2025/03/18 by Natalie Welfens · 1 voice · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Migration, Refugees, and Integration #Migration and Labor Dynamics #Migration, Health and Trauma
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/01419870.2025.2474616
openalex publication_date 2025/03/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
This article examines the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) pre-departure orientation (PDO) trainings for resettling refugees. Scholarly knowledge about the pre-departure phase of resettlement is limited and IOM’s role in refugee resettlement is underexplored. Drawing on observations of PDO training courses and practitioner events, interviews with IOM staff and a survey with resettled refugees, the article analyses PDO courses as sites of knowledge production and unpacks IOM’s approach to “expectation management”. Although intended as a way to protect refugees from disappointment, IOM’s PDO courses primarily attribute challenges in the admission process to refugees’ expectations and essentialist notions of their culture rather than structural barriers. This framing shifts responsibility away from resettlement states, downplaying their role in ensuring adequate reception and inclusion. The analysis underscores IOM’s significance as a resettlement actor and reveals how PDOs shape resettlement as an institution marked by unequal power dynamics between admission states and refugees.