Refugee resettlement and policies of assimilation: an oral history of engagement with religion and responses to trauma in post-war Queensland

Abstract

The resettlement of Polish, Latvian and Ukrainian refugees in post-Second World War Queensland, Australia provides a case study of the role of religious organisations in areas that lacked established migrant support networks and services. This article shows how this lack of readily available assistance was addressed by various churches, by drawing on more than 50 oral history interviews in combination with files held by more than ten different archives. This methodology provides new contributions to the study of religion via an extensive analysis of faith-based organisations and refugee resettlement in Queensland. It reveals that ethnic churches fulfilled an important practical role for refugees, and also allowed them to come to terms with their traumatic experiences. These organisations became a vehicle for refugees to assert public agency amidst the constraining expectations of society, revealing new understandings of the role of religious organisations for refugees resettled in locations lacking formal support services.