Refugees represent shadow populations in the United States despite the fact that more than 2.8 million live in this country. Like all immigrants, they bring with them diverse cultural knowledge systems from which they must strategically utilize information to negotiate and make meaning in new contexts. It is valuable to study cultural adaptation among refugees to provide greater insight about processes of resettlement. Even more beneficial is the awareness that certain adaptive strategies may positively address retraumatization issues. These issues include wounds created by psychological and physical torture and abuse, separation from loved ones and homelands, as well as living in substandard situations, without sufficient job and communication skills.
Research on immigration resettlement reveals that when left to themselves,refugees find the appropriate tools by using criteria derived from within their cultural knowledge system (Omidian, 2000). This refers to an emic approach which is culturally and context specific (Pike, 1954). By promoting the emic knowledge of cultural ‘insiders’, it has been found that they are able to direct their own healing through the formation of communities(Vissicaro & Godfrey, 2003; Vissicaro & Godfrey, 2004). Communities, or gemeinschaft, develop through the restoration of a sense of order which occurs by affirming the condition of mutual dependence (Tonnies 1925). For those whose personal lives, roles within the families, social constructs, and understanding of the world have been ripped apart, communal balance is paramount.
Dance cultural knowledge serves as a primary catalyst for community development (Vissicaro & Godfrey, 2003; Vissicaro & Godfrey, 2004). In numerous cases, it has been observed that what refugees need most is inter-and intra- cultural interaction, which fundamentally involves dance, song, and music (Pipher, 2002). The analysis of movement narratives is particularly interesting since it demonstrates how dance information selectively reveals values and beliefs considered important to those sharing cultural knowledge (Kealiinohomoku, 1972). Further investigation of refugee dance cultures sheds light on the transformative power of movement narratives as healing tools.
Keali'inohomoku, J. W. (1972). Dance culture as a microcosm of historic culture. In T. Comstock (Ed.), CORD Research Annual VI, (pp. 99-106).
Omidian, P. (2000). Qualitative measures and refugee research. In F. Ahearn Jr. (Ed.), Psychosocial wellness of refugees. New York: Berghahn Books.
Pike, K. (1954). Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior. Glendale, CA: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Vissicaro, P. & Godfrey, D. Freedance, inc.: The making of refugee dance communities. Animated, 20-23, Winter 2004.
Vissicaro, P., & Godfrey, D. Immigration and refugees: Dance community as healing among East Central Africans in Phoenix, Arizona. Ethnic Studies Review 25(2), 43-56 (refereed journal), 2003.