TRUST: Attitudinal Impacts of Refugees on Host Communities in the Global South

Despite the magnitude of displacement, extant knowledge on how refugees affect host populations is derived almost exclusively from Western societies. We lack completely evidence-based, generalizable insights of such dynamics in the Global South, critically hampering the formation of effective and inclusive capacity building programs to assist people of concern.

The TRUST project steps up to the challenge. It will provide the first systematic, comparative investigation of how refugee arrivals affect host perceptions of trust and well-being and how contextual factors shape this relationship. This will be accomplished by analyzing survey data of 200,000+ respondents across 37 African countries, coupled with new refugee settlement data, in a quasi-experimental analytical framework. Four dimensions of trust and well-being will be studied:

political trust,
social trust,
perception of economic security, and
perception of physical security.

In addition, the project will conduct ca. 5-6 qualitative case studies, including stakeholder interviews, to validate survey findings, shed new light on deviant cases, and facilitate further theorizing.

This project is funded by the Research Council of Norway.

TRUST: Attitudinal Impacts of Refugees on Host Communities in the Global South

Led by Halvard Buhaug

Members

Refugee return and social cohesion

Call for Papers: 2022 IMISCOE Conference

Maternal Health Care Among Refugees and Host Communities in Northern Uganda: Access, Quality, and Discrimination

Open Position: Doctoral Researcher with the TRUST Project

Now Funded: TRUST: A Project on the Impact of Refugees on Host Communities