The Life Experiences of Refugees in Canada: A Comprehensive Scoping Review to Identify Unmet Needs and Barriers

Reconsidering the Conceptualization of Resilience: The Experiences of Refugee and Immigrant Youth in Montreal

Over the last two decades, immigrant and refugee integration service agencies in Canada have been incorporating a focus on resiliency in their work and hold "fostering resilience" as a primary goal of services. These agencies focus on helping their clients enhance resilience in response to their integration challenges. Refugee and immigrant youth (RIY) face intersectional vulnerabilities during their resettlement process. These challenges make the concept of resilience vital to their success. However, resettlement service providers associate RIY's resilience with their assimilation into the Western culture such as integrating into the dominant culture. This definition is insensitive to cultural and social factors that contextualize RIY's definition of resilience. Drawing from in-depth interviews of Refugees and Immigrant youths in Montreal, and using Resilience as a conceptual framework, the research study investigated the barriers to the integration of RIY and their conceptualization of resilience. The study found social isolation, cultural differences between the host and home communities, racism, hostility, aggression, and language to be barriers to RIY's integration. The youth conceptualized resilience as a form of adaptability to any situation; as the ability to integrate into a new society while remaining deeply rooted in one's culture and past experiences; and overcoming marginalization. The paper contributes to a nuanced critical understanding in the field of refugee and migration studies and further throws light on a growing triangular interrelationship between social and economic integration of refugees, cultural factors of host communities, and resilience.

Overcoming Barriers to Service Access: Refugees’ Professional Support Service Utilization and the Impact of Human and Social Capital

After arriving in a new country, refugees are typically dependent on professional support to re-establish their livelihood. However, it is well documented that refugees face barriers when seeking access to services aimed at facilitating their settlement. This study examines refugees’ support service needs, their actual utilization, and investigates the impact of social and human capital on service utilization. Using data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees (2016–2019; N=7662), this paper, employing nested logistic regression models, highlights the diversity of refugees’ support service needs as well as large differences in utilization across eight different domains during the first couple of years after arriving in Germany. It provides evidence for an overall positive association between human and social capital and service utilization in general while also revealing differences in service domains. While language proficiency is positively associated with service utilization across all service domains, previous work experience in the country of origin particularly increases utilization of employment-related services. The analyses also find a positive association of inter-ethnic networks, whereas intra-ethnic connections are negatively associated with service utilization across many domains. The findings are especially relevant since they support the hypothesis of exclusive host community knowledge that benefits those refugees who engage with individuals outside their own ethnic network. The findings of this study accentuate the need to acknowledge the diversity of refugees’ service needs as well as the barriers to service utilization that only well-equipped refugees seem to be able to overcome.

Picturing Recreation: Newcomers' Perspectives on Experiences of Recreation

The process of resettlement in a new country represents a significant transition in a person’s or family’s life, during which there are many changes to their daily activities. While involvement in recreational activities may support such transitions, further exploration of leisure experiences, as defined subjectively by newcomers themselves, is needed. Using an exploratory, community-based participatory approach drawing on photovoice methods, focus groups, and individual interviews, this research project explored the meanings of recreation among newcomers in two communities, one rural and one urban, in Eastern Canada. Forty newcomers (n = 40), originally from 13 different countries, participated in the photovoice activities. Transcripts from three focus groups and five individual interviews were analyzed, first by site to create the photo exhibits and then across sites. Across the two sites, four sub-themes were identified: (1) continuity with, and freedom from, past activities and places; (2) being in and connecting with nature; (3) staying physically and mentally well; and (4) connecting and learning with others through reciprocity. These all contributed to the overarching theme developing a sense of belonging: a series of small encounters. The findings highlight the powerful role of recreation within the resettlement process, and highlight particularly the importance of small, informal recreational experiences that are woven into everyday lives and routines. Such experiences contribute to a sense of belonging for newcomers, thus assisting the resettlement process.

Racialization in nursing: Rediscovering Antonio Gramsci's concepts of hegemony and subalternity

Although Gramsci's notions of hegemony and subalternity may seem outdated in this 21^st century, a critical examination of the literature shows that these concepts apply in this global pandemic and political context. Racialization is a form of structural violence. In this paper, I also explore Gramsci's' notion of engaged intellectuals to support the idea of social and political activism in nursing. Nurse scholars call for the decolonization of the discipline. Gramsci's philosophical approach to hegemony can be extended to racialization in nursing. Gramsci's notions of civil society and state can help nurses to see the structures that create racism in nursing and society.