Nowhere is as at home: adjustment strategies of recent immigrant women from the former Yugoslav Republics in southeast Queensland

Abstract

This paper analyses adjustment strategies of women from the former Yugoslav Republics who have settled in Australia since 1991. The majority of these recent immigrants have been humanitarian settlers and refugees, and this has had specific implications for their adjustment strategies. In-depth interviews were conducted during 1996-97 with 52 former Yugoslavian-born women who resided in southeast Queensland. The women's assessments of their decision to immigrate resulted in three adjustment strategies: (1) loss orientation, (2) ambivalence and (3) future orientation. Described separately, this typology delineates only ideal types, but is predictive of the kinds of settlement and coping issues that are faced by individual immigrants. The adjustment strategies are primarily affected by the women's status as independent immigrants or refugees and humanitarian settlers, social capital and social constraints in the host country.