Being a father and a refugee: Comparing men’s fatherhood and family ‘integration’ experiences in the UK and Sweden

Background

The on-going Syrian war has led to an unprecedented increase in families seeking refuge in Western Europe. Once given permission to stay, families encounter different settlement and ‘integration’ processes as they re-establish family life in new geographical and cultural contexts. To date, research has documented aspects of refugee ‘integration’, but this has focused on individual refugees or on mothers who are often regarded as primary actors in family lives. In contrast, this small, pilot study will focus on Syrian refugee fathers and their families ‘integration’ through the men’s accounts of doing fathering and maintaining family life through early transition experiences.

Purpose

The project will compare experiences in the UK and Sweden. This comparison will enable us to examine how different country policies and integration processes are experienced. Through qualitative face-to-face interviews, the data collection will capture early and more settled accounts of ‘integration’ made possible by the staggered arrival of Syrian refugee families. The study will involve recruiting 10 fathers in each country who will be interviewed on two occasions over a period of 9 months.