RAPID: Theorizing Refugees and Local Labor Markets

大规模的难民潮往往伴随着公众对难民对东道国社会的影响的分歧。通常情况下，那些将难民视为社会负担的人和那些看到潜在经济利益的人之间存在明显分歧。 但最近的事件表明，有必要采取一种更加细致入微的观点，注意东道国环境和难民技能的变化，以理解为什么难民定居在某些情况下比在其他情况下争议更小。在这项RAPID奖支持的研究中，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发挥的作用。 研究人员问：什么时候难民定居可能是一个经济刺激，而不是经济流失？经济刺激是否足以抵消社会负担的看法？探讨这些问题将有助于完善国际移民理论与国家劳工政策和人道主义立场。 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莱纳大学人类学家克莉丝汀博士B进行。阿文那留斯和大卫格里菲斯医生。他们将在2016年夏季集中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流入欧洲的第二个夏季。研究人员将采用社会科学方法的混合，包括深入访谈，焦点小组和与雇主，城镇领导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一级理解的背景。这项研究的结果将作为一个更大的，多年的研究中东难民定居在整个欧洲的基线。

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.