In this article, we examine the relationship between important types of policies for asylum permit holders in the Netherlands and the improvement in their command of Dutch. As far as asylum policy is concerned, we find that participation in activities in the asylum seekers reception centre – and in particular, following Dutch language classes – contribute to an improvement in Syrian asylum permit holders’ command of Dutch. On the other hand, a prolonged period of stay and frequent relocations between reception centres are not favourable. Asylum permit holders who have successfully completed the civic integration programme have a better command of the language than asylum permit holders who are still undergoing the programme. An important finding is that there seems to be a sort of double deficit in the area of civic integration: not only do the elderly and lower educated make less progress in learning Dutch, but they are also the ones more likely to receive a dispensation from the civic integration requirement, which places them at a further disadvantage. Third, we find that early participation in the labour market or as a volunteer is also beneficial for language proficiency.
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The purpose of this study was to describe the care needs of adult traumatized refugees and asylum seekers. DESIGN AND METHODS. A mixed-methods design was used. A survey was conducted using the Camberwell Assessment of Need (CAN) among 30 patients. Semistructured in-depth interviews were subsequently conducted with eight of these patients. FINDINGS. Key themes among refugees are loneliness and grief. Refugees are in severe psychological distress. They also encounter all kinds of practical problems that influence their quality of life. Furthermore, many of them suffer from serious psychiatric and trauma-related problems. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS. The results of this explorative study can contribute to the quality of care for traumatized refugees.
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This paper discusses sketching as a spatial and embodied ethnographic research method. Rather than a means to represent fieldwork experiences in quasi-photographic images, this method prompts researchers to slow down and open their senses. In doing so, sketching can initiate an imaginative and interpretive ethnographic process. In order to explore this process we draw on [first author’s] sketches of fieldwork encounters, made in the context of his participant observation in a Dutch Asylum Seekers’ Residence Centre. The sketches were made to imagine and interpret this border-space as it may be experienced by asylum seekers. Unlike other ethnographic research methods, sketching allowed [first author] to imagine his own perspective as well as the perspectives of asylum seekers involved in these encounters. In doing so, the sketches shed light on non-verbal, embodied interactions between asylum seekers and [first author], situated in the spatial and social setting of the Centre. Based on three fieldwork encounters, the paper demonstrates [first author’s] process of: (1) gaining access to the unfolding situations in front of his eyes; (2) registering his own perspectives of these situations; (3) imagining different perspectives of asylum seekers involved in these situations; (4) searching for different, and sometimes conflictual ways of framing these situations. Based on perceptual skills as well as contextual knowledge, the slow process of sketching helped us to gain critical and relational insights into the spaces opened up by these encounters.
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