New research from the iSchool is aiming to help veterans and refugees transitioning to unfamiliar settings.

Bryan Semaan, a professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, has announced a research project to help refugees and returning veterans acclimate to daily life in new situations. For the research, Semaan will be investigating local populations of refugees, specifically those of Iraqi descent and military veterans, according to an iSchool press release.

Both refugee and veteran populations typically experience a difficult set of events when they transition back into normalcy, he said.

“These people are experiencing invisible crises that are very personal,” Semaan said. “Refugees have to integrate into a whole new cultural, social and political context. Veterans come back from overseas after being in war, are ripped from their social structure of military camaraderie and must re-establish old rhythms. Many may be exhibiting signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Semaan said he sees the project partially as an extension of the ideas explored in his dissertation, which focused on crisis informatics, or studying the ways technology is used in terms of disasters.

Bryan Dosono, a Ph.D. student in the iSchool, will assist Semaan in researching the intersection of online privacy and digital inclusion for underserved communities.

“The goal is to gain a deep understanding of how various technologies are used during the transition to normalcy in diverse contexts — namely, when people are forced to migrate when people return home from war,” Dosono said.

Semaan and Dosono spent the last three months identifying resources to use for research, and establishing relationships with Catholic Charities of Onondaga County and Veterans Administration. Dosono said both agencies would be “sharing their resources with the research team to help with the study’s outreach and promotion,” and will be helping set up interviews for the next phase of Semaan’s research, which is fieldwork.

Starting in January, Semaan said he and Dosono will be conducting fieldwork. That will mainly consist of a series of 150–200 interviews that Catholic Charities and Veterans Administration have agreed to help set up, Semaan added.

The data collection phase, scattered with ongoing analysis of results as they come in, is expected to take about a year and half.

The assistance and cooperation of institutions like Catholic Charities of Syracuse and the Veterans Resource Center has made the process of setting up and planning field interviews much easier, Semaan said.

“In the past, I had to seek out all interviewees myself, which turned out to be a very long and arduous process,” he said.

After that, Semaan and Dosono will go into the tool-building phase, attempting to craft and test resources for their subjects. One such idea is the possibility of using social media or mobile applications to provide social support or link people to their previous situation while they adjust to a new one.

Any programs or tools developed out of Semaan and Dosono’s findings would at first be implemented among their targeted demographic populations locally, but Semaan said he has hope that if they develop something truly effective, it might eventually have global impact.

“Even after conducting my research, I may find that a technological approach is not the best way to help these demographics,” Semaan said. “Maybe in-person methods or a combination of both works better.”

Semaan emphasized that more research on the topic of how to help these underserved populations will be beneficial no matter the results of his findings.

Published on November 30, 2014 at 11:49 pm

Contact Thomas: tjbeckle@syr.edu