, and education. These challenges include but are not limited to low wages, informality, job market saturation, difficulty accessing financial institutions, burdensome bureaucracy, and a general lack of information about rights and procedures. This combination of challenges complicates refugees’ integration into Mexican society.Item Coping and resilience among Syrian refugee adolescents : a mixed methods approach(2020-07-17) Arango, Sarah Christina; Sanchez, Delida; Ainslie, Ricardo C; Awad, Germine H; Barrett, KerrinMuch of the literature on refugee youths’ mental health has focused on psychological distress, leaving a gap in our understanding of what contributes to psychological well-being among this population. To address this gap, this mixed methods study employed a resilience framework to explore the links between exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs), daily stressors, coping flexibility, well-being, and psychological distress among Syrian refugee adolescents living in Jordan. The qualitative section of this study included eleven individual interviews and one focus group with three adolescents. The study used constructivist-interpretivist grounded theory and the critical incident technique, to identify stressors, coping strategies, coping flexibility, and resilience processes among Syrian refugee youth. Stressors reported by youth, included separation from family and friends, access to basic needs, and discrimination and systemic oppression. Coping strategies used by youth, included spending time with family and friends, getting emotional support, distraction, and spending time alone. Coping flexibility emerged as a developmental process that aided resilience and helped youth cope with discrimination. Finally, key resilience processes that emerged, included education, independence, and hopes for the future. The quantitative section of this study included one hundred and thirteen youth. An exploratory factor analysis with the Kidcope scale revealed two factors (positive and negative coping strategies). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze two models; one model included psychological distress as an outcome and one model included well-being as an outcome. Mediation models were run to examine relationships between PTEs, daily stressors, coping flexibility, and mental health outcomes. Results demonstrated that daily stressors fully mediated the relationship between PTEs and distress and were associated with negative coping techniques. Daily stressors did not mediate the relationship between PTEs and well-being. Coping flexibility did not mediate PTEs and mental health outcomes, however, negative coping strategies were associated with distress and positive coping strategies were associated with well-being. The findings from the current study highlight unique resilience processes and coping mechanisms used by Syrian refugee youth and demonstrate the need to develop interventions that are culturally- and contextually-grounded. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.Item A disaster on top of a disaster : how gender, race, and class shaped the housing experiences of displaced Hurricane Katrina survivors(2011-05) Reid, Megan Kelly, 1981-; Angel, Ronald; Williams, Christine L., 1959-; Lein, Laura; Rudrappa, Sharmila; Carrington, BenIn this dissertation project, I examine the experiences of displaced Hurricane Katrina survivors in the context of post-disaster housing policies and practices. This research is based on two years of in-depth interviews with Katrina survivors who were displaced to Austin, Texas. I analyze these interviews to understand the raced, classed, and gendered implications of post-disaster housing policies and to consider what these implications reveal about the relationship between social policies, housing, and social inequality more broadly. This project is informed by an intersectional understanding of social stratification systems and inequalities and a critical analysis of neoliberal social policy. First, I outline the gender, family, and class ideologies embedded in government-run post-Katrina housing policies and practices, and show how they specifically disadvantaged people who did not conform to them. I identify temporal domination as a specific aspect of class oppression evident in respondents’ experiences with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) rental assistance programs. Next, I specifically examine respondents’ experiences settling into their new neighborhoods and searching for jobs. I found that many black survivors ended up in segregated remote areas of the city, far from jobs and public transportation. Their job searching experiences suggest that employers used racist stereotypes about Latino workers to coerce them to work for low wages. This reveals the complex and interrelated racial dynamics of low-wage urban housing and labor markets. Finally, I explore how survivors got by in the face of such difficult and in some cases dire circumstances. One primary way survivors coped with the uncertainty caused by their displacement was relying on their social networks. While women tended to depend on adult child - parent and other familial relationships, men tended to distance themselves from the potential support of their mothers and other relatives. Respondents also constructed fictive kin relationships to provide support to others, sometimes for the explicit purpose of ensuring one or both members of the relationship had access to stable housing. This reveals how both gender and family relationships can shape disaster recovery and everyday experiences of poverty. Overall, this project contributes to the study of race/class/gender inequality, social policy, housing, and disaster recovery.Item Essays on the determinants of worker productivity and labor market outcomes(2019-06-20) LoPalo, Melissa Christine; Youngblood, Sandra Black; Spears, Dean E.; Geruso, Michael L; Coffey, Diane LThis dissertation examines determinants of worker productivity, labor market outcomes, and population health. The first chapter, previously published in the Journal of Public Economics, examines the impacts of cash assistance on refugee labor market outcomes. I exploit variation across states and over time in the generosity of cash assistance available to refugees upon arrival in the U.S. and study the impacts on wages and employment. I argue that cash assistance is randomly assigned to refugees conditional on characteristics such as education and country of origin, as refugee placement is decided by a committee that does not meet with the refugees or learn their preferences. I find that refugees resettled with more generous cash assistance go on to earn higher wages, with no significant change in the probability of employment. The effects are largest for highly-educated refugees. The second chapter examines the impact of temperature on the productivity and job performance of outdoor workers in developing countries. I overcome data challenges with studying individual-level productivity by studying household survey interviewers as workers. Using data from Demographic and Health Survey interviewers in 46 countries, I find that interviewers complete fewer interviews per hour worked on hot and humid days, driven by an increase in working hours. I also find evidence that suggests that workers allocate their effort towards tasks that are more easily observed by supervisors on hot days. The third chapter, previously published in Social Justice Research and co-authored with Diane Coffey and Dean Spears, examines the role of social inequality in population health outcomes in India, focusing on the case of casteism and child height in India. We describe evidence from the India Human Development Survey showing that children in villages with more strongly casteist attitudes are shorter on average, an association that is statistically explained by the association between casteism and the prevalence of open defecation.Item “Hay cipotes que solo matar saben” : structural violence and Central American asylum-seeking youth in Mexico(2022-08-18) Valdivia Ramírez, Olimpia Montserrat; Torres, Rebecca Maria; Faria, Caroline; Smith, Christen; Rodriguez, NestorOne of the greatest challenges northern Central American countries (Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala) face is the internal and cross-border displacement of unaccompanied minors. According to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR), Central American unaccompanied minors asylum requests in Mexico have increased by 433 percent since 2013. Their vulnerabilities and complex experiences with violence are poorly understood, particularly in the asylum process. Research on children and violence mostly centers on gangs and the violence they inflict on adolescents and the general population. In this dissertation, I trace the violence that youth face through the materiality of the everyday. I document the most pervasive violence affecting adolescents in Central America: the lack of protection from their families, their communities, and the state. This complicates the widespread belief that gang violence is the most prevalent violence affecting adolescents. The cycle of violence does not end when adolescents leave their home country. It follows them throughout the asylum process and haunts them in the vacuum of social integration even after they are recognized as refugees. In Mexico, the main issue is not only whether they are recognized as refugees, but what happens after they achieve refugee status, since the state lacks an appropriate integration program. This dissertation draws upon three interrelated and mutually reinforcing theoretical and epistemological perspectives: Childhood and Migration Studies, Feminist Political Geography, and Critical Violence Paradigms. It employed a youth-centered, ethnographic, mixed-methods approach integrating secondary data collection and procedural-political analysis, key actor depth-interviews, and participatory observation. The fieldwork took place from August 2020 to April 2021 at a migrant shelter in Tenosique, Tabasco, on the southern border of Mexico. I worked with 60 unaccompanied minor migrants (56 from Honduras, 3 from Guatemala and 1 from Nicaragua). Of these, 8 considered themselves girls (including one transgender female), 49 boys, and 3 non-binary.Item Hela L’Wein : performing nationalisms, citizenship, and belonging in displaced Syrian communities(2019-07-08) Pitchford, Gerald Barton; Canning, Charlotte, 1964-; Ziter, Edward; Bonin-Rodriguez, Paul; Alrutz, Megan CharlotteHela L’Wein examines cultural production through a textual analysis of selected theatrical output by displaced Syrians “temporarily” relocated to Zaatari camp, Azraq camp, and Amman, Jordan. In concert with analyzing several theatrical works, I also consider the process and daily lives of the producing artists. A textual analysis of both the fictional worlds created in these plays and the nonfiction worlds their creators inhabit reveals a narrative of radical democratic citizenship bound closely with identity formation in the wake of dislocation and national fragmentation. The narrative I elucidate hinges on the interrelated logics of nostalgia, desire, and hope. Taken together these three affective registers, negotiate, and combine throughout the lives and stories of the artists discussed. Nostalgia, hope, and desire become the affective filters through which these displaced Syrians grapple with recent events, sift through memories, and begin to reconstitute themselves as stateless citizens. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the spaces of displacement in which these productions took place as well as briefly summarizes each work in its entirety. Each subsequent chapter examines a selection of work through the affective registers nostalgia, desire and hope. Chapter two focuses on moments in three productions Shakespeare in Za’atari, Our Journey, and Love Boat where nostalgia is used strategically to reinforce specific modes of citizenship or to induce behavior change. Chapter three examines desire as a tactic which draws on improvisation and immediacy to control small actions within larger chaotic situations. The three theatrical moments discussed in this chapter, Shakespeare in Za’atari, the classroom of Iman Zabeida, and Romeo and Juliet Separated by War exhibit agency by transgressing regulated territory. Chapter four elevates moments of hope present in the act of creating theatre for the participants in Syrian Trojan Women, Romeo and Juliet Separated By War, and Love Boat. Experiences described in this chapter allowed the participants to project themselves into a future where the trauma of war disappears and they belong to a community. Throughout this dissertation I argue that the intersecting flow of nostalgia, desire, and hope open new pathways for the displaced participants to reconsider and remake citizenship.Item Identity management systems at UNHCR : from paper registration to biometric data management(2018-05-22) Abdirahman, Mohamed Haian; Weaver, Catherine, 1971-This report examines the evolution of registration operations as coordinated by humanitarian organizations to serve the needs of refugee populations. It begins with an historical overview of registration by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), previewing an expectation that aid groups address identification demands during refugee operations. It then looks at the evolution of data requested of refugee populations, addressing the normalization of biometric data collection without meaningful governance through procedural documentation. A case study centered on registration in the Dadaab refugee complex then frames biometric data within its use by UNHCR and the Kenyan government to decrease the number of persons identified as refugees. This report concludes with brief recommendations on the creation, verification, and management of identification records by humanitarian organizations as conforming to principles that center the biometric rights of refugees.Item Immobilized life : humanitarianism in a refugee camp(2013-12-05) Lynch, Emily Ann; Ali, Kamran Asdar, 1961-; Hartigan, John; Stewart, Kathleen; Strong, Pauline; Hoad, NevilleMy dissertation represents the first anthropological engagement with Congolese in a condition of forced and protracted statelessness. I outline how the camp, originally figured out of emergency and crisis, is sustained and normalized over time. Feelings of social abandonment, logics and operations of humanitarian reason, and the excessive extensions of a moral, ethical force of compassion create the conditions for “life” in Gihembe camp, though heavily culled from cruel, minimalist biopolitics. The refugee is produced by an intense, liberal valorization of human life, mediated by a difficult and distinctive role: at once the target of life-enhancing humanitarian mobilizations, typically regarded as an unmitigated force of good, refugees are further exposed, stripped-down, stranded, and harmed by the same logics that facilitate their lives. Social death operates parallel to the life-enhancing regime. I unravel how the refugee is living within humanitarian intervention, what they do with it, and how it shapes their subjectivities. The durative present and the resulting temporal dispossession illuminates the multiple blindness’s and paradoxes of “the camp of life,” a site where the boundaries of humanitarianism operates and exceeds its own systems of value, and ethical impetuses. At the initial time of crisis, it saves and preserves life—but nearly two decades later—the apparatus limits the possibilities for the life contained to the camp, and relegates it back to bare life, wherein refugees are not permitted to extricate themselves from this temporality, nor do they have the means to do so. The camp is intended to be temporary in nature and time. Long-term humanitarianism is not concerned with striving or thriving, but rather about enduring life and managing the disappointments of its subjects. The structure of camp life pushes into their being, making them immobilized and outside of time—but still in the durative present—and unable to piece together a coherent version of themselves: their context is repetitive and boring, yet, disruptive and too unstable to cultivate a self. The perception and participation in time plays a critical role in refugees’ inability to create lifeworlds, reengaging the impossible openness of the future in a habitable space.Item Lily Trieu Interview(2022-10-13) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious StudiesThis interview is with Lily Trieu, a first-generation Chinese-American and non-profit director in Austin, TX. Lily shares her parents’ stories of coming to the US, living as a low-income family, and struggling with assimilation. She talks about her busy youth and her education. Lily describes her path from working in corporate marketing to working in policy advocacy and founding Asian Texans for Justice. She also shares her perspectives on anti-Asian racism and the needs of communities like hers.Item A needs assessment for an ESL classroom-based mental health intervention for refugees(2015-05) Krivitsky, Ludmila; Ainslie, Ricardo C.; Borich, Gary D.The purpose of this report is to describe a needs assessment design for a proposed mental health intervention for the refugee population in Austin, TX. A key element of the intervention is its setting in an adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom, with the teacher serving as the administrator of the intervention. In the first of part the assessment, the mental health needs of refugees in the Austin area are explored through data collected from a series of informal interviews with individuals who provide services for refugees. The second part the assessment seeks to identify the possibilities and challenges of utilizing the ESL classroom as a potential setting for mental health service provision. In the proposed design, ten ESL teachers who work with refugees will be interviewed to assess their levels of willingness and preparedness to participate in mental service provision and identify the types of training and support that they would need to serve in a mental health provision role. The interviews will also include the teachers' assessments of different mental health-related activities in terms of their appropriateness for the ESL classroom.Item Negena Haidary Interview(2021-03-28) Institute for Diversity & Civic LifeThis interview is with Negena Haidary, an Afghan-American Shia Muslim woman. Negena speaks about her relationships and experiences with her family, particularly as a first-generation American. She speaks about the impacts of 9/11 on her family, the difficulty of finding community as a member of a minority group, and the ongoing act of balancing immigrant parents’ expectations with the necessity of participating in American culture. Negena also discusses the challenges of navigating mental health and finding one’s own life path, sharing the wisdom she has gathered through her own journey of healing and growth.Item Olive oil, salt and pepper, onions, tea, bread, and sometimes tomatoes : economic conditions among Iraqi refugee women living in urban areas of Jordan(2010-08) Arar, Rawan Mazen; Busch-Armendariz, Noël Bridget; Schiesari, NancyThis study explores economic conditions among Iraqi refugee women living in urban areas of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan through open-ended interviews. The research aims to address coping mechanisms Iraqi refugee women use to adapt to their financial situation. The goal is to review the proactive efforts women make to turn family units from traditional consumers (buying goods) to producers (making goods) in order to find financial stability. The study incorporates three overarching themes: First, it establishes Iraqi refugee women’s financial status by surveying economic security and employment opportunities. Second, the study investigates how living in urban areas of Jordan affects Iraqi women’s economic status. Thirdly, the study explores how Iraqi refugee women approach their financial situation. How have Iraqi women taken steps to exercise control over their financial lives and improve their economic situation as refugees? The objective of this project is to promote women’s empowerment by creating an open dialogue about Iraqi women’s struggles and to highlight the steps that women take to improve their situation. The study suggests steps that can be taken to aid Iraqi refugees.Item Power To The People: How Blockchain Based Digital Identity Can Empower Disadvantaged Individuals(2019-05-01) Syed, Hasan; Christian, GeorgeBlockchain technology is thrown around as a fix for many logistical issues, including how societies keeps track of identity. 1.1 billion people currently lack any form of identity, and billions of people with identity find their personal data out of their control. Billions suffer when physical forms of identity are taken, destroyed, misplaced, or forged. The Equifax and Facebook- Cambridge Analytica hacks demonstrate the severe impacts of identity and data mismanagement. The European Migration Crisis exemplifies the drawbacks of immigration systems when physical identity forms are missing and the strenuous process of determining backgrounds and identity. This thesis evaluates blockchain technology as a solution to the identity crisis. The thesis analyzes the specifics of the technology to see if it can function as an identity management system. It will then assess the viability of blockchain based digital identity projects. The paper will then apply the technology in hypothetical use cases and determine how blockchain architecture can empower individuals to reclaim control of their identity, especially in refugee and trafficking crises.Item Rapid population increase and urban housing systems : legitimization of centralized emergency accommodations for displaced persons(2017-05) Faure, Julie Charlotte; Faust, Kasey M.Sudden population influxes in cities place unexpected demands on the urban housing system. During these influxes, decisions made to accommodate displaced persons are often controversial, potentially hindering the ability of organizations involved to respond. Understanding how individuals within those organizations legitimize (i.e. perceive as desirable, proper, or appropriate) and delegitimize (i.e. perceive as undesirable or inappropriate) actions taken to accommodate internationally displaced persons is thus crucial to make decisions that will lead to efficient institutional responses. Existing research relating to the adaptation of urban housing systems for international population influxes in developed countries primarily focus on the long-term response rather than on the short-term response. This study seeks to address this research gap by providing an overview of the perspectives of stakeholders involved in the provision of centralized accommodations for displaced persons during the refugee crisis in 2015 in Germany. A qualitative analysis of interview data was performed to obtain a holistic understanding of the studied institutional response. Twenty-five interviews with employees involved in different steps of the process for providing centralized accommodations for displaced persons were conducted in 2016. Interview content was analyzed to capture the way involved individuals legitimized (1) the overall provision of centralized accommodations for displaced persons, and (2) the choice for specific types of accommodations commonly used. Results show that interviewed individuals mainly legitimized the process for providing centralized accommodations to displaced persons based on their individual convictions and by using procedural, consequential, influence and exchange legitimacy. They mainly delegitimized this process based on self-interested calculations and by using exchange and influence legitimacy. Finally, results indicate that short-term accommodations, such as sport halls, were the least preferred option due to the poor perceived livability, while solutions such as modular housing and the renovation of unused buildings were the most preferred options due to perceived benefits for displaced persons, informants, and the hosting German cities.Item Refugees without a country find a new home in the Lone Star State(2017-12-08) Wang, Qiling; Darling, Dennis CarlyleAbout 620,000 Rohingya -- a predominantly Muslim ethnic group -- have fled violence in Myanmar this year in Asia’s worst refugee crisis in decades – an operation that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described as “ethnic cleansing” in November. The stories of Rohingya persecution are familiar to Mohamad Hussain, 40, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment on East Rundberg Lane with two other men from Rakhine. One of them is Hami Dulla, 43, who is raising two children with his wife, Baraket Be, 33. The couple met at the Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp in Thailand, about 7 miles from the Myanmar border. Also living with them is Mohamed Zalar, 52, who is under medical treatment for bone disease and diabetes. A father of four, Zalar has been separated from his wife for 14 years.Item Refugees’ Perceptions of Health and Healthcare Accessibility(2020) David, Rachel Priyanka; Ambrosino, RobertIn recent years, the United States has set the lowest caps for refugees able to enter the country than any other time in our nation’s history. These changing policies are resulting in funding cuts for refugee resettlement organizations that help support refugees in all areas, including healthcare. Because of this, healthcare disparities and barriers for this population are becoming increasingly apparent. While research has identified the major barriers and disparities for refugees in healthcare, the impact of culture on refugees’ perceptions of healthcare has not been researched. This thesis seeks to determine the cultural differences, if any, in perceptions of health and healthcare among resettled refugees from different countries of origin. Refugees' perceptions were studied through thematic analysis of eleven semi-structured interviews. These interviews were conducted with refugees from different countries of origin, regarding their experiences and perceptions of health and healthcare in their home country compared to in the United States. Qualitative analysis of interview responses indicated language differences and financial cost as main driving factors in all individuals’ health perceptions, regardless of country of origin. Gaining a better understanding of the cultural perceptions of health and healthcare may help healthcare providers more effectively treat this population.Item Repatriation and state reconstruction : tracing the agency of Afghan returnees in the face of human insecurity(2015-05) Wojdyla, Stella Maria; Hindman, Heather; Miller, PaulSince the beginnings of the Afghan refugee crisis, aid agencies have provided consistent and substantial relief to Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran. However, the response was framed by the assumption that mostly short-term humanitarian aid is re-quired because refugees will return to Afghanistan once the conflict ends. This report challenges the "conflict-refugee" concept by focusing on refugee agency in the face of human insecurity and the complexity of Afghan population movements, which include transnational networks, mixed migration, and hybrid identities. The discussion concentrates on the period from 2002 to 2005, when UNHCR facilitated sizable surges of voluntary returns while the Afghan state was still in the initial reconstruction phase. Regardless of UNHCR's repatriation program, the refugee crisis persisted as a significant number of repatriates decided to return to Pakistan and Iran or cross the border repeatedly. To explain the causes and consequences of this phenomenon of refugee backflows, I offer the following argument: The backflow of repatriated refu-gees consisted of both voluntary and forced migrants. Voluntary migrants continued ex-isting practices of circular migration to pursue their preferred livelihood strategies. Forced migrants, however, responded to human insecurity in Afghanistan with migratory coping strategies as their only available form of agency. This distinction has several implications for future reconstruction and repatriation efforts: On the one hand, reconstruction plans should integrate the potential constructive effects of voluntary migration. These effects include remittances, the transfer of human capital, as well as the reduction of pressures on the labor market, infrastructures and so-cial services in the transitional state. On the other hand, UNHCR should only facilitate repatriation once a minimum level of human security on all levels is guaranteed to ensure safe and dignified returns and prevent continued forced migration.Item Rights and rupees : a study of opportunities and challenges in Tibetan refugee existence in India(2020-08-14) Brouwer, Nicholas Ray; Lentz, Erin C.; Cons, JasonPerhaps one of the most “successful” refugee groups in the world, Tibetan existence in India is complicated nonetheless. Organized under the unique government-in-exile of the Central Tibetan Administration, Tibetan refugees have created a state-within-a-state; one that can hold international elections for its democratic institutions, tax its people, and provide welfare services. Despite these boons, Tibetans still struggle in political and bureaucratic limbo in India. Navigating their existence in India requires special attention to balancing the needs of the CTA and Tibetan people with their relationship to their Indian host population. If the relationship between host and guest becomes one where the host begins to envy the guest, conflict can arise. This report examines the particular opportunities and challenges faced by the Tibetan refugee community and the CTA in India and incorporates qualitative data to analyze the socioeconomic status of Tibetans in relation to Indians.