Drawing Understanding: Utilizing Narrative-Based Practices to Cultivate Humanizing Relationships Between Educators and Students Who are Refugees

Abstract

Refugee youth actively navigate through their lives within and beyond interlocking structures of oppression and violence. They are subjected to narratives about them but not by them, that describe refugees as threats or victims of trauma. Educators must create intentional spaces, while considering youths’ gender, where refugee youth can construct their own narratives and be their own healing agents. Drawing upon critical pedagogy, critical refugee studies, intersectionality, and Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) scholarship, this qualitative study explores how a trauma-informed narrative-based activity enabled educational youth mentors to engage with students who are refugees in ways that facilitate humanization and healing. Data were used from interviews with tutors (n = 3) who completed the activity with youth ages 13 to 15. Findings suggest that educators felt that refugee youth reflected about their experiences, aspirations, and their emotions, confirming the need for this type of activity in educational spaces.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Please note that youth who are refugees have identities beyond this status and are defined by experiences beyond those associated with refugee and resettlement status. The term, refugee youth, is only being used for purpose of brevity.

2. Our use of subjects in this particular context should not be confused with the way the term is wielded in traditional academic lexicons that speak of “research subjects.” Our use of the term stems from Freire’s discourse around Subjects and Objects of knowledge, which was cultivated in conversation with the intellectual work of Franz Fanon and George Hegel. Freire notes that students and teachers must become subjects, “not only in the task of unveiling that reality (of reality), and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of recreating that knowledge” (Freire, 1970).

3. Even though this paper is coauthored, the paper is focused on the voice of the junior scholar. Therefore, “I” is used instead of “we”.

4. Kunama is a language spoken by the Kunama people in Western Eritrea and just across the Ethiopian border.

5. Megan is originally from Ghana but, lived in various other African countries before coming to the U.S. Therefore, Megan describes her home as Africa and Kate was using her language.