Nature encounters can promote a sense of belonging and enhance the overall well-being of refugeesThe Drawing Together project is an international study focusing on how young refugees draw and describe their networks and relationships. The project worked with young adult refugees (age 18-30) who, as youth, had been unaccompanied asylum-seekers and had received permission to remain in Finland, Norway and Scotland. During a series of workshops, the refugees created artworks expressing well-being aspects of their lives, with specific reference to important social, familial and professional relationships. The first workshop focused on what made them feel well in the present; the second on what they imagined would make them feel well in the future; and the third on what made them feel well in the past. After each workshop, participants briefly described their artworks and, after the final workshop, participated in interviews of approximately one hour in length discussing important relationships they had with family, friends, community groups and professionals. Most of the participants’ artworks and interview responses focused on connections between people, but approximately half of the artworks also featured prominent environmental themes and included nature-related objects (e.g. flower, tree and sun). This nature-related focus was unexpected.
A follow-up study was conducted with 17 of the Drawing Together project participants who had resettled in Finland. The aim of this study was to clarify (1) the ways in which the participants viewed nature as significant to their well-being, and (2) how nature contact -- and the well-being derived from it -- linked to their sense of belonging in Finland. Three sources of data were used: (1) the participants’ artworks created during the Drawing Together project; (2) transcriptions of the participants’ explanations of their artworks; and (3) transcriptions of the individual interviews in which the artwork was used as a prompt.
The data indicated that, for refugees, “nature encounters can foster a sense of belonging in three ways: through restoration and attachment in the present, through maintaining links with the past, and through shaping desires about a future in which to thrive.” The data also highlighted ways in which the subjective, material and relational dimensions of well-being were interrelated. The subjective dimension was manifested in the way that encounters with nature generated positive feelings and thoughts. The material dimension related to the refugees having enough access to – as well as enough time and resources to visit – particular nature places with characteristics important to them. The relational dimension was manifested in the way that nature encounters helped the refugees feel connected, either with other people through social interactions in nature or with nature itself. These well-being dimensions were not generated independently or in isolation from each other but simultaneously within the multifaceted experience of the nature encounters.
The findings of this study are consistent with other research highlighting the importance of nature access to physical and psychological well-being. “Future research could build further on this study by examining the significance of nature in refugee resettlement experiences in other country contexts.”
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