Hey, my name is Sadhna Gupta and I am a junior studying Public Policy, Economics, and Global Health. I was born in India, grew up in Boston, and have travelled a lot throughout my life—most recently, I just finished a semester abroad in Madrid, Spain. I love watching Duke basketball games, eating Taco Bell, and laughing. Also, I have a deathly fear of cats.
I have been lucky enough to get many opportunities to research social issues in North Carolina and around the world. I became interested in community development doing HIV/AIDS awareness work in a coastal city of Kenya through DukeEngage. Sophomore year, I participated in the Kenan Institute’s Moral Challenges of Poverty and Inequality lab and did an Independent Study on health concerns for American Indian tribes in North Carolina. This past summer, I returned to Kenya and interviewed girls to document barriers to primary school access for the Nike Foundation.
All of these fieldwork experiences have shown me that humanitarian aid and community intervention can sometimes create more harm than good. Although we certainly have an obligation to act and to better our community, I believe that living ethically requires us to honestly evaluate the effects of our work and make sure we are not taking advantage of those who are socially marginalized. Unfortunately, organizations typically act in their own personal interest even if it does not align with the interests of those they are trying to help.
In high school, I met Bhutani refugee families resettling in the suburbs of Boston and was shocked to learn that their aid groups and caseworkers had tried to convert many of them from Hinduism to Christianity. If they remained Hindu, they were given only the basic funding from the government. If they converted, the church groups would give them many extra items and services to help them adjust to the United States. This could be anything from a computer to free transportation to medical appointments. Although these may seem small, many families came from refugee camps in Nepal and were struggling to make it day by day. Many individuals had converted, but it was unclear whether this was done out of free choice or coercion.
I began to see that religiously affiliated groups could have a conflict of interest in their work. Although they certainly want to help the refugees, they may also want to spread their religious beliefs or advance their missionary goals. As a participant in Kenan’s Refugee, Rights, and Resettlement Winter Forum this past January, I became interested in exploring this issue further.
As a Kenan Fellow, I want to examine the way we provide aid to refugees resettling in our country. More specifically, I am interested to see how the religious affiliation of aid organizations affects the resettlement experience of their clients. Beginning this Friday, I will spend eight weeks interning on Capitol Hill in DC and will also use this time to further investigate the political and legal aspects of this controversial issue. Then, I will spend 3 weeks interviewing refugee families in the Boston area who have experienced this religious tension first hand and will record their stories. I will finish up my project in Durham where I hope to speak with refugee resettlement groups and religious leaders, before creating my final product.
Although I don’t expect to get any definite answers, I hope to start discussion on many different questions…
Are religious groups taking advantage of refugees’ vulnerable position and pressuring them to convert unwillingly?
Is it wrong for a church group to want to spread their religious beliefs when helping others?
Where do we draw the line for a group that has good intentions but may actually be taking advantage of somebody else’s situation?
This is a great research topic, Sadhna, but be aware of how your initial assumptions might prevent you from asking all the questions necessary to thoroughly explore the issue.
These are just a couple of initial questions worth considering as you begin your research:
- What is the role of Christianity internal to the resettled Bhutanese community? This is a very important question because there are many people who converted to Christianity during their time in the refugee camps (even before third-country resettlement became an option). The stories our DukeImmerse research team heard first-hand in Nepal consistently emphasized the role of fellow refugees (friends, family members, and the local Bhutanese churches within the camps) as influential for individuals’ initial exposure to Christianity and any subsequent conversion decisions. Therefore, it is important to ask how those localized, interpersonal networks might also play a part in post-resettlement conversions.
- What are the official institutional aims and policies of the various resettlement organizations? It is vital to distinguish between an organization that makes an official policy to discriminate based on religion, withholding services on that basis, and individual caseworkers who might be “going rogue,” contrary to official policy.
Hey Amber,
Thanks so much for pushing me to ask these questions and reminding me how blinding assumptions and biases can be.
The first question is especially interesting, and I definitely noticed that many families mentioned a lot of conversion happened in the refugee camps in Nepal. I am hoping to do more background issue on the reasons and dynamics of this in the coming weeks, so I can understand the fuller picture of the situation.
And yes, the second thing is also very important to note. My project is not meant to imply that all churches or resettlement agencies engage in this type of behavior, because they definitely don’t. Rather, Im just hoping to document instances where it does happen because I think its something that we often overlook. Ill definitely make sure to be more clear about that.
Thanks so much for reading and hope you’ll keep following my project.
-Sadhna
Hey Sadhna,
Really cool project, and I’m looking forward to following your progress as you develop it. A couple of questions:
1) Do you think there are positive aspects to the relatively high concentration of religious orgs and volunteers in refugee resettlement? Seems like one possible plus is that without people who feel compelled to help and organize help, there just aren’t anywhere near enough people to meet the state dept’s (minimal) obligations to care for recently resettled refugees.
2) The idea of coercion that you’re examining is really interesting. In a similar vein to the above, are there ways in which the standard practices of non-religious resettlement orgs and volunteers regularly coerce/otherwise impose ways of doing things on refugees? The whole premise of resettlement to the US strikes me as potentially coercive. Isn’t that what assimilation is in some ways? Leaving/changing/stifling parts of yourself behind in order to make a life that the locals can respect and understand?
As I said, I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to check in with you over the summer!
Hey Christian,
Thanks so much for your questions.
1) Definitely. I think that is what interests me a lot about this issue—yes, churches may not be doing resettlement perfectly, but what are the alternatives? There aren’t many Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist groups that have the resources, organization, and infastructure to help out in the needed ways…so what do we do? I still think that makes the church groups accountable to carryout resettlement in the right way, since they are getting government and taxpayer money to do so. Its somewhat of a separation of church and state issue, and I feel like general citizens shouldn’t have to fund missionary goals of religious institutions, especially when they do not identify with that religion themselves…more to come on this later though. Its a heavy issue.
2) Im not sure how I feel about this issue to be honest. Of course, refugees and immigrants in general have to assimilate to the place they move to– but I don’t think this always means leaving behind who you are. My family moved from India and never felt like we needed to be Christian or Jewish to do well in the US or to live safely. And I feel that refugees deserve that same experience, despite the turmoil in their past. I guess it depends why the US agrees to resettle these refugees– is our goal to make them into assimilated Americans or to add their culture and experience to our country?
Keep in touch!