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

广泛的研究表明，一个人的政治和社会地位会影响他或她的身体，经济和心理健康。然而，我们并不确切地知道这是如何发生的，特别是这些不同的因素如何共同作用。在美国和世界各地，边缘化群体找到了直接或间接获得主流社会经济资源的途径。在全球人口空前流动的背景下，有必要更好地了解低地位对健康和心理社会的负面影响，特别是对整个经济的影响。该奖项资助的研究将通过研究人们突然经历政治和社会地位急剧下降的案例来解决这个问题，这将使研究人员能够更清楚地观察其影响。此外，这项研究还将验证一个人的社会支持网络是否会缓和低地位对幸福感的影响。该项目还将促进共同方案执行机构、世界银行经济发展工作者、联合国难民事务高级专员办事处（难民专员办事处）人道主义援助官员和国际援救委员会保健服务提供者之间的持续伙伴关系。该项目的数据和分析将与这些政策制定者分享，以继续提高各种全球背景下以性别为导向的项目的有效性和效率。Gettler将在肯尼亚北方的Kakuma难民营进行这项研究。卡库马大约有20万居民，是世界上最大的难民营之一。在卡库马，数千名寻求庇护者失去了联合国难民署和其他国际非政府组织的机构支持，因为他们的难民身份申请被拒绝，他们无法获得食物分配，医疗资源和其他服务。被拒绝给予难民地位的人应离开难民营，但大多数人无法离开，因为他们的财务费用高得令人望而却步，而且他们作为无国籍人的地位岌岌可危。这种不幸的情况提供了一个重要的研究机会，可以比较边缘化对获得官方地位和没有获得官方地位的人的影响。研究人员将收集两组人如何获得资源以及他们的社会和行为反应如何反映在他们的健康和生理上的数据。他们将采用人种学参与者观察、半结构化访谈和世界卫生组织生活质量问卷，评估难民的幸福感和融入难民营非正规经济的情况。他们将收集社会网络数据，以量化社会支持网络的规模和多样性。身体成分（体脂和BMI），血压和心率将用于提供整体健康和营养状况的测量，而免疫功能和应激生理学的生物标志物将从血液和指甲样本中进行评估。这项研究的结果将提供深入了解的行为和生理途径，通过低地位，边缘化的人口科普排斥机构资源和服务。

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.