Author: Ravi KS Kohli, University of Bedfordshire
Project: Relational wellbeing in the lives of young refugees in Finland, Norway and Scotland (The Drawing Together Project)
Context
I’ll begin by saying something to you as a reader. I’m choosing not to write in the third person, but relationally, with you and me in mind. This paper addresses you, person-to-person, beyond your role as a policy maker. In writing about integration, I’ll name some forces that we face that pose the threat of disintegration, including the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic. And in facing them together, we’re beginning to do something to create clarity, coherence and continuity, which together form the crucible of integration within our countries. Our work in this project is built on the idea that integration is neither dramatic nor sudden. It is quiet, unremarkable, and made by communities living together within borders that seek to preserve and evolve their national identities. As nations, we look back, look around, and look forward, so that policies themselves are integrated with our past, present, and future. So, the cross-comparative question at the intersection of these time and space dimensions is this: what does it mean to be Finnish, Norwegian, or Scottish? What resources, cultures, and behaviours make integration work, both for young people who are refugees, and the hosts who are prepared to receive them? Answering such questions means that we’re developing understanding of the contours of hospitality and reciprocity, in ways that are familiar as well as new to policy makers in each of our countries.
Relational wellbeing in the lives of young refugees in Finland, Norway and Scotland
Our project’s subtitle is ‘Drawing Together’. This symbolises not just our focus on young refugees and hosts being close, but also on using artwork as part of our approach. In line with many other research studies, the heart of our project looks at integration in relation to young refugees’ stories about what host countries do or what they provide. It seeks to amplify their stories by asking about the experiences in a number of ways, as outlined below. In our work with young people, our emphasis is on policy-based actions and the effective use of material resources. However, their stories are bigger than the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of integration. They also speak of ‘who’ – that is the young person’s own biographical fit with the people around them in their new countries. They sometimes discuss the ‘why’ of being away from their lands of birth, within the stories they tell of their lives before leaving. They talk of the ‘where’ of integration, encompassing the ecology of living. They locate themselves within the constructed and natural environments of their new countries, and how these hide or show themselves as places of multiple belongings. In linking the stories of their childhood with their present circumstances and future hopes and dreams, they provide a sense of ‘when’, as time does not always move in a straight line. Rather, time constantly unfolds around them. So overall, integration as ‘multiple belongings’ is not just about their place in the world, but also about travelling in time.
Our project’s architecture
Our project relies on the concept of ‘relational wellbeing’ (RWB) (see White, 2008; White and Jha, 2020). At its simplest, it shows that integration policies in each country need to be built around three interlinked dimensions: First, people ‘having enough’ in terms of their material needs, and achieving stability through, for example, the provision of education and employment, housing, health and social care services. Second, people ‘being connected’ to others and exercising their relational rights and responsibilities within sustaining communities of protection and care. Third, ‘feeling OK’ subjectively, not just in relation to others, and to resources, but also their environments and faith systems. Moreover, relational wellbeing assumes that in order to create and sustain a balance between these dimensions of living, there are three drivers. One is societal, encompassing social, cultural and economic aspects of life. Another is environmental, lodged within an understanding of ecosystems, climate, and the ‘sacred and moral order’ of life. The third is personal, reflected in the ways people absorb their individual, family and community histories, and sharpen their talents, skills, temperaments and outlooks on life. These drivers and dimensions together create scaffolding for integration. But they do not form a static framework. They are not solid, but fluid. They constantly ebb and flow in people’s lives.
Methodology
A core element of our methodology has been to follow 16 young women and men in each country who have refugee status – a total of 48 young refugees. We’ve done this over three years. In following their lives over that time we’ve avoided a mere snapshot. Instead, we’ve chosen to emphasise that life is about rhythms and patterns that can only be observed over an extended period. It’s not a photo, it’s a movie. Another aspect of our work is creating art for an exhibition in our countries. This is to demonstrate to a wide public audience that there is life beyond the spoken word. For young refugees who speak languages other than the one in the new country, an arts-based project is a good way to demonstrate their talents and skills. They put their artwork and talk of hope and talent alongside the stories of suffering that they have had to tell the authorities in each country. We think that multiple stories matter, as they show life in colour, not just in black and white. And for each participant, there is a chance to connect their present situation with their childhood and their aspirations for the future. They do this in various ways, telling us about their timelines of wellbeing through talking and drawing maps about important people in their family, their community, their friendship network, and their professional helpers. Each element shows a different part of the scaffolding that supports their life. Finally, we meet with them and a ‘value person’ chosen by them, who can talk about what the young refugee brings to the new country, and what he or she means to them as a person who is vibrant.
COVID-19 constraints
A major constraint has been the impact of COVID-19. For a project built on ‘Drawing Together’, researchers in all our countries have spent a lot of time ensuring that closeness could happen at a safe distance. Spontaneity has had to be planned. Although there are downsides to conducting research under such conditions. But as COVID-19 regulations have eased over time, we have met young people face to face. We have witnessed their struggles and movements towards making a new a life for themselves. These observations are beginning to form our results.
Some preliminary results
Our project is still young. It will reach its middle age later this year. Nevertheless, we have begun to analyse our data within the framework provided by the RWB model. Moreover, we have begun to place integration policies relevant to each country within that framework. In Scotland, for example, two policy documents are being examined – the New Scots Integration Strategy 2018-2022 (Scottish Government, 2018), and the UK Home Office’s Indicators of Integration Framework (Home Office, 2019) that is relevant to all UK countries including Scotland. These show that the main focus of refugee integration policies lies in education, housing, health and social care, employability and welfare rights, language and communication, and the development of digital skills. These fit well with the ‘having enough’ dimension of the RWB model and the material aspects of integration. In addition, the ‘being connected’ dimension is about the relational aspects of life. It considers the growth and maintenance of social links, bonds and bridges, and how these articulate with citizens’ rights and responsibilities within contexts of cultural pluralism.
Perhaps what is less visible in these policy frameworks is the ways refugees can feel integrated within the ecosystems of their environments. Similarly, there is little written in relation to subjective feelings of integration via religion and faith that guides some people. So, to capture elements of heaven and earth, one has to look at other social policies. In Scotland these appear as the Scottish Government’s (2020) Environment Strategy for Scotland and its (2013) Equality Outcomes: Religion and Belief Evidence Review. Each delineates a sense of Scotland looking out for opportunities for integration not just for refugees, but also for people as citizens of a country that is promising safety, belonging, and success. Scotland says that in order to work harmoniously, policies need to integrate with each other so that integration makes music, not noise. Now, let’s move to what young people have to say about day-to-day integration within the framework provided by the RWB model. Here are brief examples from the interview data:
1. HAVING ENOUGH, and the material dimensions of integration
One of the firm intentions for our young refugees is to have identifiable goals and to build skills that realise them. So, many discussed having an initial focus on language acquisition and finding resources to support language development. Access to technology, particularly having a mobile phone as a means of navigation, remained enduringly important. They used it to map and move within their new environments. But it also allowed them to plot a way forwards to the future by accessing information that could lead to better access to resources. Importantly the phone also held images of the past – family, music, food – and evoked nostalgia and memories that were not always comfortable. But they were pilots in finding ways forwards. A sense of freedom was contained in simple choices that they made in the comfort of having a little more safety in their lives. Although our project has not asked about experiences of racism specifically, it was clear that some had experienced it and were not complacent about it. It made them wary and wise enough to step back from danger rather than step forwards. As the project progresses, we may have a fuller sense of similar experiences in the different countries, but for now we have snippets with which to see the bigger picture later on. In terms of gainful employment, the young refugees talked about their own persistence, and the kindness of strangers in helping them find employment. Here’s one young person’s experience:
I went straight into the restaurant and asked them for work. ‘Do you guys have any work for me?’ He said, ‘Come back tomorrow’. And then when I come back the day after, the boss, the owner was there. And I said to him, ‘I’m looking for work’. The dishwasher was leaving. They said to me, ‘We have you a dishwasher to start with, do you want it?’ It was a hard job, I was doing it, I was doing it for two months… I was working very hard, they look at what I was doing, I was coming on time, everything. So, he give me the chance, I explained to him all my situation, my English is not good enough, my first time in this country, I don’t have work experience. Even I say this, he give me the opportunity, he say, ‘Not a problem, everyone has their situation’.
Finding helpers was not just about their social networks. It also meant using welfare services to find housing, and education as a means of achieving success. Guides such as social workers and teachers became important people. But also foster carers, who did small things well. Finding a dentist, for example:
And then she was trying always to make me happy. I remember my teeth was like a rabbit, like you know, was quite a bit out, and then when I laugh with her, I was hiding my teeth like this. Then she say to me, ‘Why you hiding your teeth because they are so beautiful, why are you hiding your teeth?’ Because I said to her, I’m not comfortable when I laugh because my teeth is quite out, and when I laugh, I feel like I have rabbit teeth… And then she’d say to me, ‘Let’s go to the dentist to do a brace’.
2. BEING CONNECTED and being relational
Young people often talked of people who were their champions and ‘family-like’ companions. These relationships were maintained within the circle of other young refugees. They were often reciprocal. They also reached out to the communities where the young people lived. These wider relations were often about giving or receiving assistance. Overall, the small and wider circles of support and obligation were there to steady them, carry them forwards, and be on their side and by their side.
As a project, we have so far focused on local networks. We will explore their relationships within wider networks at a later time – such as in relation to social, political, and cultural identities, or their relationships with the State, law, politics, and welfare. We have glimpses of the bigger picture. Within the smaller notes about connectedness, stories have emerged of football teams, language teachers, local guides to explain the rules of living in the host country, and people who understand the value of mutual respect and dignity. Looking transnationally, young refugees also showed their reliance on wider kin networks, far away but close to them. Equally they talked about establishing a rhythm and pattern of life with others that was predictable and safe. Some young people had connections with faith communities. Finding a suitable mosque or a church appeared to bridge the present with the past, and also with the future.
It means for me church, when I go church, so I can understand singing and if I want to be quiet, so I can be quiet, I can read bible, to teach people and to pray. Yeah, that’s why it’s important for me to go church, to understand deep.
As we chart young people’s lives over time, we will also study how their networks contract and expand, and the dynamics they contain. Examining the pulse of social networks will offer insights, not just across the nations, but also into how wellbeing is maintained or evolves in relation to being connected. For example, given the COVID-19 pandemic, young refugees have spoken about loneliness, the chaos and mess created by withdrawing from public living, as well as about opportunities for maintaining friendships.
If you ask a bird in a cage, ‘How do you feel? What would the bird tell you? You’ve got freedom outside but you’re in the cage, you cannot go outside [because of Covid-19], … I just look out of my window because there is a nice park out of my window, I can see the freedom outside, I can’t use that freedom because of this COVID-19 which is separating myself from my outside community.
But we stay on the positive side and encourage each other, being part of each other life, to feel that way, and to share that loneliness together, so not being able to face-to-face talk.
3. FEELING OK and the subjective aspects of integration
A key aspect of integration for some of the young people was endurance – just the stubborn will to make it through to reach a new life. Feeling OK also meant being receptive to not feeling OK. Disintegration and integration lived together for them, the same as they do for many migrants seeking new roots. No shortcuts, just the realisation that you have to be bigger than your barriers. Similarly, feeling OK was connected to community. As one young person said about football: It brightens every cell in my body. Sometimes, when saturated with stress, having access to a gym was necessary, and contact sports like boxing came as a relief. In terms of outlooks and characteristics, young refugees’ faith in themselves appeared important, just as it did in having access to nature and the open environment. Happiness was a matter of practice before it becomes spontaneous. Being kind to people and animals, being curious about learning, becoming skilled at a job, and learning the new language all added to a sense of achievement and progress. Overall, arriving in a new country and being accepted by strangers was for some a high point of living peacefully:
[X country] people they are humble…In [this city] in the middle of the night I can walk by myself, no one can ask me, and […] people everywhere they say, ‘Hi mate,’ make you feel like safety… In my country whenever you see someone you have to say salaam alaykum. Like here in [this country] you say hi, it’s the same as salaam alaykum. People here are good.
The two pictures you see here were offered by one young refugee in an art workshop. The first is a gift he received from a teacher, so that he could begin to decorate his room. This was a valued object from his new life, he said:
Yeah, I like this picture, it reminds me of when I first come to this country. When I came here it was so strange this country and I received from my teacher. So, she helped me a lot and the way I am here, and I am able here to learn from people and how I learn from society. I think that it represents her, how she likes helping people to encourage them to go to community, to people, get on well with them, to get to know them, to find yourself, be independent, to be freedom. Just makes you stronger. And every time I look at this picture, it makes me very stronger and makes me very happy
From this gift from the teacher, the artwork was made. It shows the complexity of the journey towards integration, in terms of hopefulness and joy, as well as sadness and barriers. The confusion of the past is drawn like wire wool in the bottom right of the picture. The doves are still flying. The young person has colour. In the top left, he sees himself as a tree providing shelter for others. He says:
So, like at the beginning I didn’t know what I’m going to be, so I imagined myself and saw my future by these people, so I can help people in the future, I can give them something, hope…
This hope was expressed in a final art workshop in March 2022. We began by asking participants to gather around a table covered with a large map of the world. After identifying their own countries, they found Ukraine. From Ukraine they built corridors of safety to other countries using toy bricks as vehicles, bridges, and buildings. They worked silently in solidarity, evoked not only by their own memories, but in sympathy with the people of Ukraine. They said that they were just people helping other people. Together, they hoped for calm.
Conclusions
Any conclusions are tentative. They will be stronger later in the project’s life. For now, we can say that as a personal experience, integration for young refugees is complex and fragile. They are intent on putting something back into the country that has accepted them. As a policy framework, integration is built step by step, layer by layer, into scaffolding that young refugees can use to grow their lives organically. As part of that regrowth, reciprocity is as important as hospitality. Here, accepting their rights and responsibilities as a new citizen is balanced with accepting and providing opportunities for their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others. The promise is that integration is a win-win. I end with a quote from one of our participants walking in a park and reflecting on the laws of natural order that generate integration across ages:
Some of the trees are very old and broken
they lean on other trees and they hold on
for me it’s absolutely amazing,
it’s not just human being that can help each other,
look at nature, the trees are encouraging, holding each other’s weight
It’s as if they were saying
‘Yes, don’t worry, I’m holding you, we’re not finished here’
References
- Home Office (2019) Home Office indicators of integration framework 2019.
- Scottish Government (2018) New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy 2018-2022.
- Scottish Government (2013) Scottish Government Equality Outcomes: Religion and Belief Evidence Review (2013).
- Scottish Government (2020) The Environment Strategy for Scotland: Vision and Outcomes.
- White, S (2008) But what is wellbeing? A framework for analysis in social and development policy and practice.
- White, S and Jha S (2020) Relational Wellbeing: A Conversation with Sarah C. White and Shreya Jha.