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Language and Literacy in Refugee Families

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Chatwara Suwannamai Duran

    1. University of Houston , Houston, USA

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  • Strives to understand contested language ideologies, literacy practices and language learning trajectories among newly-arrived refugee children and their families
  • Challenges the view that refugees are illiterate and socioeconomically disadvantaged
  • Explores refugees’ transnational literacies, multilingual capital, and accumulated cross-cultural knowledge

Part of the book series: Language and Globalization (LAGL)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Refugee, Language, and Literacy

    • Chatwara Suwannamai Duran
    Pages 1-38

  3. ‘But, We Are Karenni. We Are Not Burmese.’ Historical Contexts and Lived Experiences of Karenni Refugees from Burma

    • Chatwara Suwannamai Duran
    Pages 39-66

  4. The Three Families

    • Chatwara Suwannamai Duran
    Pages 67-106

  5. Life, Liberty, and (the Pursuit of) English

    • Chatwara Suwannamai Duran
    Pages 107-132

  6. Karenni Youth, Multilingual Practices, and Transnational Literacy

    • Chatwara Suwannamai Duran
    Pages 133-164

  7. Digital Literacy in the Karenni Families

    • Chatwara Suwannamai Duran
    Pages 165-193

  8. Revisiting Transnationalism and Key Resources

    • Chatwara Suwannamai Duran
    Pages 195-204

  9. Conclusion and Implications

    • Chatwara Suwannamai Duran
    Pages 205-216

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 217-226
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines the agreements and discrepancies between public understanding and assumptions about refugees, and the actual beliefs and practices among the refugees themselves in a time of increasing mobility fuelled by what many call 'refugee crisis’. With a  focus on language and literacy practices among recently-arrived Karenni refugee families in the United States, this book explores the multilingual repertoires and accumulated literacies acquired through the course of the refugees' multiple movements. Through the lens of transnationalism, the author emphasizes that despite their numerous struggles, the refugees daily and diligently use and strategize their old, emerging, and evolving linguistic and literacy resources to make the best of their resettlement. This book will shed light on the language and literacy practices among transnational and diasporic communities, minoritized or marginalized groups for researchers in these fields as well as practitioners and resettlement agencies working with refugee populations.

Reviews

“Truly an important read at a time when refugees are increasing globally. Duran’s impressive and intimate portrait of recently arrived Karenni refugee families details their experiences as they negotiate the complex and contradictory multilingual, multimodal and multimedia linguistic practices of their new lives. The reader is drawn into the emotions of the families as they “look back and move forward” as minoritized transnational members of their new communities.” (Theresa McGinnis, Associate Professor, Hofstra University, USA)

“Transnational migration due to war, conflict, and economic despair is one of the defining human crises of our time. Based on her in-depth, longitudinal, ethnographic multiple-case study situated within one such refugee community, the Karenni (from Burma/Myanmar) in southwestern United States, Duran provides an illuminating and vivid account of in-school and out-of-school socialization into and through the multilingual language and literacy tools, practices, networks, and repertoires of this resourceful and resilient community.” (Patricia A. Duff, Professor, University of British Columbia, Canada)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Houston , Houston, USA

    Chatwara Suwannamai Duran

About the author

Chatwara Suwannamai Duran is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of English, University of Houston, USA. She has worked with Karenni refugees since 2009, completing her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Language and Literacy at Arizona State University in 2012. As an ethnographer, she utilizes multiple qualitative methods to explore language learning trajectories and literacy practices among immigrant and refugee families in the United States.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Language and Literacy in Refugee Families

  • Authors: Chatwara Suwannamai Duran

  • Series Title: Language and Globalization

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58756-5

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-58754-1Published: 19 December 2016

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-95458-2Published: 20 July 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-58756-5Published: 24 November 2016

  • Series ISSN: 2947-7506

  • Series E-ISSN: 2947-7514

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXI, 226

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 15 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Sociolinguistics, Multilingualism, Migration, Globalization, Literacy, Applied Linguistics

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