Doctoral Dissertation Research: Biosocial Responses to Political Invisibility in a Refugee Camp

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Extensive research has shown that a person's political and social status affects his or her physical, economic, and psychological well-being. However, we do not know exactly how this happens or particularly, how these different factors work together. In the United States and around the world, marginalized populations find ways to directly or indirectly access mainstream socio-economic resources. In the context of unprecedented global population mobility, there is a need to better understand the negative health and psychosocial impacts of low status, especially with respect to their effects on the economy at large. The research funded by this award will address this problem by examining a case in which people suddenly experience a very sharp reduction in their political and social status, which will allow the researchers to observe the effects more clearly. In addition, the research will test the idea that a person's social support networks moderate the effects of low status on well-being. This project will also contribute to an ongoing partnership between the co-PIs, economic development practitioners at the World Bank, humanitarian aid officials at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and health service providers from the International Rescue Committee. Data and analyses from this project will be shared with these policy makers to continue to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of refugee-oriented projects in a variety of global contexts.Notre Dame anthropology doctoral student Rieti Gengo, under the supervision of Dr. Rahul Oka and Dr. Lee T. Gettler, will carry out the research at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya. With approximately 200,000 residents, Kakuma is one of the world's largest refugee camps. Thousands of asylum seekers at Kakuma lose institutional support from the UNHCR and other international non-governmental organizations when their petitions for refugee status are rejected, denying them access to food distribution, healthcare resources, and other services. Those denied refugee status are expected to leave the camp, but most are unable to do so because of prohibitive financial costs and their precarious status as stateless persons. The unfortunate situation provides an important research opportunity to compare the effects of marginality on those who receive official status and those who do not. The researchers will collect data on how both groups obtain resources and how their social and behavioral responses are reflected in their health and physiology. They will employ ethnographic participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire to assess refugees' perceived wellbeing and integration into the camp's informal economy. They will collect social network data to quantify the size and diversity of social support networks. Body composition (body fat and BMI), blood pressure, and heart rate will be used to provide measures of overall health and nutritional status, while biomarkers of immune function and stress physiology will be assessed from blood and fingernail samples. Findings from this research will provide insight into the behavioral and physiological pathways through which low-status, marginalized populations cope with exclusion from institutional resources and services.