MACMILLAN Religion, Spirituality, and the Refugee Experience in Melbourne, Australia, 1990s-2010

An in-depth study of selected refugees from Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan, this book examines the relationship between the refugees' religious and spiritual beliefs and the refugee experience. Susan P. Ennis takes a close look at the circumstances of refugees' flight, their asylum, and their initial period of settlement in Melbourne, Australia during the period between the 1990s and the early twenty-first century. Ennis finds that a sense of religiosity seemed to aid the refugees, in some way, during all stages of their journey. Furthermore, nearly half of the refugees she studied reported a shift in their religiosity over the course of their emigration. Based on her research, Ennis puts forward a framework of religiosity and the refugee experience based on shifting typologies at each stage of the refugee journey. Review GeneralPlease note that I will place a number out of 10 at the beginning of each answer indicating the degree to which I am positive about what is said. By the way I do give 10s.1) In your own words, please provide a short outline of the project. This book proposal emanates from a successful PhD thesis involving in depth interviews with 19 refugees from basically Christian/Muslim backgrounds who have settled in Australia. The interviews appear to have been conducted at one time, requiring the time dimension of the project to be reliant on memory rather than assessments taken at different points in time. This research makes a contribution to the understanding of the process of migrant settlement for refugees from the Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Iraq. It carefully attends to differences in the 'home contexts', the refugee process and settlement experiences of these 19 persons. The focus is on the ways religion was or was not 'useful/helpful' in the process. Most reported that religion was of help and many found their religious practice intensified.2) Does this proposal offer a useful and/or original contribution to the field? Is itaddressing any new/emerging areas?Yes (6/10). It provides a window on a process that is very much at the fore in current social policy debates and concerns for social cohesion and the plight of refugees. The role of religion is often overlooked. In so far as these 19 cases are representative (and there is no way of assessing this) this is a substantial contribution to a neglected area of research which needs to be made. The secularist presupposition of social researchers in this area has long blinded them to this aspect of major social and personal processes.3) Does it adequately engage with recent scholarship? Does it take existingscholarship forward?Yes (7/10), it is adequately grounded in the current literature and scholarship4) What are the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal? You may wish toconsider structure, organization, coherence and presentation of material; scope, coverage and breadth of appeal or degree of specialization; whether there areany obvious omissions; timeliness and likely shelf-life of the research; whatproportion of the work, if any, will require substantial re-working; and whetherany suggested improvements fundamental to the project's success ordiscretionary matters which might be addressed after the project has beenaccepted.(7/10) The strengths of this proposal rest in the careful and detailed interview material which is thoroughly mined to provide insights into the role of religion in the process of refugee settlement. It tells an intrinsically interesting story. The material is reasonably well written and in a style that is well on its way to monograph style from thesis style, but needs some further work and editing. It is a very good piece of qualitative research which is strengthened by the author's sensitivity to and capacity to interpret religious behaviour.The weaknesses include the problem of whether the 19 cases represent anything more than themselves; the enormous detail of the analysis to be grounded in such a lim