The United Nations (UN) Card, Identity, and Negotiations of Health among Rohingya Refugees

Abstract

Being persecuted and expelled from Myanmar, Rohingya refugees are now distributed throughout the world. The Southeast Asian nation of Malaysia has been a preferred destination for Rohingyas fleeing Myanmar’s state-sponsored genocide and more recently in a bid to change their fates from the refugee camps in Bangladesh. Refugees are one of the most vulnerable groups in Malaysia and often face dire circumstances, in which their health and wellbeing are compromised. Amidst a plethora of structural challenges, Rohingya refugees try to claim some of their rights with the aid of the UN card (UNHCR ID cards) in Malaysia. Guided by the culture-centered approach (CCA), this study examined the perspectives and experiences of healthcare among Rohingya refugees while living in Malaysia, now resettled in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The participants’ narratives showed that the UN card not only materialized their refugee status in Malaysia but also offered them a way of living in a world where documents anchor the materiality of health.

Economic self-sufficiency (ESS) as a barrier to health self-sufficiency (HSS) for Burmese refugees in the United States: a culture-centered analysis

“…In health communication and health campaigns scholarship while there is some literature focusing on refugee health (Wieland et al, 2013;Afifi et al, 2019;Rahman and Dutta, 2023), none focuses specifically on the structural constraints to basic health capacities emerging from the federal economic self sufficiency (ESS) mandate. Hewing to critical scholarship in health communication (Airhihenbuwa, 1995;Dutta, 2008) foregrounding contexts and co-creation of health knowledge from a localized lens, this research centers Burmese refugee narratives of health amidst U.S. resettlement infrastructures.…”