Skip Navigation


Journal of Refugee Studies Advance Access originally published online on August 8, 2007
Journal of Refugee Studies 2007 20(3):441-460; doi:10.1093/jrs/fem003
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
20/3/441    most recent
fem003v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Shoeb, M.
Right arrow Articles by Halpern, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author [2007]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Living in Religious Time and Space: Iraqi Refugees in Dearborn, Michigan

Marwa Shoeb1, Harvey M. Weinstein2 and Jodi Halpern3

1Joint Medical Program, University of California, Berkeley/San Francisco
2Human Rights Center and School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
3Joint Medical Program and School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

marwa.shoeb{at}ucsf.edu

Mental health assessments of refugees during and after conflict have relied heavily on Western psychiatric constructs and standardized scales, despite the overwhelmingly non-Western backgrounds of most survivors of contemporary wars. A strict dependence on the paradigms and language of Western psychiatry risks inappropriately prioritizing syndromes, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, which, however important, are eclipsed by the concerns of local populations for whom indigenous idioms of distress may be more salient. Working in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest population of Iraqi refugees in the United States, 60 Iraqi refugee life stories were collected and analysed. These narratives provided rich data regarding the centrality of faith to the constructs of Iraqi identity, home, and future in the wake of political violence and exile. For these refugees, the description of the dislocation that results from uprooting is replaced by an alternative home that transcends time and space.

Key Words: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) • mental health assessments • Harvard Trauma Questionnaire • Iraqi refugees in US • Islam

MS received February 1, 2006 ; revised MS received July 1, 2006
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.