In 2022, one in ninety-five people in the world were forcibly uprooted from their homes, causing them to seek homes in other countries—that is, become refugees. Resettlement in a new country allows them to escape unpredictable or unsafe conditions, but it comes with its own array of challenges. Though refugees’ satisfaction in their post-resettlement environments has been studied, the role of mobility in their qualities of life remains understudied.
To fill this research gap, professors from the University of Arizona conducted a mixed-methods study with members of the refugee community Tucson, Arizona. Their goal was to understand how transportation impacts refugees’ well-being in order to develop recommendations for how cities and nonprofits can better serve this vulnerable portion of the population. The findings not only highlighted the importance of transportation to refugees and the number of barriers that prevent refugees from fully utilizing the systems in place, but also provided interesting insights into perspectives of transportation that challenge the traditional white feminist viewpoint of gender roles. They challenge the idea that the population of refugees can be generalized, and they place an emphasis on the importance of individual experiences.
To learn more about the findings, watch an...
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