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Community and Societal Development

How can cross-cultural development workers help communities and societies thrive by following godly principles?

Posts tagged refugees
Ethnographic Sketches of Two Refugees in Response to Crises

by Sunny Hong and Esther Miller

Refugees have been described with words like “severely trauma-stricken”; those who have lost their homes, language, culture, and normal life; “marginalized”; “powerless”; “victims of a social force”; “deprived”; “vulnerable”; and “dehumanized.” Their severe experiences impact their identity and their survival tremendously. However, because of outside forces that threaten their lives, sometimes their situations cause them to seek more in their spiritual life and can result in their becoming messengers of the gospel. Being exposed to many languages and cultures also causes them to look at their language and culture from different perspectives. Through the ethnographic description of two refugees, this paper uses  sociological approaches to understand how they responded to crises; what factors made them seek spiritual life; what has impacted their spiritual journeys; how their identities have been changed; how their language and culture have impacted their lives; how their trauma has been dealt with; how they participate in the global economy; and how family relationships are impacted throughout their refugee lives.

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