The Bhutanese Refugee Resettlement Journey Part 1: Pre-Departure
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF RESETTLEMENT We don’t know
anything so you have to tell us what is important for us to
know. (Middle-aged male) Most of the Bhutanese who took part in
our study had spent the larger part of their adult lives in
refugee camps; many became refugees in childhood. Such people
have not had the opportunity to know adult life as full
participants in civil society since they have been kept as
outsiders to local host communities. Although two of the
refugees we talked to did have regular daily paid work outside
camp, for most people the camps were a kind of restricted civil
and political microcosm where the exercise of political and
other rights was limited and individual effort in education,
enterprise and other domains of life had only limited outlets.
This section explores the state of preparedness of one cohort
facing the shocks and challenges of resettlement: what did they
know of New Zealand and what did they want to