Lee Koh, Juyeon Kim, Rae Walker & Pranee Liamputtong (2017) “‘Love myself’: Parental expectations, resettlement and stress coping of young Burmese women from refugee background”

Purpose

The paper aims to provide deep insight into the stress coping of young Burmese women from refugee background in Melbourne, Australia by discussing their pre-migration and resettlement experience as they navigated parental role and behaviour expectations.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a qualitative approach involving semi-structured, in-depth interview of 10 Burmese young women aged 18-25 years. It draws on the theory of stress and coping to understand how participants interpret their lived experiences.

Findings

The paper provides empirical insights about how young women, multiply marginalised by their youth, gender and refugee background, make sense of their resettlement experiences within a complex social environment embodying demands from their heritage and Australian culture, which are sometimes conflicting. Participants used personal and environmental resources to cope with threats and challenges, including reconstructing their pre-migration experiences. Post-migration role expansion resulted in linguistic brokering, with acknowledged positive effects on resettlement but also increased anxiety and intergenerational tension through changes in family power dynamics.

Keywords

Acculturation, migration, gender roles, linguistic brokering, intergenerational conflict

Feature image taken by Flickr under Creative Commons Licence – the original can be accessed here.

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