A community-based qualitative study of intergenerational resilience with Palestinian refugee families facing structural violence and historical trauma

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore resilience processes in Palestinian refugee families living under Israeli occupation for multiple generations. Qualitative methods, critical postcolonial theories, and community-based research approaches were used to examine intergenerational protective practices and to contribute to reconceptualizations of resilience from indigenous perspectives. First, the researcher developed a collaborative partnership with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in a UN refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Then, with the support of this NGO, semistructured group and individual interviews were completed with a total of 30 participants ( N = 30) ranging in age from 18 to 90 years old coming from 5 distinct extended family networks. Using grounded theory situational analysis, the findings were organized in a representation entitled Palestinian Refugee Family Trees of Resilience (PRFTR). These findings explain resilience in terms of three interrelated themes: (a) Muqawama/resistance to military siege and occupation; (b) Awda/return to cultural roots despite historical and ongoing settler colonialism; and (c) Sumoud/perseverance through daily adversities and accumulation of trauma. The study findings shed light on how Palestinian families cultivate positive adaptation across generations and highlight how incorporating community-based perspectives on the historical trauma and violent social conditions of everyday life under occupation may be critical for promoting resilience. Results may be relevant to understanding the transgenerational transmission of trauma and resilience within other displaced communities internationally.

Engaging critical community resilience praxis: A qualitative study with Mapuche communities in Chile facing structural racism and disasters

“…Analysis of such complex inequities and deep‐rooted colonial injuries are strengthened by in‐depth explorations of historical trauma and resilience processes from indigenous perspectives (e.g., Atallah, ; Hartmann, & Gone, ). In fact, transdisciplinary mapping of ecosocial intergenerational protective pathways in addition to centering inquiry on experiences of discrimination and dignity in the lives of marginalized groups remain at the core of critical race research and praxis (e.g., Ford & Airhihenbuwa, ; Sonn & Quayle, ; Yosso & Garcia, ).…”

“…Atallah et al () argue that the second wave of resilience scholarship shifted from a focus on an individual's or a systems’ capacity to investigating adaptive processes. This second trend can be characterized as the “bounce forward” wave because of its focus on posttraumatic growth and human adaptation (Atallah et al., ).…”

“…Atallah et al () argue that the second wave of resilience scholarship shifted from a focus on an individual's or a systems’ capacity to investigating adaptive processes. This second trend can be characterized as the “bounce forward” wave because of its focus on posttraumatic growth and human adaptation (Atallah et al., ). However, more recent trends in thinking across applied social and health sciences caution that a given factor may be protective in one situation and promote adaptation, yet in another situation, the same factor may actually increase vulnerability or even directly cause psychiatric pathology, depending on how factors intersect with historical and sociopolitical phenomena within a given context (Kirmayer, Sehdev, Whitley, Dandeneau, & Isaac, ).…”

“…However, more recent trends in thinking across applied social and health sciences caution that a given factor may be protective in one situation and promote adaptation, yet in another situation, the same factor may actually increase vulnerability or even directly cause psychiatric pathology, depending on how factors intersect with historical and sociopolitical phenomena within a given context (Kirmayer, Sehdev, Whitley, Dandeneau, & Isaac, ). In this light, resilience thinking in the third wave now engages critical race theory and reimagines human responses to trauma as understood in terms of social transformation (Atallah et al, ).…”

“…Thus, Atallah et al. () suggest that a critical community resilience praxis (CCRP) could be helpful to investigators attempting to contribute to processes of promoting resilience in ways that dismantle interlocking systems of power and oppression, which are rarely shaped by one factor or process, and that unfold at the intersections of psychosocial and physical realities (Atallah, ; Donovan, 2017; Lorenz, 2013). In fact, Atallah et al () argue that resilience itself is intersectional.…”