Dr Mandy Hughes

Many refugee men have experienced significant trauma and face complex, interconnected challenges when settling into a new country. While the men require immediate assistance to meet their daily needs, such as securing housing and employment, in the longer term, they need support to build their confidence to navigate their new lives. Refugee men must negotiate unfamiliar social norms and learn “how to be a man” in their new home. Framed by intersectionality, the author examined the experiences of participants from an Australian refugee men’s social group to consider the challenges they faced and how these experiences overlapped with acculturation processes, such as renegotiating gender roles. Although the men’s group was not openly identified as a Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) prevention program, it embraced behaviour change strategies to develop trusting relationships within the group that encouraged conversations around gender norms to promote gender equality and family safety.

Non-metropolitan HASS students face intersecting educational challenges in a higher education landscape that duplicates entrenched inequalities already experienced in the regions. The Australian Universities Accord drew attention to the ‘compounding disadvantage’ (O’Kane et al. 266) of regional students, yet little material effort has been yet made to reverse the barriers to higher education for regional students, including the introduction, in 2021, of the so-called ‘Jobs Ready Graduate’ legislation, a government- sponsored campaign that has been directly responsible for $50,000 humanities degrees in Australia.

In this environment, the vulnerability of HASS programs in the regions has never been more evident. Across Australia, HASS programs face mounting challenges: low levels of public funding for tertiary education, increased student contributions to HASS degrees with the Jobs Ready legislation, and the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The situation is even more dire in regional universities, with a system driven by school leavers’ demand prompting decisions to reduce HASS offerings. Moreover, metropolitan universities’ online offerings of HASS programs have persisted after the pandemic, enabling regional students to enrol in programs that provide them with greater choice. With this endangerment of HASS disciplines in regional Australia, we risk ceasing to teach vital skills and knowledge that support equity, social justice, belonging, and truth-telling essential to regional communities and students.

HASS disciplines have the potential to address disadvantage and transform the lives of precarious and marginalised students, yet despite rhetorical platitudes defending the social value of HASS more broadly, these benefits are rarely articulated and even more rarely evidenced. In this essay, we foreground regional graduates’ voices to reflect on how regional students understand how studying HASS strengthened their individual capacity and identity to shape their lives and communities. These graduate stories suggest that the critical, reflexive, and communicative skills provided by a regional HASS program assist in addressing compounding disadvantages. They reveal ways that HASS plays a key role for this cohort of students in building confidence, equipping students for employment, connecting people and ideas, and promoting social cohesion to strengthen regional communities.

As trauma survivors, women and girls from refugee backgrounds face significant challenges when settling in host countries; the risk of domestic and family violence (DFV) accentuates these difficulties. Reflecting on findings from a seven-year university and industry research partnership, this article explores the etiology of DFV in women from refugee backgrounds living in non-metropolitan Australia. Drawing on action research principles and intersectional and social ecological theoretical frameworks, this study captured diverse women’s views about experiences and strategies for addressing DFV in refugee communities. Having developed trusting relationships with participants over the different study phases, the first author conducted in-depth interviews with women of refugee backgrounds, listening deeply and confirming findings with participants as they emerged. Interviews were also conducted with staff from settlement, health and specialist domestic violence services to offer a broad perspective on how best to support refugee women experiencing DFV. Key findings revealed stressors and support that impact violence, such as employment status and acculturation, and identification of who the women would trust if experiencing violence. By understanding the interweaving factors influencing women’s risk of DFV and strategies to address it, global healthcare providers will be better positioned to collaborate with refugee communities and specialist services.

The 3Es to Freedom was a program for women from refugee and migrant backgrounds, operating in northern New South Wales and South East Queensland, Australia, from 2016 to 2021. The program offered a welcoming space where the women could build on their skills to develop confidence, enabling them to pursue their ambitions. This article focuses on how the program’s responsiveness supported the needs of refugee women in regional communities. Place making and a place-based approach provided a theoretical framework to analyse the ways in which the staff embedded the program in local, distinctive regional communities, which provided opportunities for the women to forge bonds to build bridges into their broader communities. The place-based approach can be identified in how the women walked together to discover local places of interest, secured a plot in the community garden, and connected to social groups and local services. Involvement in art exhibitions acknowledged and gave voice to the women’s presence in the community, enhancing their sense of belonging and increasing public understanding of how these newcomers enriched their chosen communities. By investing in these local connections, a sense of place was established, contributing to the women’s adaptation, resilience and social inclusion in their region.

This article shares the narratives of young rural and regional classical musicians in Australia as they navigated their musical journeys. Challenges are explored, including the lack of resources, and the need to travel long distances and the associated costs. Study participants reflected on their feelings of isolation and lack of understanding from their nonmusic peers and stressed the need to connect with other like-minded musicians. The benefits of being a young musician in a non-metropolitan area are discussed, including unique opportunities offered in a nurturing, less competitive environment. Regional conservatoriums' role is highlighted, particularly through the Regional Youth Orchestra NSW (RYO) initiative. Study findings demonstrate the positive impact of regional youth orchestra programs in connecting talented young classical musicians with professional orchestras and peers to support and inspire their musical ambitions and address entrenched music inequalities.

Internationally, the evidence about the successful design of refugee settlement programs is limited. To help address this gap, we examined staff practices within a program that aimed to advance the education, employment and empowerment of women from refugee and migrant backgrounds in communities in Northern New South Wales and South East Queensland in Australia. We engaged staff in collaborative critical reflection about their practice. Viewed through intersectionality, our findings revealed the empowering practice of staff in program design, in the ways that they worked together as a team and in their collaboration with broader supportive social networks. This practice was crucial to the program’s success and informed staff’ conceptualisation of what constituted that success. In brief, this study revealed the complex, often subtle features of professional practice that strives to be empowering in both the delivery of social service programs in this field and in the conceptualisation of program success. Future research is needed to acknowledge and support the developing practice wisdom in this field.

This article is an examination of the potential of visual research methods used in a collaborative way with people from refugee backgrounds to share narratives of lived experiences in an ethical and reciprocal manner. The interdisciplinary study drawing on sociology and anthropology relies on community collaboration and ethnographic research methods to produce a documentary depicting the sociocultural role of food for Myanmar people with a refugee background, now residing in an Australian regional city. The creation of the documentary, The Last Refuge: Food Stories from Myanmar to Coffs Harbour, allowed these food stories to be shared in a multi-dimensional, textural way that depicted and engaged multiple senses associated with food interactions. Apart from its academic value, the documentary was also aimed at a wider audience through screenings at local, national and international film festivals. The use of collaborative research methods allowed the film to develop into something deeply connected to the participants. It became their film, their medium to tell their stories; as well as an opportunity to stand up in their new community and be proud of their culture. Reflecting on the filmmaking journey highlights the grounded nature of this research and the need to re-evaluate and be informed by participants. The author surveys the pre-production, production and output phases. The documentary, or 'end product', did not, however, signify the end of the journey. Understanding the film's impact on the participants, the filmmaker and audiences continue to extend the scope of the project.

This article documents the experiences of refugee and migrant backgrounds women residing in non-metropolitan areas of Australia, as they created works for the Stories to Freedom public exhibitions. In addition to confirming the positive impact of creative practice on the women's wellbeing, this research revealed the women's perceptions of social inclusion. Engaging in these activities increased feelings of happiness, confidence and pride. Visitors to the exhibitions commented on feeling inspired, which allowed the women to feel welcome and develop a sense of connectedness and belonging in their communities. This article makes an important original contribution to the growing body of literature in refugee studies and arts-based practice research. It uses a collaborative approach to acknowledge the success of arts practice in altering the negative narrative about 'newcomers', and progresses understanding of social inclusion. It does so by presenting a new case study, located in three different geographic locations within non-metropolitan Australian communities. Additionally, it details a unique, award winning, innovative community-engaged research process, through which a team of researchers were able to support and inspire new program directions, including the suggestion for the creative arts component which was embraced enthusiastically by participants and staff.

The social role of food has sustained growing interest in recent times. These studies become even more meaningful to sociological discussions when the research participants have faced multiple levels of disadvantage based on immigration status, ethnicity, experience of trauma, language abilities, and geographic location. This research maps the social and cultural food journeys of people from Myanmar to the regional city of Coffs Harbour, Australia. This interdisciplinary study uses focused ethnography and participatory/collaborative research methods to document and analyse food experiences. The findings reveal a positive settlement story, one where differences and challenges have been overcome and a resilient community has utilised networks built to confidently mark out its place in a new home. The role of food in bringing together communities and individuals, has allowed these networks to be strengthened.

Representing stories through documentary film can offer a means to convey multilayered and sensory accounts of the lived experiences of people in extreme transition, especially former refugees. However, along with the potential of this medium comes the responsibility to engage with participants in an ethical and reciprocal manner. This article examines these prerequisites and applies them to two films about the experiences of people from refugee backgrounds in Australia. The first film, The Last Refuge: Food Stories from Myanmar to Coffs Harbour (2015), explores the Myanmar community, their sociocultural relationship to food and how this informs their identity. The second film, 3Es to Freedom (2017), documents a supported employment program for women from refugee backgrounds. Despite having different purposes and target audiences, the two films reinforced the importance of establishing informed and negotiated consent with marginalised people as the basis of all interactions and representations on film. Such negotiation seeks to minimise power imbalances and forms the ethical starting point for reflexive filmmaking practice that considers the filmmakers’ and participants’ intentions, and that promotes a heightened awareness of how knowledge is created through image-making.