Abstracts

In this project we are trying to identify the ways (social, cultural and economic) in which humanitarian migrants transform, and in turn, are transformed by the migration settlement process in regional Australia.

We are planning of conducting forty in-depth interviews with Hazara humanitarian migrants and ten interviews with non Hazara local residents/stakeholder representatives. We will investigate the process and negotiation of cultural difference, cooperation, and conflict related to the settlement and contributions of the Hazara humanitarian migrants across four broad ranges of community spheres:
(a) economic activities (e.g. business development, employment, investment, innovation),
(b) civic activities such as participation in community organisations/events;
(c ) sporting contributions (football club),
(d) impact in education settings (local primary school),

We expect that interviews will also provide perceptions and feelings about living in the community; experiences of social change since arrival; interactions with diverse others in formal/informal situations; perceptions and feelings about everyday strategies used to negotiate, social, cultural, economic boundaries; the ways that people negotiate cultural and religious difference; experiences of, and feelings about inequalities and disadvantage, and perceptions of their causes.