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This research paper aims to delve into the perceptions of health susceptibility among Iranian, Afghan and Tajik individuals hailing from asylum-seeking or refused asylum-seeking backgrounds currently residing in Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted between May and October 2022 involving a sample size of 27 participants. An adapted framework based on the health belief model along with previous studies served as a guide for formulating interview questions.

Notably influenced by cultural background, religious beliefs, psychological states and past traumatic experiences during migration journeys – before arrival in these countries till settling down – subjects’ perception of health concerns emerged significantly shaped. Additionally impacting perspectives were social standing, occupational status, personal/family medical history, lifestyle choices and dietary preferences nurtured over time, leading to varying degrees of influence upon individuals’ interpretation about their own wellness or illness.

Insights garnered throughout the authors’ analysis hold paramount significance when it comes to developing targeted strategies catering culturally sensitive health-care provisions, alongside framing policies better aligned with primary care services tailored explicitly around singular demands posed by these specific communities dwelling within respective territories.

This investigation represents one among few pioneering initiatives assessing perceptions regarding both physical and mental well-being within minority groups under examination across Nordic nations, unveiling complexities arising through intersecting factors like individual attributes mingling intricately with socio-cultural environments, thereby forming unique viewpoints towards health-care belief systems prevalent among such population segments.

This paper aims to understand the discrepancy between Germany’s immediate positive response to the so-called “Europe 2015's refugee crisis“ and the strict asylum legislation adopted in Germany in the following year.

The discrepancy is attributed to external and internal forces. The external force is Germany’s obligation to adhere to the Common European Asylum System. The internal force is the role of the different policy actors. The paper focuses on the role of the media as an example of a private policy actor. Through adopting the theory of the social construction of target populations, the paper studies how the media constructs “asylum seekers”, the target of the new asylum legislation. The role of the media is analyzed using the methodology of qualitative content analysis of a selected number of newspaper articles.

The majority of the studied articles problematized receiving and hosting refugees and focused on the reason behind migration differentiating between asylum seekers fleeing conflict areas and all others who might be abusing the asylum channel. The findings of the content analysis, as such, resonate with the amendments that focused on facilitating the integration of accepted “refugees” but restricted further entry. As such, it could be argued that these findings explain the influence of the media on the amendments and as such provide an explanation to the discrepancy between the initial response and the amendments.

The analysis focused on one newspaper. The findings, as such, are not representative. The aim is only to provide an example of how the German media dealt with the refugee crisis and to suggest using the theory chosen by the paper to analyze the link between asylum legislation and the construction of asylum seekers. To understand how asylum legislation is influenced by how asylum seekers are constructed, more studies are needed. Such studies could analyze the role played by other media outputs and/or the role played by other policy actors in constructing the target of the policy.

The media’s response is based on analyzing a sample of newspaper articles published by a German newspaper following the so-called 2015 refugee crisis. Accordingly, the findings represent an original endeavor to understand how the media reacted to the crisis.

This article aims to explore the engagement of refugees and asylum seekers (RAS) in informal and precarious jobs from a civil society actors' perspective. Despite a burgeoning literature on refugee integration and a focus on institutional integration programmes, little is known about the early insertion of RAS into informal and precarious employment as an alternative to subsidised integration programmes, when these are available.

This article draws on rich qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews with social workers, volunteers and other professionals supporting migrants.

Data analysis shows that migrants' insertion in informal jobs and their rejection of integration programmes may be the result of people's need to access financial capital to cover actual and future needs. Although such an engagement may be criticised for hampering RAS’ integration, it can be seen as an important source of agency against insecurity surrounding one's legal status.

This article highlights the importance of legal status precarity in shaping informal workers' agency and perceptions of them, opening up a debate on the relevance of informal work in terms of long-term integration and future migration trajectories.

The reasons for and experiences during migration, as well as additional stressors in the new host country, may give rise to mental health problems and additional need for public services. The purpose of the study was to investigate factors related to service utilization among newly arrived refugee youth.

Cross-sectional data were gathered in Sweden where 37 youth aged between 19 and 23 reported on factors related to service utilization, encompassing health-care and support services in school. These factors included predisposition (demographic), need (migration status and mental wellbeing) and enablement (living situation). Service utilization was estimated using multiple logistic regression analysis.

About a fourth of the sample used psychosocial services. Use of general support was more common. Neither predisposing, need nor enabling factors were associated with the use of psychosocial or general health-related services.

Self-reported factors related to use of health-related services have previously not been investigated for refugee youth, which is important in assuring access to appropriate services for this exposed youth population.

Although there is a growing body of work on immigrants' information behavior, little is known about the pre-arrival information experiences of immigrants who consult formal information sources such as immigration agents. Drawn from a larger study on the information behavior of immigrants, this paper mainly reports the semi-structured interview findings on the pre-arrival information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants who used formal information sources with discussion on how that affected their post-arrival settlement into Canada.

The study used a mixed method approach with semi-structured interviews (n = 60) and surveys (n = 205) with participants who arrived in Canada between the years of 1971 and 2017. Data were collected from May 2017 to February 2018.

Although the overall scope of the original study is much larger, this paper features findings on the pre-arrival information experiences derived mainly from an analysis of interview data. This study provides insights into the pre-arrival information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants consulting formal information sources such as immigration firms, individual immigration consultants and more formal government agencies. The author introduces a new concept of “information crafting” by exploring the negative consequences of selective information sharing by immigration consultants/agents in newcomers' settlements in Canada, primarily positive information about life in Canada, sometimes with exaggeration and falsification. The interview participants shared story after the story of the settlement challenges they faced after arriving in Canada and how the expectations they built through the information received from immigration consultants and government agencies did not match after arrival. This study emphasizes the importance of providing comprehensive information about life in Canada to potential newcomers so that they can make informed decisions even before they apply.

The findings of this study have theoretical and practical implications for policy and research. This study provides insights into the complicated culturally situated pre-arrival information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants. Moreover, the study findings encourage researchers in various disciplines, including psychology, migration studies and geography, to delve more deeply into newcomers' information experiences using an informational lens to examine the information newcomers receive from diverse sources and their effects on their post-arrival settlement in a new country. The study challenges the general assumptions that formal information sources are always reputable, useful, and comprehensive, and it provides some future directions for research that seeks to understand the culturally situated information behavior of diverse immigrant groups.

This article develops an innovative multidisciplinary conceptual framework in the field of refugee entrepreneurship by combining the theory of mixed embeddedness with the concepts of intersectionality and agency. Focusing on the phenomenon of refugee entrepreneurship, this conceptual framework addresses the following questions: how is entrepreneurship informed by the various intersectional positions of refugees? And how do refugees exert their agency based on these intersecting identities?

By revising the mixed embeddedness approach and combining it with an intersectional approach, this study aims to develop a multidimensional conceptual framework.

This research illustrates how the intersectional positions of refugees impact their entrepreneurial motivations, resources and strategies. The authors' findings show that refugee entrepreneurship not only contributes to the economic independence of refugees in new societies but also creates opportunities for refugees to exert their agency.

This conceptual framework can be applied in empirical research and accordingly contributes to refugee entrepreneurship studies and intersectionality theory.

This paper aims to examine the prevailing Rohingya refugee crisis from political and humanitarian perspectives and explores the political and humanitarian aspects of the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Relevant literature has been reviewed for conceptual understanding. This study is descriptive and qualitative in nature and based on secondary sources of data.

The main causes of the Rohingya crisis such as political and humanitarian aspects. Issues such as discrimination and homelessness, and national security concerns that regional politics scapegoated the Rohingya to exacerbate regional tensions. Moreover, armed conflicts, political radicalization, security concerns, human rights violations and low media attention compared to other displaced families have made the future of the Rohingyas very uncertain.

The Rohingya crisis has far-reaching implications for domestic and regional politics as well as for relations with major world powers. In the context of regional security and geopolitics, this study provides insight into the polarization and politicization of the Rohingya minority.

This research offers a vital exploration of the Rohingya refugee crisis, delving into its multifaceted political and humanitarian dimensions, contributing fresh insights to address a pressing global concern.

While most language departments of the university offer service-learning (SL) subjects based on language teaching, such as “Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Local Schools” and “Serving the Community through Teaching English,” this paper aims to argue that teaching students to teach language(s) is yet to be the best strategy to serve the service recipients.

SL is widely understood as an experiential learning pedagogy that integrates academic focus, reflection and community service and is shown to be impactful. In Hong Kong, the first university that has made SL a graduation requirement is the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (the University). Considering this, new SL courses have proliferated over the past decade. Adopting a narrative inquiry approach, this paper examines personal narratives from a new SL subject aiming to raise awareness of refugees in Hong Kong. The data includes students’ reflective journals, co-created personal narratives and podcasts and semi-structured interviews.

This paper finds that crafting and recording narratives of shared experiences deepens cultural understanding, cultivates empathy and facilitates language learning in a genuine setting.

Ultimately, this paper advocates a well-designed SL that combines language, content and technology as a powerful, transformational experience for both college students and service recipients.

This paper focuses on a brand new SL course, “Storytelling for Understanding: Refugee Children in Hong Kong,” offered in Semester 1, 2022–2023. The subject was developed by the two authors from a language division affiliated to the University. The deliverables were podcast recordings, co-authored and co-edited by the students and the children.

This paper examines the drivers of brain gain by investigating the motivations of migrants who plan to return and contribute to their home country. It focuses on highly skilled Sudanese migrants in Japan, including a group of “plan-to-return” migrants (P-group), who intend to gain knowledge abroad that they will use to contribute to their homeland upon their return.

The participants are 24 highly skilled Sudanese migrants in Japan, 10 of whom are part of the P-group. To understand their motivation to contribute to their home country, the study applies the qualitative life course approach, using Elder's four life course themes: lives in time and space, the timing of lives, linked lives and human agency.

The P-group is characterised by a high level of motivation for self-development, which motivates them to study abroad. The analysis finds that the P-group's drive to contribute had been nurtured by a spirit of mutual aid in Sudanese society, which emphasises Islamic values and social ties. Religious norms, personal interactions and emotional ties to Sudan are especially influential on the P-group's motivation to contribute to their home society.

This study identifies drivers that lead to brain gain. Whereas previous studies have noted the relationship between return intentions and willingness to contribute to the home countries; they have not investigated influences on motivations to contribute. The results suggest that Sudan might already possess a system for local human resource development to encourage brain gain.