Investigating the impact of site management on distress in refugee sites using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps
Introduction
The global displaced population continues to rise and therefore humanitarian assistance has to satisfy increasing needs. According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 79.5 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2019, more than double the number registered a decade earlier [1]. Moreover, in 2019, half of the 29.6 million refugees were children. Migration flows arriving in Europe via the Mediterranean have not kept the same pace as in 2015. In 2019, 123,663 PoC arrived in the Mediterranean, compared to over 1 million PoC in 2015 [2]. Despite the significant decrease in PoC arrivals compared to 2015, European countries of first arrivals face many challenges in their operational response. Among other impacts, resources allocated for first response operations such as registration, asylum and accommodation, may not be enough or be compromised. For instance, in July 2019 the highest ever number of PoC arrivals in the Aegean islands was recorded, which accounted to an increase by 113.6% compared to July 2015 when massive PoC arrivals took place in Greece. Therefore, as PoC arrivals continue, strain keeps being placed in already strained Reception and Identification sites (RICs). The situation is aggravated by the lack of adequate resources and services. Overcrowding exacerbates the difficult living conditions in the RICs and therefore exposes the PoC to protection risks, especially the unaccompanied minors and other vulnerable groups. Overcrowding and other site conditions such as lack of heating have caused or aggravated frustration and tensions between PoC in the RICs [2].
Guidance for sustainable site planning has been issued by UNHCR [3], in accordance to the SPHERE project standards [4], aiming for sustainability of humanitarian response operations and elimination of all risks. Failure to meet site planning minimum standards can cause distress to PoC as well as expose them to further risks. Moreover, the co-existence of PoC groups with different ethnic, cultural, religious or linguistic characteristics may create tensions between the different groups [3]. Additionally, prolonged stay can cause stress and tensions and create social conflict and friction.
Tensions are linked to social disturbance and negative emotions of affected population. However, humanitarian response aims to alleviate the suffering of affected population that results from the physical, but also the emotional, social and spiritual impacts of disasters [4]. Therefore, humanitarian operations should also be measured in terms the emotional and social impacts of disasters. Gutjahr and Nolz [5] argued that humanitarian operations should also be measured in terms of psychological or social costs, collectively called distress. Yet only a few papers have addressed this subject with quantitative methods.
Accordingly, the assessment of the impact of site management response operations on the distress of PoC is a critical process. It can provide guidance to the decision makers towards improving the performance of site management response and minimising the exposure of PoC to any potential risks. Therefore, in this paper, a methodology based on FCM is presented, aiming to evaluate the impact of site management response operations in terms of the distress of PoC. In this context, the performance of the humanitarian operations can also be quantitatively evaluated in terms of the emotional and social impacts on the affected population.
Psychological costs and distress involve emotions, therefore, the modeling of emotions has been included in the proposed methodology. Ηowever, there is no consensus on a common definition for emotions, therefore several psychological models of emotion exist which identify a range of emotions [[7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]]. Moreover, limited research exists on the computational models of emotion and the extent to which they reflect the psychological theories of emotion [13].
Previous work presented by Drakaki et al. [6] aimed to investigate the influence of site management decisions on the occurrence of tensions in the camps. The approach was based on FCM; however, the focus of the paper was limited to forecasting the PoC emotions associated with the occurrence of tensions in the camps. Therefore, the FCM was developed based on a limited number of concepts. Moreover, the authors did not evaluate the proposed methodology.
The main contribution of this study is to present a methodology that investigates the impact of site management response operations in terms of the distress and negative emotions of PoC. The methodology is based on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps and uses an input-hidden-output layer FCM structure and a psychological model of emotions in order to model the emotions in the output layer of the FCM. The FCM input layer concepts include site management indicators based on UNHCR data as well as past stressors of PoC. The hidden layer concepts include the distress and the output concepts forecast the PoC emotions caused or aggravated by site management response operations. Therefore, the methodology provides a quantitative assessment of the performance of site management response in various humanitarian sectors in terms of emotional and social impacts. The methodology has been applied to a case study of PoC sites in Greece based on historical UNHCR data.
In the following, a literature review is presented next. An introduction to FCM methodology and recent FCM extensions follows. The proposed methodology is presented next, followed by a case study for PoC sites in Greece and discussion on the findings. Finally, conclusions and directions for future research are presented.
Section snippets
Literature review
The literature review focuses on (a) studies on emotional problems of PoC in camps that are based on qualitative methods, (b) studies on the impact of humanitarian response on distress of affected population that are based on quantitative methods and (c) computational models of emotion and relevant psychological models of emotion that have been applied in humanitarian settings. The FCM relevant literature is presented next.
Fuzzy Cognitive Maps
FCMs are fuzzy causal graphs that represent causal reasoning presented by Kosko [30]. They use a directed graph structure with both forward and backward propagation as well as fuzzy causal algebra. The feedback process allows the evolution of concepts over time. FCMs have been classified as neuro-fuzzy systems because they combine neural networks with fuzzy logic. Besides the fuzzy logic, learning rules from neural networks can be used to train the FCMs. The nodes in the FCM graph represent
The proposed methodology
The methodology aims to investigate the impact of site management decisions on distress and tensions of PoC in temporary sites, and in this context, evaluate site management response in terms of psychological and social costs on PoC. Therefore, it aims to forecast PoC emotions associated with psychological and social costs to PoC including distress and tensions caused or aggravated by site management decisions.
The proposed methodology (i) develops the FCM in order to map the impact of site
The case study
The proposed methodology has been applied to investigate the impact of site management response in PoC sites in Greece, during the time period January 2018 to September 2018. Data has been taken from UNHCR site profile reports and factsheets during the same time period (UNHCR data portal, 2019) [2]. Data from site management reports have been identified from a range of operating sites in Greece based on the criteria: (i) the occurrence of tensions in the sites, and (ii) the frequency of the
Conclusions
This paper has proposed a methodology based on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps in order to investigate the influence of site management response on distress and negative emotions of refugees and migrants residing in temporary sites. Site management response should provide sustainable solutions in diverse humanitarian sectors including shelter, health, security, water and nutrition. It should ensure the well-being of PoC and therefore also consider preventing or mitigating social and psychological costs
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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