Healing "Our Home": The Lived Experiences of African Girls From Refugee Backgrounds

• In Event: Women and Girls Navigating Educational Experiences: Supports, Challenges, Sufferings, and Restoration

Abstract

In this qualitative case study (Stake, 2005), we draw on African feminisms to consider the ways in which three African girls from refugee backgrounds share their lived experiences and produce knowledge that heals the self and their culturally and linguistically diverse immigrant and refugee community. The findings illuminate the lived experiences, knowledge production, as well as the ways in which the girls acted upon everyday raced and gendered issues. This study adds to existing scholarship focusing on the lived experiences and knowledge production, as well as the ways in which African girls from refugee backgrounds act upon everyday raced and gendered issues. In particular, the ways in which study participants healed themselves and their community are noted.

Authors

• Nermin Vehabovic, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Crystal Chen Lee, North Carolina State University