RAPID: Theorizing Refugees and Local Labor Markets

大规模难民潮往往伴随着关于难民对收容社会的影响的公开分歧。通常，在那些将难民视为社会负担的人和那些认为潜在经济利益的人之间，存在着严重的分歧。但最近的事件表明，要理解为什么难民解决办法在某些情况下的争议性低于在其他情况下的争议性，就必须有一种更微妙的观点，这种观点将注意到收容情况和难民技能的差异。在这项由这个快速奖项支持的研究中，将深入研究当地背景的一个方面：难民在当地劳动力市场中扮演的角色。研究人员问：难民解决方案何时可能成为经济刺激而不是经济消耗？经济刺激足以抵消人们对社会负担的看法吗？回答这些问题将有助于完善关于国家劳工政策和人道主义立场的国际移民理论。它还将使欧洲和美国能够制定更好的难民融入政策。这项研究将由东卡罗来纳大学人类学家克里斯汀·B·阿维纳留斯博士和大卫·格里菲斯博士进行。他们将在2016年夏天重点收集德国三个农村地区的劳动力市场数据，这是中东难民大规模涌入欧洲的第二个夏天。研究人员将采用社会科学方法的组合，包括深入访谈、焦点小组和与雇主、城镇领导人和难民的社会网络分析。研究人员还将收集媒体报道作为地方层面理解的背景。这项研究的结果将作为对欧洲各地定居的中东难民进行更大规模、多年研究的基线。

Large scale refugee flows are often accompanied by public disagreements over the effects of refugees on host societies. Typically, there are sharp divisions between those who view refugees as social burdens and those who see potential economic benefits. But recent events suggest that a more nuanced view, which would pay attention to variability in host contexts and refugee skills, is necessary to understand why refugee settlement is less contentious in some situations than in others. In the research supported by this RAPID award, one aspect of local context will be examined in depth: the roles refugees play in local labor markets. The researchers ask: When might refugee settlement be an economic stimulus rather than an economic drain? And is economic stimulus sufficient to counterbalance perceptions of social burden? Answering these questions will help to refine international migration theory with regard to national labor policies and humanitarian positions. It will also allow the development of improved policy for refugee incorporation in Europe and the United States. The research will be carried out by East Carolina University anthropologists, Dr. Christine B. Avenarius and Dr. David Griffith. They will focus data collection on labor markets in three rural regions in Germany during the summer of 2016, the second summer of large scale Middle Eastern refugee flows into Europe. The researchers will employ a mix of social science methodologies including in-depth interviewing, focus groups, and social network analysis with employers, town leaders, and refugees. Researchers will also collect media reports as background for local-level understandings. Findings from this research will serve as a baseline for a larger, multi-year study of Middle Eastern refugees settling throughout Europe.