Doctoral Dissertation Research: How Refugees Can Shape National Boundaries.

Princeton University, Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

Project description for general audience: The global community is currently experiencing unprecedented levels of forced migration; 59.5 million individuals around the world have been displaced involuntarily owing to conflict, human rights violations, and other forms of persecution. This research project examines how the local, host population is affected by an influx of refugees, specifically with regards to host citizens' national identity, demand for state-provided public goods and services, and preferences over immigration policies. The research examines whether or not refugees may strengthen nearby native citizens' national identity and solidarity. It involves a survey with citizen respondents in Tanzania, a country with an extensive history of hosting various refugee groups. This survey will compare attitudes and behaviors of citizens living in refugee-hosting districts to those in similar districts without refugees. More technical description: How do refugees impact their local, host environments? This research project theorizes that the exogenous shock of forced migration may have unintended yet positive consequences for nationalism and nation-building in the host country. Refugees may strengthen nearby native citizens' nationalism as national identity is the obvious point of difference between natives and refugees. Additionally, the influx of international and government aid into refugee camps often stands in contrast to the lack of local public goods in nearby host communities. Refugees, by challenging national borders and highlighting inequalities in welfare, can inadvertently spur host citizens to rally around their national identity and better cooperate in providing and demanding for public goods and services. The survey randomly varies the level of salience of refugees and uses new methods to measure the complex dimensions of national identity and migrant threat.