Browsing by Author "Thraya, Sophia"

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    Gender and the Resettlement of Yazidis in Calgary: A Deep Dive in the Resettlement, Health, Carework and Education Processes
    (2020-11) Banerjee, Pallavi; Coakley, Annalee L.; Narula, Bindu; Saheb Javaher, Negin; Theodore, Rowena; Thraya, Sophia
    Feminist scholars of refugee and immigration studies have shown gender to be the organizing principle for resettlement experiences of newcomers. This chapter, co-authored by researchers and practitioners, focuses on how the gendered needs of the Yazidi refugee families in Calgary shaped their resettlement services and experiences. Based on keen observations by staff at the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society and the physicians and healthcare providers at the Mosaic Refugee Clinic in Calgary, combined with in-depth interviews conducted by University of Calgary researchers with nearly all Yazidi families in Calgary (45 families that include 241 family members) we focus on four key aspects: 1. Restructuring of the resettlement program by CCIS to meet the needs of Yazidi women and men, but mainly women; 2. Readjusting healthcare services by gender at the refugee clinic; 3. Care provisions in the families of the Yazidis that was fulfilled by women (internal and external to the families) care providers; and 4. Gendered and un-gendered educational outcomes for the children in Yazidi families. We argue that centring gender-based needs of the Yazidi community in the resettlement services have resulted in a feminist reorientation of the resettlement services and experiences of the Yazidis in Calgary.
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    Resettling Yazidi Refugee Families in Calgary by Calgary Catholic Immigration Society (CCIS): A Home Assessment Qualitative Report 2020-21
    (2022-03-25) Banerjee, Pallavi; Negin, Saheb Javaher; Thraya, Sophia; Short, Tanner; Korsha, Souzan; Khandelwal, Chetna
    The following report is a summary of the results of a larger research project on the resettlement of Yazidi refugees in Calgary as part of Canada’s humanitarian response to the ISIS-led genocide in Iraq. This study is in collaboration with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society’s (CCIS) home assessment initiative. CCIS is the main agency responsible for the resettlement of Yazidi refugees in Canada. Alongside covering the main areas of Yazidi resettlement in Canada, each section of this report combines perspectives of Yazidi refugees and perspectives of CCIS practitioners with sociological insights of the research team led by Dr. Pallavi Banerjee. The overarching goal is to provide a coherent and well-rounded understanding of nuanced challenges and successes accompanying the resettlement of this group, followed by key recommendations for CCIS and Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
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    Soil Camp: Learning with the Land Toward Refugee Integration, Diversity, and Sustainability through Community Partnerships 2020-21
    (2021-09-27) Takeuchi, Miwa; Chowdhury, Anita; Kopparla, Mahati; Thraya, Sophia; Yuen, Jenny; Czuy, Kori; Mambo, Tatenda; Olson, Rod; Sobh, Hannan; Fakih, Ahlam
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    Translanguaging On and With the Land: Anti-coloniality, (Re)connection and Learning with Refugee Learners
    (2023-07) Thraya, Sophia; Takeuchi, Miwa Aoki; El Halwany, Sarah; Hanson, Aubrey
    Non-dominant multilingual learners, particularly those who have experienced forced displacement, are often met by educational environments where deficit discourses, monolingual norms and colonial silencing persist. This work examines how co-learners from refugee backgrounds in a multiyear land-based program, Soil Camp, have co-created spaces to challenge dominant norms, power dynamics and colonial histories. Alongside racialized facilitators, the children co-constructed environments that affirmed their multilingual identities and empowered agency within the teaching and learning spaces—a significant shift away from monolingual norms seen in formal schooling and dominant societal settings. Based on video-based interaction analyses, the findings illustrate the transformative power of translanguaging practices that validate multilingual identities and intergenerational knowledge systems, resulting in the co-creation of new social realities for learning, exhibited in moment-to-moment interactions. This work on earth-centered translanguaging practice seeks to connect to silenced intergenerational and new knowledge beyond named languages while attending to historicity and power, transcending human and more-than-human (MTH) divides. Children provided glimpses of their semiotic repertoires through highlighted child-led moments, which foraged new pathways for embodied representations of community, identity and MTH (re)connection. The result is translanguaging spaces where linguistic fluidity and embodied communicative practices sustain (re)connection on and with the land.