Expanding our understanding of the environmental impacts on refugee resettlement through the application of Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory

ABSTRACT

Community support plays an essential role in the complex and long-term healing processes of genocide survivors. This article reports on a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) project led by survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide who now live in Canada, and researchers from two Canadian universities. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory and the PPCT Model, healing processes are situated as the relationship between personal factors, proximal processes, interactions with and between contextual factors and processes of socio-historical and personal development over time. By providing a rich picture of individual and community healing processes, this study offers important insight for those who work with genocide survivors and their communities to strengthen assessment and interventions, suggesting the need to approach concepts of healing and resilience in ways that recognize the essential role of both individual agency and familial, social, economic and political contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Bioecological theory
• Rwandan community
• survivors
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the PolicyWise for Children and Families [15SM-KreitzerYohani].