Strengthening Refugee Communities by Building upon Their Cultural Assets

Much of the dialogue surrounding the need to support refugees as they resettle in developed countries such as the United States, Canada, or Australia focuses on the problems that refugees experience or the difficulties that exist in providing appropriate services or support. Significant research documents the enormous hardships that refugees face when leaving crisis or conflict situations (Henkelmann et al., 2020). Refugees often experience poor outcomes in resettlement, such as increased homelessness (Samari & Groot, 2021), unemployment (Phillimore & Goodson, 2006), social exclusion (Morrice, 2013), and poor health and mental health outcomes (Gleeson et al., 2020; Reed & Barbosa, 2017). Likewise, providers often have difficulty in providing appropriate health and social services (Asgary & Segar, 2011; Ellis et al., 2011; McKeary & Newbold, 2010), partially related to chronic underfunding and complicated federal policies (Murphy et al., 2016; Pierce & Selee, 2017). While focusing on the many problems refugees face and the enormous disparities they experience in the resettlement process can draw attention to the critical need for higher quality services, it can also lead to a deficits approach. Focusing on these communities as filled with problems and challenges can lead to the development of solutions that rely on professional interventions, completely discounting the enormous skills, cultural assets, and leadership potential existing within these communities. To counter the deficits-based narrative, refugee communities can use a cultural assets approach to strengthen their community and build community leadership. The cultural assets approach is derived from an approach to community development advanced by Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) called Asset Based Community Development (ABCD). Developed specifically to counter the deficit approach, the ABCD approach is a grassroots participatory approach that emphasizes a community's assets, including a community's ability to identify its own assets and develop solutions to community issues based on these assets. The deficits approach often leads to a focus on the failure of individuals or communities to avoid problems, which in turn, can point to the need for professional/expert involvement rather than community-led and -driven interventions. ABCD is now a widely known model that has been used by communities and organizations around the world (Lightfoot et al., 2014) and has been promoted by organizations such as the World Health Organization (Harrison et al., 2004) and the American Academies of Pediatrics (McKnight & Pandak, 1999). While there have been many variations to ABCD since it was first introduced, the ABCD approach to community development typically involves four steps: identifying or mapping assets, analyzing or assessing assets, mobilizing assets for community development, and assessing the development activities (Lightfoot et al., 2014). The process involves a wide range of variations; sometimes the process includes creating a community map with assets identified, sometimes the map is more conceptual in nature, while other times, community assets are simply listed. Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) originally conceived of five types of both tangible and intangible community assets: (a) individual assets of community members (personal and professional skills or resources such as baking, accounting, networking, or leadership); (b) associations that people join, including formal associations (e.g., religious organizations, sports clubs, or political parties) or informal associations (e.g., carpool, an informal babysitting exchange, or gamers that informally play video games together); (c) community institutions, such as businesses, nonprofit organizations (e.g., social service organizations), or government organizations (e.g., schools, libraries); (d) the community environment, such as the physical infrastructure of a community (e.g., land, utilities), green spaces, parks, or other natural areas; and (e) the local economy (formal and informal). After a community identifies or maps its assets, it develops strategies or projects that draw from these existing community assets. The most critical underlying aspect of the ABCD model is its participatory process, which is as important as the identification of assets or projects initiated (Lightfoot et al., 2021). Through participating in an ABCD project, community members can broaden and strengthen their social networks, as well as develop their own human capital. For example, if a local neighborhood undertook an ABCD approach and found that there were neighbors who were skilled at gardening and their neighborhood had an unused parcel in their local park, it might consider developing a community garden by collaborating with the local parks department and possibly obtaining donated supplies from a local gardening store. Not only would the establishment of the garden be valuable for the community, but the process of establishing the garden would help build stronger ties and norms of reciprocity among community members. Participants in the process might also gain skills in community leading, organizing, and analyzing, as well as mapping, gardening, and perhaps even developing relationships with officials in the parks department, city government, and local gardening stores. For refugee populations, this type of asset-based activity has been found to help migrants not only adjust to their new lives and develop strong relationships (Malberg Dyg et al., 2020), but also help them further connect with their premigration identity (Hartwig & Mason, 2016). While ABCD was developed as a practical community development model and is not typically described to communities as overtly theoretical, it fits well with the sociological concept of social capital. According to social capital theory, social relationships serve as valuable resources that can affect individuals, groups, and organizations (Coleman, 1988). Individuals can leverage various aspects of social capital, such as social trust, social networks, and social norms, to enhance their well-being and health (Coleman, 1988), address social issues, and pursue social goals (Adler & Kwon, 2002). While sociologists Bourdieu (1986) and Coleman (1988) initially developed the theoretical foundations of social capital in the 1980s, building off the earlier work of Durkheim (1897) in the 19th century, the concept of social capital gained wider recognition in the United States after the publication of Putnam's (2000) book, Bowling Alone. There are three main types of social capital: bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. Bonding social capital refers to connections among similar populations with preexisting ties with shared norms and trust (Gittell & Vidal, 1998), such as within the same family or social group, or with people from the same home country or ethnic background for refugees. Bridging social capital refers to connections across social groups in order to increase access to new information and networks (for refugees, this type of social capital involves connections with refugees in their new host community who come from other countries of origin, or with others they meet in different social groups through school, work, or other activities (Gittell & Vidal, 1998). This type of social capital is characterized by weaker ties and reciprocity, but can provide access to resources beyond one's own network (Gittell & Vidal, 1998). Lastly, linking social capital focuses on connections that refugees or refugee groups have with authority or community organizations that can be leveraged to access resources or power (Woolcock & Narayan, 2000). The concept of social capital is a useful way to conceptualize how the ABCD approach can strengthen and build social connections among refugees within a community, as well as build connections with people outside of a smaller social network. While an ABCD approach has been utilized among refugee communities, it did not originally include an emphasis on identifying and analyzing cultural assets. Incorporating an emphasis on cultural assets within an ABCD approach might be more culturally relevant and sustaining for working with refugee populations, as it explicitly focuses on identifying and mobilizing a community's cultural assets in addition to the other types of assets (Lightfoot et al., 2016). A cultural asset is an asset that is related to the distinct ways that members of a culture live (Lightfoot et al., 2016), which includes cultural heritage (e.g., stories, myths, fables), cultural traditions (e.g., festivals, sports, holidays), arts and music, food, values, religious and philosophical beliefs, family and community norms, work methods (e.g., agricultural methods, tools), community organization, leadership practices, language, among others. A cultural assets approach can be particularly useful for refugee groups who are living in a new environment where their cultural assets are not recognized. As mentioned previously, a significant amount of attention falls on the challenges and obstacles that refugees have experienced, such as war, trauma, discrimination, or bias, leading to problematizing the community. In contrast, if using an asset-based approach emphasizing cultural assets, a refugee community can come together to identify its own cultural assets and then assess how to mobilize these assets for a community-defined goal, which celebrates the talents, skills, community leadership, and culture within the refugee community. One example that illustrates the cultural assets approach comes from one of my previous community-based participatory research projects. In this project, my partners and I conducted a cultural health assets mapping project with local Somali and Oromo refugee communities interested in improving its community's health (Lightfoot et al., 2016). Through a cultural asset mapping activity, the community determined that a significant asset of the many cultural assets identified was its strong religious and cultural practices. Based on this cultural asset, they developed health messages that were derived directly from their religious teachings and engaged local Imams to give health messages during religious lessons. Furthermore, participants in the cultural asset mapping project developed their own capacity in community leadership; some went on to pursue higher education based partially inspired by their participation in this cultural asset mapping project. A second example draws from one of my other earlier community-based projects with refugee communities. In this project, a refugee housing complex identified that, despite many of their older refugees having educational experience and professional skills, most remained unemployed in their new environment. The community identified a cultural asset of valuing elders. Based on this asset, the community developed a tutoring program for children within the housing complex, which built upon both the individual knowledge and skillsets of the older residents, as well as the cultural asset of valuing these elders. By engaging in this cultural assets approach, the tutoring program also developed ties between the refugee community and the local school system, who assisted with providing materials for the program. In both examples, the focus on cultural assets was new to participants. They not only valued the tangible outcomes of the project, but also developed their own leadership capacity, strengthened ties with each other and with outside organizations, and expressed gratitude that their culture was celebrated in the process. Thus, aside from potential positive outcomes of the cultural assets approach (e.g., the specific projects the community might undertake), the participation in the cultural assets approach itself is a community building and leadership development process. The process can lead to broader social networks in the community, building of trust among community members, development of leadership skills and capacities, and cultivating a sense of pride and belonging within the community. Most importantly, a cultural assets approach is a participatory project that is community-led, relying on community members to lead and make decisions in the project, even if a consultant might assist in the process. One difficulty we noticed when partnering with refugee community leaders to do cultural asset mapping was that it was challenging for some members of refugee communities to focus on their assets, often shifting toward their problems and requesting supportive services (Lightfoot et al., 2021). It could be that their long experience in the deficit-focused refugee service milieu has made it difficult for some members of refugee communities to remain focused on their assets, even when members of their own communities were leading the project. Ultimately, a cultural assets approach could help develop a sense of agency among refugee community members that is often stripped from them during the migration process. The cultural assets approach is one approach that can help shift the narrative surrounding refugee resettlement toward one that focuses on the assets and strengths of the community. Such a participatory community development method, which focuses on the cultural assets of the community, can help refugees build on their existing assets to develop culturally relevant and sustainable projects within the community. A community-led process can also help strengthen and build the social capital within the community. Elizabeth Lightfoot is a Distinguished Professor of Social Policy at Arizona State University School of Social Work and the Director of the Arizona State University School of Social Work. Communications can be directed to [email protected].

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