RAPID: Theorizing Refugees and Local Labor Markets

大规模难民流动往往伴随着公众对难民对收容社会影响的分歧。通常，将难民视为社会负担的人与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，要理解为什么难民安置在某些情况下比在其他情况下争议更小，有必要采取一种更细致入微的观点，即关注东道国背景和难民技能的可变性。在该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扮演的角色。研究人员问：什么时候难民安置会成为经济刺激而不是经济消耗？经济刺激是否足以抵消人们对社会负担的看法？回答这些问题将有助于完善有关国家劳工政策和人道主义立场的国际移徙理论。它还将允许在欧洲和美国制定更好的难民纳入政策。这项研究将由东卡罗莱纳大学的人类学家克里斯汀·b·阿芬纳留斯博士和大卫·格里菲斯博士进行。他们将在2016年夏天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涌入欧洲的第二个夏天。研究人员将采用多种社会科学方法，包括深度访谈、焦点小组和雇主、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层面理解的背景。这项研究的结果将作为一个更大的，多年的中东难民在整个欧洲定居研究的基础。

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.