Interrogating borders: a transnational approach to refugee research in Vancouver

Hyndman, Jennifer; Walton‐Roberts, Margaret

doi:10.1111/j.1541-0064.2000.tb00707.x

Cited by 42 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Goss (1996, p. 113) added that focus groups can also offer a space for situating a researcher within a new community, generating testable hypotheses, piloting future survey questionnaires, theory building, crafting plans for social action, and sharing results with a community (see also Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2005). Where rapport and trust are absent, focus groups are a way of accessing initial responses in a safe and supportive environment, especially because certain groups, such as refugees, often carry a deep suspicion of the state and university researchers as perceived representatives of the state (Hyndman & Walton-Roberts, 2000;McLean, Friesen, & Hyndman, 2006).…”

Section: Featuring Focus Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Methods and Meanings of Collaborative Team Research

Houston

Hyndman

McLean

et al. 2009

Qualitative Inquiry

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Team research enables the collection of multiple, sometimes conflicting, stories of migration, family, and belonging. Using common qualitative methods within a team research context can stretch these research techniques in productive and instructive ways and proffer new insight and meaning.Therefore, the authors suggest that team research offers an important avenue for both extending qualitative methods and expanding interpretative lenses. To illustrate these points, the authors draw upon their study of the settlement and migration patterns of East African Shia Ismaili Muslims in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and discuss their experiences with focus group effects, the simultaneous household interview strategy, and postinterview dialogues. The article highlights how these three techniques and effects enacted in the team research context helped the authors explicitly locate contradictions, ambiguities, and paradoxes within the narratives of first-and second-generation Ismailis.Keywords collaborative team research; focus groups; household interviews; Ismailis; qualitative methods "Team Ismaili"l is a group of four geographers (at the time two master's students, one professor, and one instructor), who joined together as research collaborators in the summer of 2005 to explore transnational migrations and connections, family and community expectations, and identity expressions among East African Shia Ismaili Muslims 2 in Greater Vancouver, Canada. We approached these themes through focus groups and in-depth individual interviews with Ismailis who either forcibly or voluntarily left East Africa between 1970s and early 1990s (people we defined as first-generation Ismailis) and the adult Canadian-born children of these immigrants (defined as second-generation Ismailis).3 The contrasting and complementary stories of "Ismaili-ness" evident in the research archive grew to be a compelling focus within our study and prompted us to reflexively consider how our methods contributed to the gathering of disparate accounts. Therefore, in this article we discuss our experiences with focus group effects, the simultaneous household interview strategy, and postinterview dialogues. We highlight how stretching qualitative methods through the team research context helped us explicitly locate contradictions, ambiguities, and paradoxes within the narratives of first-and second-generation Ismailis. In other words, the meaning ofthe narratives about the Ismaili community became nuanced and textured through the teambased mobilization of our methods.The three methodological engagements that we discuss here provide the foundation for this article. With this in mind, first, we detail the literature on focus groups and discuss the emergence of various focus group effects in our research. We next turn to the simultaneous household interview strategy and outline how this technique offers glimpses into assorted intergenerational perspectives (Jamal, 2006;Pang, 1998). We conclude with examples from our postinterview dialogues. This stru...

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Section: Featuring Focus Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Methods and Meanings of Collaborative Team Research

Houston

Hyndman

McLean

et al. 2009

Qualitative Inquiry

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“…The research for this paper stems from a larger project that examines the transnational social, political, and economic ties that Burmese refugees who have resettled in Canada maintain with their family, friends, and allies living elsewhere (Hyndman and Walton-Roberts, 2000). The Vancouver-based research documents the on-going and intense personal and political transnational ties that Burmese refugees, now landed immigrants living in Canada, maintain with displaced friends and family still living in Thailand.…”

Section: A Note On Methods and Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Business and Bludgeon at the Border: A transnational political economy of human displacement in Thailand and Burma

Hyndman

2002

GeoJournal

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“…Much of my scholarship to date has examined patterns of displacement and responses to forced migration (Hyndman 2000), but I feel this approach is incomplete because it focuses less on the power relations that force people from their homes than the geographical outcomes of such violence. Having witnessed the very visceral pain of people out of place and analyzed the international processes and programs invoked to alleviate such suffering, I aim to link scales and analyze the forces that give rise to such human suffering in order to develop a more accountable, embodied, and responsive notion of geopolitics, a feminist geopolitics.…”

Section: A Political Turnmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…My past research has analyzed the differential access of Somali and Sudanese refugees in Kenya to Canadian and Australian visa posts where they can apply for resettlement overseas. Refugee camps based in rural Northeast Kenya are far from the application office for the Canadian and Australian High Commissions in Nairobi, making access for those who must care for children in the camps and/or those without the means to travel to Nairobi much more restricted (Hyndman 2000).…”

Section: Mobility and Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…My work Is heavily indebted to the scholarship and actions of feminist geographers in this country. 3 Transnational theoriZing departs from the assumption that nations, states, or communities can be treated as spatially independent enti· ties (see Hyndman and Walton-Roberts, 2000). 4 Gender remains a central concern of feminist politics and thought.…”

Section: The Following Address Was Presented At the 2000 Canadianmentioning

confidence: 99%

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