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From Burma to Dallas: The Experience of Resettled Emerging Adult Karen Refugees

Booher, Laura Elizabeth

Abstract Details

2013, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, Cross-Cultural, International Education.
Across the globe, millions of people have been forcibly displaced giving them a shared experience with other refugees. However, their journeys are differentiated by the sociohistorical circumstances and personal developmental stages that contextualize each experience. Every refugee has a story to tell. This qualitative study explores the stories of emerging adult Karen refugees who have resettled in Dallas, Texas, and examines what their shared experience entails. The Karen are the second largest ethnic group in Burma recognized for their strong ethnic identity and decades of in-country conflict. After fleeing Burma, many Karen refugees have spent most or all of their lives in refugee camps in Thailand. Thousands of Karen have left the Protracted Refugee Situation with the option of third-country resettlement in the United States. Through transcendental phenomenological methods this study seeks to understand the shared experience of eight participants who are now in their emerging adult stage of life. They were all born in Burma or in a Thai border camp, lived in the Thai camps for over ten years during their childhood, and then resettled to the United States. Through phenomenological reduction, clustered themes emerged giving meanings to the textural descriptions. These meanings took shape through the structural variation of continual flight occurring in the three stages of origin, Protracted Refugee Situation, and third country resettlement. The synthesis of these descriptions makes up the essence of the now emerging adult Karen refugee experience. The overall essence provides us with new knowledge and understanding of the Karen refugee experience phenomenon which informs previous theoretical research done on refugee studies and emerging adulthood as well as prior empirical work on the Karen people.
Margaret Booth, PhD (Advisor)
Sara Abercrombie, PhD (Committee Member)
Susana Peña, PhD (Committee Member)
133 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Booher, L. E. (2013). From Burma to Dallas: The Experience of Resettled Emerging Adult Karen Refugees [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1363190792

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Booher, Laura. From Burma to Dallas: The Experience of Resettled Emerging Adult Karen Refugees. 2013. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1363190792.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Booher, Laura. "From Burma to Dallas: The Experience of Resettled Emerging Adult Karen Refugees." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1363190792

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)