This article proposes an interdisciplinary approach to refugee agency – the capacity to act within structural conditions – using the example of Syrian women rebuilding family and home in Turkey. Our broader objective is to prompt a re-thinking of refugee women’s everyday agency for scholars researching migration. The dominant manner of studying agency tends to be centered on refugees’ efforts to change their particular situations. Drawing on the latest theoretical propositions of cultural psychology (collective coping and the cultural coping model), we argue that agency can also be observed through examining how refugees rebuild their lives in the face of the many changes and challenges they have experienced. Guided by the cultural coping model, we describe stressors and coping strategies in context. With this approach, we can escape the trap of viewing refugee women in dichotomous ways, either as traumatized victims or as liberated from “traditional patriarchy.” A total of 33 semi-structured interviews were conducted in Turkey with Syrian, Arabic-speaking adult women. Interviews aimed to obtain comprehensive narratives on acculturation, daily stressors, coping strategies and everyday experiences of uprootedness. We used constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) to identify significant themes (initial coding) and then code for more conceptual units of meaning (focused coding). The findings are structured around context specific themes: stressors and coping strategies. The study revealed three important types of stressors: family-related, role-related and place-related stressors. Each stressor can only be understood within the cultural context of inter-dependent agency, motherhood and neighborhood belonging, which are highly valued lived experiences of the refugee women. The study also identified three coping strategies: faith-based, home-making and identity building strategies. Our research shows that relying on Islamic understandings, creating the routines of a happy home and forging neighborly ties are important gender and culture specific manifestations of agency. The value of this research is that it provides migration scholars a useful model for designing research with female refugees. By identifying and writing about these specific and contextual forms of agency, researchers can provide better support to refugee women in their daily lives, while also challenging the image of passive “womenandchildren.”
The goal of our article is to present the subject of forced migration as a very interesting and socially relevant research field that could contribute to further development of the psychology of religion. We focus on further development of the toolbox of the psychology of religion, seeking further application of Sunden’s role theory and introducing new approaches originating from indigenous and environmental psychology. After a short review of existing research, new theoretical approaches, and methodologies are presented, along with suggestions for improving the validity of qualitative research pertaining to the role of religion at all stages of the migration process.
SYRIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY. THE SPECIFICITY OF DEALING WITH THE SITUATION OF FORCED MIGRATIONThe article addresses the research question: “How do Syrian refugee women in Turkey cope with the problems related to the forced migration?”. The research findings are based on qualitative semi-structured interviews conducted in Hatay province, south-east Turkey. While presenting main categories of problems and coping strategies authors pay a special attention to the role of religion and culture in coping process. The theoretical framework of the study is based on such concepts as coping with stress (Lazarus and Folkman), religious coping (Pargament) and meaning-making (Park). Discussing the research findings authors also present the categories they found most representative to the Islamic cultural context.
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