Rethink Rebuild Society invites you to a new episode of the online series: Refugees, the Lived Experience
Mainstream media and popular discourses describe (Syrian) refugees as victims who need help to deal with the traumatic events that they experienced before and during their journey. Not seeking help for their mental wellbeing is often explained by their supposed fear of stigmatisation.
In this episode of Refugees, the Lived Experience, the two researchers challenge this assumption using findings from research they have conducted with Syrian refugees in the Netherlands, showing that their main struggle concerns their identity fragmentation as a result of both their displacement and the stereotypical perceptions towards Muslim/Syrian people as victims or terrorists. They also explore how Syrian refugee youths use counter-narratives of being strong and competent to deal with their experience of identity fragmentation and how that offers an alternative explanation for refugees not seeking professional help in dealing with their hardships.
Join us on Tuesday 10th December 2024 at 7pm UK time.
Zoom link will be sent closer to the time.
Picture by artist Mwaffaq Qat.
The Researchers
Els Rommes
Els Rommes is associate Professor at the Gender & Diversities Department and research director of Radboud Social Cultural Research at the Radboud University Nijmegen. She founded the master specialization ‘Diversities in Youth Care’ of pedagogical sciences. Dr. Rommes is principal investigator of various (inter)national research projects, including a study on culturally competent mental health care at primary schools and a study on culturally competent counselors for refugee families. Els’s focus is on exploring how gender and other diversities can be taken into account by the health care system and professional mental health care workers.
Nisrine Chaer
Nisrine Chaer is a PhD candidate and teacher in Gender Studies at Utrecht University whose research interests lie at the intersection of anthropology, gender studies, migration studies, and Middle East studies. Chaer's PhD is titled "Respectability, Hypervisibility, and Queer and Trans Refugees in Lebanon and the Netherlands". Chaer's work has appeared in Kohl Journal (2015), Global Dialogue (2016), Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2019), ZemZem (2020), Women Rising: Resistance, Revolution, and Reform in the Arab Spring and Beyond (NYU Press, 2020), CrisisMag (2022), Transcultural Psychiatry (2023), Journal of Refugee Studies (2023), UntoldMag (2023), The Queer Arab Glossary (Saqi Books, 2024), Sexualities (2024), and the Public Source (2024).
