Prelims

Half Title Page

Community Work with Migrant and Refugee Women

Title Page

Community Work with Migrant and Refugee Women

‘Insiders’ and ‘Outsiders’ in Research and Practice

Authored by

Naomi Thompson

Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

With

Rabia Nasimi

University of Cambridge, UK

Marina Rova

Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

And

Andy Turner

Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2022

Copyright © 2022 Naomi Thompson, Rabia Nasimi, Marina Rova and Andy Turner. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80117-479-4 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-478-7 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-480-0 (Epub)

Dedication

While we were finishing this manuscript in summer 2021, the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan.

One of the authors of this book was a child refugee; her parents fled the Taliban in 1999 and arrived in the UK in a refrigerated container with their young children.

This book is dedicated to all the women who have had to live in fear, surrender their freedom, or flee their homes and countries – to those who stayed and those who escaped, to those who survived and those who tragically did not.

List of Figures

About the Authors

Naomi Thompson is a Senior Lecturer in Community and Youth Work at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is a sociologist of community, faith and inclusion. She is an applied researcher with a focus on co-production and on ensuring the voices of marginalised and excluded communities are heard.

Rabia Nasimi is a former Afghan refugee who fled Afghanistan in 1999. Whilst studying Sociology, she was extensively involved in running a refugee community organisation, a charity founded by her father to support refugee integration in the UK.

Marina Rova is a dance movement psychotherapist and lecturer. She is programme convenor for the MA Dance Movement Psychotherapy programme at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Andy Turner has worked for over three decades in community and youth work, living and working in some of the poorest parts of England as a practitioner, manager, researcher, trainer and activist. He is a lecturer and programme convener for the BA Social and Community Work at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all at Emerald involved in the commissioning, publishing and editing process – Iram, Kim, Kirsty, Amber, Brindha, Hayley, Gabriella, Helen, Shanmathi and David – and others behind the scenes whose names we may not have heard.

We owe thanks to the Pilgrim Trust who funded the women's project and the accompanying research over three years.

We are very grateful to the director, staff and volunteers who were part of the community organisation in which the research that underpins this book took place. We are not listing names in order to help protect the anonymity of the women's project and the women who engaged with it – but we are immensely thankful to all in the charity who supported the project and the research study over the three years, of which there are many. Thank you also for your tireless work supporting our refugee and migrant communities in London and beyond.

Naomi would also like to thank all the family, friends and colleagues who have supported and encouraged her to complete this book – of which there are too many to name them all. She would particularly like to thank her partner, Steve, and son, Dylan, for their constant love, support and encouragement. She is also very grateful to the women in her life who have taught her about inequality and courage and who have informed and shaped her own understandings – including, among many others, Rachel McRobbie, Funke Abimbola, Dawn Bowman, Vicki Waddingham, Lara Pereira, Charlie Porter-Baker and Živilė Stanton.

Thanks from Rabia: I would like to give a thank you to my family for their love and support. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity my family and I have been given to migrate to the UK for a better life, and the love and support we have received whilst living here.

Marina would like to thank the women who attended the creative workshops for their generosity of spirit in sharing their stories and supporting others during the process. Marina is also indebted to the women who have shared in her own story of becoming, as a cultural nomad and immigrant to the UK, and wishes to thank her DMP sisters Davina Holmes and Nanette Hoy and her ArtsMinded sisters Claire Burrell and Marika Cohen for being a constant support and source of inspiration.

Thanks from Andy: For Eve, Millie, Jess and Rach – my clan who bring adventure and love. For mum – a counsellor at Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre working with refugees and asylum seekers in areas of torture, loss and bereavement – for all your work, inspiration and love.

Finally and most importantly, we would all like to offer our gratitude and admiration to all the women who shared their stories – without you this book would not exist.