Jay Marlowe

• PhD, MSW, BA (Hons)
• Professor (Associate) at University of Auckland

This conceptual article examines the interplay of forced displacement and resettlement across the Asia Pacific, situated against the backdrop of unprecedented global displacement, rapid uptake of information communication technologies, and strong border governance regimes. Emphasising the centrality of the politics of belonging, this article distin...

This article examines the relationships between conflict, climate change, and disaster in forced displacement contexts. We present these nexus dynamics through the case of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who are exposed to climatic hazards and other vulnerabilities that threaten their lives and livelihoods. Having fled persecution by the Myanmar mi...

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) needs to be inclusive. However, potentially vulnerable groups such as children with disabilities are often excluded. Their perceptions and views are overlooked due to existing structural forms of exclusion and lack of inclusive methods that enable children to effectively contribute to DRR. This paper provides an insigh...

Although climate change poses a threat to health and well-being globally, a regional approach to addressing climate-related health equity may be more suitable, appropriate, and appealing to under-resourced communities and countries. In support of this argument, this commentary describes an approach by a network of researchers, practitioners, and po...

The availability, affordability and usability of communication technologies have created new ways to conduct interpersonal qualitative research. Access to digital communications remains uneven, but the online environment provides an alternative, and at times a potentially preferable, research space. As Covid-19 has interrupted and disrupted the dom...

The report concludes with critical themes and general recommendations. These themes include the gap between policies and their implementation due to differential and discriminatory treatment between Quota and Convention Refugees. The report also signals the significant challenges asylum seekers face when they first make a claim for refugee status a...

Cascading crises have disproportionately negative impacts on culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. Drawing on work conducted in New Zealand as members of International Network in Crisis Translation (an international project funded by the EU Horizon 2020), the chapter’s authors focus on strategies devised to provide equitable acc...

While offering critical protections, refugee resettlement can present a challenge for disaster communications as the people being settled may have limited linguistic competencies of the host language, social capital networks, and awareness of local hazards. Presenting three case studies of resettled refugees living in different geographic locations...

The contemporary forced migration contexts of conflict, climate change and contagion present new challenges and opportunities for the ways in which community development is understood, practised and imagined. The accelerating trends of refugee persecution and high-impact weather events causing disasters now sit alongside the uncertainties of closed...

The relationship between climate change and human mobility is generating increased public, academic and policy recognition. This linkage has captured the collective imagination, with forced mobility representing one of the most perceptible societal impacts of climate change and environmental hazards. Through in-depth interviews with subject-matter...

The increasing, although uneven, trends of global connectivity and uptake of mobile devices have growing implications for local and transnational family relationships and activities. For refugees and their families separated by physical geography and conflict, social media platforms can effectively bridge, and at times collapse, the distance betwee...

Crisis situations, including disasters, require urgent decisions, often without sufficient resources, including decisions about translating and interpreting. We argue that using citizen translators (i.e., translators without professional translator training) in such contexts can be ethically justified when their preparation incorporates virtue ethi...

‘Vulnerability’ is a key concept used to understand the ethical implications of conducting refugee-focused research. This case study illustrates the need to follow Luna’s (2009) call for a shift from a ‘labels’ to a ‘layers’ approach to vulnerability by analysing how two university ethics committees responded to issues of informed consent in two si...

This interdisciplinary paper explores the role of governments in the identity formation of people of resettled refugees. Using ethnographic data collected from 32 South Sudanese Australians and 9 professionals who work with this community, the paper outlines how participants face a range of systemic barriers and threats from government institutions...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to outline how refugees’ transnational networks and online relationships facilitated through social media provide access to timely and trusted translated information in disaster settings. Design/methodology/approach The study is a digital ethnography of resettled refugees’ practices of transnational care and su...

As social media platforms and the associated communication technologies become increasingly available, affordable and usable, these tools effectively enable forced migrants to negotiate political life across borders. This connection provides a basis for resettled refugees to interact with their transnational networks and engage in political activit...

Social media platforms allow refugees separated by distance to share information, provide support and exchange resources across borders. This connection has the potential to transform resettlement experiences as people maintain significant and ongoing relationships with transnational networks. Yet, since refugee resettlement programmes generally on...

Cultivating critically reflective practitioners is a vital professional competency for social work students. However, few reflective models support undergraduate students to foster nonconceptual skills important to developing reflective capacity. This article presents a group-taught mindfulness teaching intervention applied in a professional practi...

In urban environments characterized by rich diversity across language, migration status, demographic profiles, and usage of different forms of media, there can be significant challenges to ensuring that particular disaster risk reduction (DRR) communications reach those potentially affected. This article presents a study with 20 Pacific Island comm...

Clear, timely and accurate information is recognised as strategically and operationally critical to disaster response effectiveness. Increasing cultural and linguistic diversity across the globe creates a demand for information to be available in multiple languages. This signifies a need for language translation to be a key element of disaster mana...

Disaster injustices are reflected in disaster risk reduction (DRR) theories and practice. The dominant DRR literature promotes the binary between indigenous and scientific approaches by highlighting the differences between these two forms of knowledge that influence DRR practice. This differentiation disenfranchises indigenous knowledge, with scien...

This article presents a Photovoice project that explores the narratives of five young women of Eritrean heritage living in New Zealand. The photographs taken by the women suggest that their current individual and collective identities are mediated by two different kinds of 'memories': 'post-memories' of an absent past in their ancestral country tha...

The image we have of refugees is one of displacement - from their homes, families and countries - and yet, refugee settlement is increasingly becoming an experience of living simultaneously in places both proximate and distant, as people navigate and transcend international borders in numerous and novel ways. At the same time, border regimes remain...

Being prepared for a disaster is an important strategy for reducing physical, social, psychological and cultural harm. Preparedness practices mitigate the immediate impacts of a disaster while also enabling people to respond to and cope with any ongoing consequences. However, not all people have the ability to prepare. This paper queries how prepar...

This publication presents experiences from researchers and practitioners from a variety of geographical contexts on how they have been included and have participated in disaster prevention, preparedness, response and recovery activities. It aims to highlight the importance and benefits of, as well as options for, integrating migrants into decision-...

Every year, worldwide, disasters affect approximately seven million children with disabilities, highlighting their potential vulnerability. Although there is a growing move internationally to promote the rights of children with disabilities, they still receive little attention from disaster risk reduction (DRR) researchers and policy makers. They a...

New Zealand has ratified many of the same international instruments instructing resettled refugees' rights as other resettlement countries. However, New Zealand has adopted broad strategies with little policy specificity or funding to ensure settling refugees' rights are upheld. In examining selected rights, this article demonstrates that New Zeala...

A previous research ethics article by the authors provided evidence to support the claim that the New Zealand Ethics Committee (NZEC) was a powerless ethics committee. Ethics review applicants were not formally obliged to seek ethics review, and any committee recommendations were given on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis. One year later, the capacity...

The rapid proliferation and ongoing transformation of digital technologies and social media platforms have had a substantial influence on the participatory cultures of young people and their associated social connections. This social/digital nexus raises important questions of social cohesion, with digital technologies at once augmenting social int...

The Canterbury earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks have presented a number of challenges forresettled refugee communities living in this region. These events highlight the need to recognise the diversity within culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) populations for effective disaster preparedness and response initiatives. This paper presen...

This article presents findings from a qualitative study of factors affecting the well-being of young people from refugee backgrounds in Aotearoa New Zealand. Reporting upon interviews with refugeesector experts, we employ Portes and Rumbaut’s ‘segmented assimilation’ thesis and Ungar’s ‘resilience’ conceptualisation, aiming to better understand the...

‘Restoring Connections’ was an action-research study that examined social work practice by focusing upon resilience and reconciliation with people who have experienced traumatic loss arising from social injustice or institutional abuse. The project examines the ways in which social workers can foster links and restore connections between the experi...

The role of belonging in post-disaster environments remains an under-theorised concept, particularly regarding refugee populations. This paper presents a qualitative study with 101 refugee-background participants from varying communities living in Christchurch, New Zealand, about their perspectives and responses to the Canterbury earthquakes of 201...

The process of migration, whether forced or voluntary, often entails negotiating new social norms and traditions. It may mean that a person will have to learn another language and reconsider familiar perspectives on gender roles, parenting approaches, and many other social practices. These adjustments can be profoundly stressful and have implicatio...

Recent law changes in New Zealand allowing for the detention of a “mass arrival” of asylum seekers reflect a concerning international rhetoric and associated policy trend in Australia and the United Kingdom towards those seeking asylum. This paper argues that, although the New Zealand public has not (yet) reached a “moral panic” that is prevalent w...

An estimated seven million children with disabilities worldwide are affected by disasters annually. This significant figure emphasises the particular vulnerability of these children in facing natural hazards. However, their needs as well as their capacity and role in disaster risk reduction have largely been overlooked by researchers and policymake...

Young people from refugee backgrounds represent an important resource for disaster risk reduction within their respective communities. This paper presents a qualitative study with young people from refugee backgrounds and their experiences of the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand. The interviews and focus group discussions with these...

This study examines a significant gap in the role of providing ethical guidance and support for community-based research. University and health-based ethical review committees in New Zealand predominantly serve as ‘gatekeepers’ that consider the ethical implications of a research design in order to protect participants and the institution from harm...

Children with disabilities are often excluded from disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiatives and, as a result, can experience amplified physical, psychological, and educational vulnerabilities. Research on children with disabilities during disasters is lacking, and their potential value in helping shape inclusive policies in DRR planning has been l...

This paper draws on related research studies in two urban centres (Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia) with South Sudanese men and women engaged in varying degrees with higher education. The co-authors examine some gendered differences in the process and demands of resettlement, including within employment and education, and its implications for rap...

How social work students incorporate personal and professional selves in the contexts of field education represents a cornerstone of effective and sustainable practice. This paper presents a qualitative component of a study that tracked 15 third-year bachelor of social work students across their first field placement to document their use of self,...

This presentation tells a story of the genesis and growth of an independent ethics committee in Aotearoa New Zealand that is independently governed outside of the Ministry of Health and tertiary education institutional committees and founded by four previous Health & Disability Ethics Committee (HDEC) chairs. NZEC responds to a growing awareness th...

The process of resettlement as a refugee often involves adapting to, and reconciling with, a new social reality. The complexities associated with acculturation across age, gender and family dynamics are navigated within greater social contexts that may encourage or hinder the processes of adjustment and settlement. This paper addresses the recent N...

This paper incorporates peer researchers from refugee backgrounds to deconstruct their experiences of conducting interviews and focus groups with refugee communities in a post-disaster environment in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. The associated dynamics illustrate the contextual intricacies of recruitment, building relationships, the politi...

Purpose – This research project examined resettled refugees’ perspectives on the Canterbury Earthquakes to better understand the organisational implications for disaster preparedness and response with culturally and linguistically diverse groups. Design/methodology/approach – The method of data collection for this exploratory pilot study involved...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to view the human experiences of the Canterbury earthquakes through a varied set of disciplinary lenses in order to give voice to those who experienced the trauma of the earthquakes, especially groups whose voices might not otherwise be heard. Design/methodology/approach – The research designs represented in...

This article discusses the family dynamics of South Sudanese parents who arrived in New Zealand as quota refugees. It investigates how they experience parenting in relation to language barriers, gender roles, and cultural differences in raising children. The article reports on in-depth interviews with four solo mothers and two married fathers durin...

The civil wars between North and South Sudan have created one of the largest populations of displaced people in the world. This chapter introduces an ethnographic study with South Sudanese men who have resettled in Adelaide, Australia as former refugees and critically evaluates how they conceptualize and respond to trauma to highlight their agency...

Since 1996, approximately 30,000 South Sudanese people have immigrated to Australia and New Zealand via humanitarian pathways. This text offers insight into these associated communities' resettlement experiences and provides a broader sociological context in which the South Sudanese diaspora can be seen within global migration studies. The text's s...

This paper discusses an ethnographic engagement with Southern Sudanese men and their experiences of resettlement as refugees in Adelaide, Australia. They use the phrase ‘walking the line’ to convey the multiple challenges of reconciling one's past within thepresent contexts of life in a new host country. This geographic metaphor hints at the contes...

How the social work profession supports people to live through experiences of trauma and helps to facilitate recovery represents an important base of our practice. Whilst the impacts of trauma in people's lives cannot be discounted, there remains significant scope to further inquire into how people respond to traumatic situations and locate their o...

This article examines acculturation strategies that accompany the experience of resettlement in Australia. The concept of contrapuntality is used to identify multiple actors and the loci of power to examine the complexities involved with cultural maintenance and inter-cultural contact in a new host society. This perspective provides a framework to...

The refugee label acknowledges the plight of people marginalized, oppressed and pushed to the periphery of society. While having this status affords a number of rights from countries signatory to the 1951 UN convention, the concept of 'refugeehood' within resettlement contexts can become a master status that defines a person above and beyond any ot...

This article reports on a project that examined the academic and social experiences of international social work students by tracking and exploring the points they identified as being the most stressful over their time at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. Using group consultation and individual semi-structured feed-back sessions, several...

Brendtro, Brokenleg, and Van Bockern (2002) describe the Circle of Courage model for creating environments in which all children can thrive. This approach blends youth developmental research, the wisdom of pioneer workers, and Native American philosophies of child care. This model for reclaiming youth at risk posits four elements as essential for p...