Analysing Safety and Place in Immigrant and Refugee Experience

Project Details

Immigrant and refugee women who have resettled in Australia are known to face barriers accessing services aimed at preventing and responding to domestic and family violence.  However there is limited evidence available about the contexts, nature and dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women to inform responsive community-based interventions.

Analysing Safety and Place in Immigrant and Refugee Experience (ASPIRE) is a participatory research project working with communities in Victoria and Tasmania to generate evidence about immigrant and refugee women’s experience in relation to family violence. This participatory research project worked with communities in eight geographic locations (two inner-city, three suburban, and three regional) in Victoria and Tasmania, to generate evidence about immigrant and refugee women's experiences in a range of settings. The project engaged communities through extensive consultation pre-data collection and by facilitating community members' participation in generating and analysing data. A mix of qualitative methods were used to generate rich data about the family, cultural and place-based contexts that shape the impact and dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women; women's help-seeking efforts; and participating cultural communities' attitudes and responses to violence and its prevention.

Photo-voice was used to document participants' perspectives on opportunities for community-led responses to violence against migrant and refugee women (see image gallery).

Researchers

The ASPIRE project (formally titled ‘Promoting community-led responses to violence against immigrant and refugee women in metropolitan and regional Australia’) was a collaboration between the University of Melbourne, the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health and the University of Tasmania.

Professor Cathy Vaughan, University of Melbourne
Associate Professor Deb Warr, University of Melbourne
Dr Karen Block, University of Melbourne
Ms Erin Davis, University of Melbourne
Dr Adele Murdolo, Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health
Dr Regina Quiazon, Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health
Dr Jasmin Chen, University of Tasmania
Dr Linda Murray, University of Tasmania as well as 20 bilingual, bicultural workers.

Funding

Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS) 2016.

Research Outcomes

Media

Emerging Voices: Family Violence in Immigrant and Refugee communities, Pursuit
Immigrant women survivors of family violence are isolated and vulnerable ABC PM
Social isolation key issues for vulnerable migrant women in Tasmania ABC News
Migrant women isolated and vulnerable to domestic abuse The Guardian
Yen Kim - The ASPIRE Project, SBS Radio (Cantonese)
Protecting migrant women from family violence, in A Better World: Research that enriches lives.

The ASPIRE Project has also featured on several other SBS radio shows in Mandarin and Punjabi.

Research Publications

Vaughan C, Murdolo A, Murray L, Davis E, Chen J, Block K, Quiazon R & Warr D.  ASPIRE: A multi-site community-based participatory research project to increase understanding of the dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women in Australia. BMC Public Health, 2015, 15(1), 1.

Murdolo A, Quiazon R & Vaughan C. Landscapes: Promoting community-led responses to violence against immigrant and refugee women in metropolitan and regional Australia: The ASPIRE Project: State of Knowledge paper. ANROWS, 2015 (12).

Research Group

Gender and Women's Health Unit


School Research Themes

Disparities, disadvantage and effective health care



Key Contact

For further information about this research, please contact the research group leader.

Department / Centre

Centre for Health Equity

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