Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Warren, Kamryn Danielle

Titel

"We Do What We Can" Creating Success in a New England Refugee Resettlement Agency

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Fundamental refugee resettlement policy states that self-sufficiency for refugees is the key factor to successful refugee resettlement yet today neither the state department nor the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) measure how this goal is achieved through the individual assistance provided to refugees (ORR 1980.) Sociologists who study refugees have focused on the individual and communal outcomes of refugee groups and not necessarily the welfare workers interacting with them (Ong 2003,Hein 1993, Nawyn 2010) and scholars of the welfare state question the systems that assist the marginalized and critically evaluate the reliance on idioms of individual economic self-sufficiency (Collins and Mayer 2010, Auyero 2012) yet neither have narrowed in on the refugee case. Scholarship that focuses on welfare workers lacks refugee case studies and focuses on the care work required of such positions. The study of “street–level bureaucrats” shows the dilemma of case workers attempting to merge caring for clients and adherence to bureaucratic requirements who are bound in bureaucratic structures making this type of work fraught with tension and difficult to perform (Lipsky 2010). Given the importance placed on the measures of self-sufficiency and success for refugees but the lack of focus on how it is achieved I ask; what does the construction and delivery of success in refugee resettlement look like in the interactions between refugee clients and welfare workers? And, how are the top down directives and bureaucratic requirements of institutions such as the ORR carried out in the day-to-day of resettlement in a social service office?Seeking the answers to these questions occurred over a twelve month period during which I conducted ethnographic field work in a refugee resettlement agency in New England.The agency which is the major resettlement organization for its region serves a diverse client base of over 1,000 individuals. Over the course of the year I was a participant observer and volunteer in various capacities in the employment services division where I assisted with job applications, client files, hiring events, and assistance to a micro loan program. I conducted weekly and bi weekly visits during which I took field notes about interactions between refugee clients, case workers, and administrators, and recorded notes while participating in hiring events and assisting clients on trips to the welfare office. What I found was a complex system of refugees navigating resettlement, and case workers struggling and strategizing ways to keep clients afloat during the precarious resettlement period while managing to adhere to larger goals and mandates.Case workers both enforced and challenged the bureaucratic structure of resettlement they were working under. I witnessed case workers cutting corners in order to pay attention to the personal needs of clients that are not included in the bureaucratic script of resettlement and I saw them coldly enforce mandated time periods for employment and force clients into unwanted jobs for the sake of filling a quota. Case workers also spent their own time and personal resources to ensure their clients had the most amicable resettlement experience as possible and often wrung their hands about the stressful cases they had to terminate assistance for. The lack of space in the quantitative institutional requirements of resettlement for an ethic of care expressed by case workers led to the subversion of these requirements in efforts to provide much needed support to their clients. Ultimately, working towards quotas led case workers to face moments of quasi-utilitarian decision making about the needs of their clients which consequently resulted in the streamlining of refugee clients into temporary insecure work; leaving both parties in less than ideal circumstances.