The Palliative Role of Green Space for Somali Bantu Women Refugees in Displacement and Resettlement

Coughlan, Reed; Hermes, Sarah E.

doi:10.1080/15562948.2015.1039157

Cited by 27 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Migrants’ appreciation of landscape-based notions of intangible heritage may be transferable and assistive towards adaptive relocation. Displaced Somali women used gardening as a “conduit” for storytelling in resettlement (Coughlan and Hermes 2016 ); this finding resonates with cultural heritage research done in the Caribbean, where—after returning home from hurricane induced displacement—residents reflected on the fragility of their cultural traditions. In Barbuda, though the “storytelling on a stone heap” tradition (Fig.…”

Section: Intangible Heritage For the Integration Of Climate-displaced Communitiessupporting

confidence: 54%

Intangible cultural heritage: a benefit to climate-displaced and host communities

Aktürk

Lerski

2021

J Environ Stud Sci

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Climate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues of discrimination, conflict, and security. As the number of climate-displaced populations grows, the generations-deep connection to their rituals, customs, and ancestral ties with the land, cultural practices, and intangible cultural heritage become endangered. However, intangible heritage is often overlooked in the context of climate displacement. This paper presents reflections based on observations regarding the intangible heritage of voluntarily displaced communities. It begins by examining intangible heritage under the threat of climate displacement, with place-based examples. It then reveals intangible heritage as a catalyst to building resilient communities by advocating for the cultural values of indigenous and all people in climate action planning. It concludes the discussion by presenting the implications of climate displacement in existing intangible heritage initiatives. This article seeks to contribute to the emerging policies of preserving intangible heritage in the context of climate displacement.

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Section: Intangible Heritage For the Integration Of Climate-displaced Communitiessupporting

confidence: 54%

Intangible cultural heritage: a benefit to climate-displaced and host communities

Aktürk

Lerski

2021

J Environ Stud Sci

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“…Unfamiliarity is not necessarily ‘bad’ in itself and can be cause for concern or a point of novel delight dependent on context (Rishbeth & Finney, 2006). Research focused on urban gardening and allotment‐ing (Coughlan & Hermes, 2016; Lapina, 2017; Taylor & Lovell, 2015) mostly highlights positive emotional reactions, including recognition of plants and transnational practices of growing. The particularity represented by the non‐human—a plant in place or out of place—does appear to support migrants developing broader conceptions of their own sense of (transnational) belonging (Rishbeth & Finney, 2006; Strunk & Richardson, 2017).…”

Section: Migrant Experiences Of Naturementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban nature and transnational lives

Rishbeth

Birch

2020

Population Space and Place

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This paper explores ways in which first generation migrants living in a UK city engage with urban nature. Through understanding mundane connections with local nature (plants, animals and seasons), we attend to two questions 'what can narratives of urban nature tell us about experiences of migration', and inversely 'what can diverse migrant voices tell us about experiences of urban nature'? We draw on interview data with 23 participants, all born overseas, with a diverse mix in terms of age (young adults to older retired people), gender, country of origin and length of time resident in the United Kingdom. The analysis focuses on three areas: multisensory engagements with weather, care for nature and how transnational identities surface through the relational dimensions of nature narratives. We conclude by highlighting the potential of embodied nature engagement to support a sense of wellbeing and transnational identity across the life-course, with potential to more broadly reflect pluralist understandings of the urban environment.

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“…Whilst a focus on emplacement (as it has evolved from the earlier focus on embodiment) is evident in geography and social science literature (Casey, 2009;Pink, 2015;Seamon, 2018), it remains relatively under-explored as a theoretical framework. Over the past decade, other researchers exploring former refugees' sensory and emotional resettlement experiences have also aimed to re-spatialise refugee experience, though few explicitly use the term 'emplacement' and more connections could be made here (Biglin, 2020;Coughlan & Hermes, 2016;Munt, 2016;O'Neill & Hubbard, 2010;Rishbeth et al, 2019;Sampson & Gifford, 2010).…”

Section: Moving Beyond Dis-placement: Re-spatialising Individual Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

'Some Birds Sound the Same but Most Sing Different': Exploring Multisensory Place-Attachment and Wellbeing with Former Refugees in Nelson, Aotearoa New Zealand

Kale¹

2021

Preprint

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Through everyday multisensory experiences, individuals familiarise themselves with unique environments, people, rhythms, and routines, and form meaningful sociospatial relationships and emotional place attachments. These relationships are often severed during forced displacement, leading many refugees to feel a sense of loss, grief, and disorientation which can negatively impact upon their wellbeing as they move through and resettle in new places. Feelings of loss and grief may be further compounded by the stress of settling into a new unfamiliar geographic terrain and culture. Despite the importance that meaningful places can hold for individuals, place is often overlooked in resettlement research, which tends to prioritise the provision of basic needs and practices of social integration. However, in this thesis I suggest that a focus on place and multisensory processes of place-attachment can offer important insight into the emotional challenges and benefits of forced displacement and resettlement, and encourage new ways of supporting former refugees to maintain connections to their homelands, develop meaningful relationships with new people and places, and feel well in their everyday lives. To explore how former refugees’ everyday multisensory experiences shaped their feelings of place-attachment and wellbeing, I facilitated a research project in Nelson, Aotearoa New Zealand. Local reports indicated that refugee mental health problems were increasing in this city, and residents had identified a need for ‘alternative’ (non-Western biomedical) therapies in the health system. Building upon an emplaced, relational epistemology and participatory arts-based methodology, the research included preliminary ‘scoping’ interviews with eleven Nelson resettlement practitioners; and meetings, site-specific interviews, map-making activities, painting workshops and a multisensory art exhibition with twelve female Chin and Kayan former refugees. The conceptual focus on em-placement in this research was significant as it shifted away from the idea of refugees simply being displaced, to recognise that individuals are always physically situated and affected by their material encounters. My focus on multi-sensory experience was also important, as it enabled participants and myself to move beyond the common five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, and explore other visceral and proprioceptive ways of feeling, experiencing, and representing our surroundings, which contributed to more nuanced, productive ways of conceptualising wellbeing and disseminating research data. Key findings from the project demonstrated that participants’ feelings of place-attachment and wellbeing were shaped through the evocation of nostalgic and fearful memories of the past, affective emotional responses in the present, and the accumulation of multisensory experiences, memories, and emotions over time. These experiences influenced the girls and women’s sense of familiarity, safety, happiness, hope, and belonging in both positive and negative ways. They also influenced their feelings of being in or out-of-sync with local time-structures and rhythms, and shaped how they accessed, used, structured, and negotiated space and time and created unique homely and therapeutic-feeling places. Thus, I argue that everyday multisensory experience and meaningful people-place relationships require greater consideration in resettlement research, particularly as the number of globally displaced peoples reaches an unprecedented high, and New Zealand commits to raising its official UN refugee quota and resettling more newcomers in Nelson and other resettlement cities.

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The Palliative Role of Green Space for Somali Bantu Women Refugees in Displacement and Resettlement

Cited by 27 publications

References 27 publications

Intangible cultural heritage: a benefit to climate-displaced and host communities

Intangible cultural heritage: a benefit to climate-displaced and host communities

Urban nature and transnational lives

'Some Birds Sound the Same but Most Sing Different': Exploring Multisensory Place-Attachment and Wellbeing with Former Refugees in Nelson, Aotearoa New Zealand

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