Co-Constructing Knowledge and Space with Refugee Communities: Lessons from the Western New York Refugee Health Summit

Abstract

Displaced peoples are often excluded from institutional, community, and public processes in the United States, including in knowledge production spaces where researchers and educators may discuss problems and devise solutions. In this article, we explore the benefits and challenges inherent in the co-construction of knowledge spaces designed with the intent of serving refugee communities. To do so, we examined the Western New York Refugee Health Summit, an event held for eight years where actors convened from three spaces, i.e., institutional, community, and public. Findings are derived from the situated knowledge of the authors (actors embedded in the conception and execution of the Summit) and a qualitative descriptive analysis of eight Summit reports and event evaluation data. Findings illuminate how collaboration across these spaces is co-constructed, as well as challenges inherent in co-construction from an institutional perspective—including our attempts to contest institutional power dynamics. We conclude with a discussion of research and practice-based lessons for co-constructing spaces with and including the voices of refugee community partners.

1. Introduction

Individuals who are dislocated or displaced from their homelands and resettled in a new country carry deep observational and experiential knowledge about their own displacement and resettlement, yet they are often excluded from the processes and spaces for constructing knowledge about their own experiences. This exclusion is prevalent in institutional, community, and public processes and spaces in the US, including in knowledge production spaces where their problems are framed and/or corresponding solutions are devised. For example, more recently, scholars and advocates have critiqued the language used to describe dislocated and displaced individuals within policy, practice, and public discourse. Words and language describing human identity and experience (e.g., asylee, evacuee, (im)migrant, refugee, undocumented, and unDACAmented) can serve to invisibilize, oppress, and/or liberate (Hamlin 2022). Thus, the intentional use of language—in social media or within research, policy, and practice—can operate to amplify or undermine basic human rights (Lemke et al. 2022).

The COVID-19 pandemic created new dynamics such as increased gender-based violence (Dlamini 2021) and systemic and institutional racism (Addo 2020). This dynamic extends to dislocated and displaced communities and demands that researchers, practitioners, and policy leaders revisit principles of ethical engagement (Lemke et al. 2022). In practice, those engaged in resettlement processes (e.g., education, healthcare, housing, legal aide, work placement, food systems, and otherwise) must re-envision how best to weigh different refugee experiences (e.g., of violence and trauma), histories, and contexts (of specific countries)—and do so using asset-based approaches (Lemke et al. 2022). Despite myriad contributions made by diverse refugee communities and the presence of successful refugee-run organizations, knowledge gaps about and disparities experienced by refugees occur within educational (Lemke and Nickerson 2020; Lemke et al. 2021), health (Agbemenu et al. 2019, 2020, 2022), food (Judelsohn et al. 2017, 2020), and legal (Menavanza 2016) systems in the United States.

Thus, critically oriented transdisciplinary research confirms that political and economic advantages are “produced, reproduced, and distributed” (Lemke et al. 2022, p. 19) through unjust cultural and policy structures (Judelsohn et al. 2017). By transdisciplinary research, we mean an approach where teams have shared conceptual frameworks, research objectives, and methods that draw on multiple disciplines in dialog with people with lived experience relevant to the research phenomena. While there are benefits to co-constructing knowledge and knowledge spaces occupied by communities and researchers, scholarship has documented the challenges associated with doing so (Vindrola-Padros et al. 2019). In working with displaced and dispossessed peoples, actors must push back on transactional relationships based solely on the researcher’s need to acquire language and cultural knowledge. Rather, the collective multiplicity of lived experience, coupled with the various social, physical, and metaphysical “spaces” occupied by residents and researchers, must be centered throughout all stages of research-related activities. Space is not a neutral container but rather a social construct that can contribute to and/or eliminate social injustices (Lefebvre 1991).

The purpose of our work was to explore the benefits and challenges inherent within organizational spaces that aim to co-construct knowledge with and ultimately benefit local refugee communities. To frame our research, we reviewed US and international scholarships for educational projects concerning institutional, community, and public spaces. We also drew from Hurtig and Chernoff’s (2020) concept of contested spaces of teaching and learning to discuss the limitations and possibilities of what it means to “co-construct” knowledge spaces with refugees. Utilizing qualitative descriptive inquiry, we examined reports and data from the Western New York Refugee Health Summit1, called the Summit hereon, an event led for eight years by public university (the University at Buffalo, State University of New York (UB)) faculty and staff, with guidance from refugee community members and organizations. We also drew on the authors’ experience as participant-leaders involved in co-designing and co-executing the Summit. Our recollections permitted us to offer a rich discussion of the context, including a written history of a knowledge production space (the Summit), its situatedness within higher education, and against the landscape of a racialized city (Buffalo) and region (Western New York) that is home to a growing number of refugees and immigrants, or New Americans. Importantly, this history goes beyond textual data and analysis to underscore institutional dynamics and how space operated to mitigate against or reproduce power dynamics relative to refugee communities. We conclude with recommendations for how knowledge production events (like the Summit) might be designed and implemented to create more authentic spaces of teaching and learning while also resisting power differentials that hinder co-constructed knowledge. Readers wrestling with the challenges of co-constructing knowledge with displaced populations may find resonance with our reflections from a public university working within a refugee resettlement city-region.

2. Institutional, Community, and Public Knowledge Spaces and Processes

A sizable body of education literature exists on spatialized processes involved in education, with research also considering the role of place in furthering or limiting educational opportunity for specific groups (Butler and Sinclair 2020)—or what Tate (2008) referred to as the geography of opportunity. Burgeoning interdisciplinary research also addressed the topic of diverse actors and actions across time and space that aid newly settled refugees globally, and as is the case in this article, the United States. Scholarship in the US context has addressed the nature of spatial dynamics both explicitly (Bromage et al. 2018; Hanna 2020; Hauck et al. 2012; Hausermann et al. 2021; Kumar 2021; Kane 2018; McKeon et al. 2022; Pollard et al. 2014; Wieling et al. 2020) and more implicitly (Lemke et al. 2021; Pollard et al. 2014; Tlapek et al. 2020; Trapp 2010; Uehling 2015). International research has achieved the same (Ansar and Khaled 2022; Käkelä et al. 2023; Shubin and Lemke 2020). Collectively, this literature is concerned with how varied actors collaborate across institutional spaces (e.g., university researchers conducting research about refugee resettlement), community spaces (e.g., agency staff providing resettlement assistance), and public spaces (e.g., refugees advocating for services or forming mutual assistance networks). The intersections of institutions, communities, and public spaces create formal and informal collaborative engagements that link actors and respective systems in ways that either counter or maintain power dynamics. As Henri Lefebvre (1991) explained, the linkages and collaborative arrangements among these actors create the space that they exist within.

The research literature on refugee resettlement and organizational collaboration examines three forms of space-based engagement. First, research from a US context has highlighted collaborations between actors from institutional spaces and actors from community spaces (Bromage et al. 2018; Bal and Arzubiaga 2014; Fong 2007; Hausermann et al. 2021; Lustig et al. 2004; McKeon et al. 2022; Tlapek et al. 2020; Pollard et al. 2014; Trapp 2010). International research also demonstrated such collaboration (Courtney 2015; Durà-Vilà et al. 2013; Jaffe-Walter 2013; Missbach and Adiputera 2021; Thuon 2021; van Os et al. 2016).

Importantly, US studies in this category illustrate how researchers organized, understood, and addressed collaboration challenges across institutional and community spaces. For example, Pollard et al. (2014) researched mental health issues among marginalized populations with the aim of advancing knowledge regarding how space shapes collaboration in certain settings (e.g., education, primary care, and social services) with the goal of improving preventative care. Challenges existed around communication, including the fact that the use of translation rather than interpretation can be insufficient for some refugee populations. This is because translated meanings and expressions are not consistently situated within refugee populations’ spatial contexts in ways that capture their needs and perspectives. Hausermann et al. (2021) examined how local institutions and refugees collaborate to create spaces of belonging, which can be neutral or structured. They highlighted interactions that reaffirm refugee country of origin and life in a new home, such as the refugee women who created traditional crafts and foods to be sold at events like “World Refugee Day”; non-governmental organizational (NGO) actors who collaborated with public schools on culturally relevant curricula (e.g., centering traditions of Ethiopian and Somali students); and NGO actors who worked to destigmatize refugee transitions through organized informal gatherings for both refugees and senior citizens. Bal and Arzubiaga (2014) examined the activities of Ahıska students, their parents, and educators in several spaces—family, community, and school—and found that identity-based cohesion was essential to Ahıska survival, providing insights into how and why Ahıska students prioritized sticking together as a group. Finally, Bromage et al. (2018) worked with community organizers, persons living with mental illnesses, and service professionals to examine how structural barriers (attributed to poverty) limited relationship-building within local neighborhoods. Importantly, they also identified a dialectical relationship between citizenship and belonging, wherein individuals engaged their community and related structures because of a developed awareness of the benefits afforded by local citizenship.

Second, research in the US context has demonstrated collaborations between actors working within and across institutional, community, and public spaces (Boise et al. 2013; Hauck et al. 2012; Koyama 2013, 2014, 2017; Koyama and Bakuza 2017; Kumar 2021; Lemke and Nickerson 2020; Lemke et al. 2021; Roy and Roxas 2011; Thorstensson 2015; Uehling 2015; Wieling et al. 2020). Research focused on more than one national context (Alessi et al. 2016) and/or non-US settings (Bellino et al. 2021; Gower et al. 2022; Morrison et al. 2018) also examined such engagement.

Findings from research in the US underscore how researchers interpret these connections across the three domains. Boise et al. (2013) present an example of researchers, representing an institutional space, who helped build relationships between individuals from other spaces. By focusing on the needs of African community members, a model of African Partnership for Health was developed that provided critical health services (community space), particularly for LGBTQ migrants during resettlement (public space). Drawing on the concept of assemblage, Koyama (2013) considered how space and the movement between spaces affect a refugee’s ability to find work placement and opportunities for social mobility, with English proficiency being only one factor in this regard. Thus, when aiming to understand refugee experiences, it is necessary to recognize that “relationships between traditional criteria used to measure and predict social mobility are messy, complex, and unsettled in this era of unprecedented movement” (962). Wieling et al. (2020) examined how academic programs attract community members to meaningfully build communities with institutions. Focused on challenging elitist and traditionally white educational spaces, such collaboration should create institutional benefits for communities, including, for example, monetary awards for agencies, paraprofessional certificates, and programming that supports movement into mental health careers that service marginalized communities. Also concerned with how institutions are part of a wider ecosystem, Lemke et al. (2021) researched culturally, linguistically responsive, and trauma-informed practices in a high school serving refugee students. This case study mapped interactions between actors within and between different spaces, finding that while microsystem challenges exist (e.g., training needed on sexual violence; educator burnout; vicarious trauma), microsystem supports (e.g., school space, culture; educator knowledge base) helped serve as a protective factor against problems at the chronosystem level (e.g., discrimination directed at refugee communities).

Third and finally, more limited research from a US context has examined collaborations between actors in institutional and public spaces (Ansar and Khaled 2022; Baird et al. 2015; Boutwell 2015; Chai et al. 2023; Johnson et al. 2009; Käkelä et al. 2023). International research also demonstrated such collaboration (Berelson and Cook 2019; Hoque et al. 2023; Lee et al. 2014; Obradović-Ratković et al. 2020; Whiteford 2019). There are, of course, collaborations between actors in community and public spaces. However, because the research considered herein is from published academic articles, we view these spaces as involving institutions. To study collaborations between actors in community and public spaces, academic researchers must also co-habit those same locations. How this work transpires creates important collaborative linkages between institutions, communities, and public spaces.

Turning back to the third form of space-based engagement, Baird et al. (2015) (representing the institution) argued that using interpreters and organizing community-centered sessions is essential, as these activities foster authentic and open dialog (public space). Ansar and Khaled’s research (Ansar and Khaled 2022) (representing institutional space) aimed to help amplify Rohingya women’s voices (community space) living in four nations. In considering how women challenge traditional gender roles replicated in resettlement processes, they found that “refugee-led civil society organizations and their relations with the host country and other state structures are overwhelmingly driven by the receiving country’s migration, citizenship, and civil society dynamics” (298). Finally, Obradović-Ratković et al. (2020) (representing institutional and based on scholarly background, refugee, immigrant, and second-generation immigrant spaces) utilized reflexive ethnography to illuminate how Canadian higher education programming can either replicate harm (e.g., deficit narratives) or create meaningful opportunities (e.g., change-oriented mentoring) for women refugee graduate students.

To conclude, of the three forms of space-based collaboration examined, a paucity of scholarship involves the third form. Further examination of projects between institutional and public spaces may be especially productive if theoretical, methodological, and/or evaluative work is completed collaboratively with people across these spaces. This research might better identify the interests of persons from each space, and more importantly, the needs, interests, and goals of (im)migrants and refugees—and what they hope to achieve post-resettlement. Furthermore, most research reviewed provided little to no explicit analysis of co-constructed knowledge among persons across institutional, community, and public spaces. As Hurtig and Chernoff (2020) suggested, collaboration for the sake of collaboration is not enough. Beyond considering how educational spaces are “contested, challenged, or coopted by hegemonic ideologies, practices, and policies,” we also must document and critique educational processes that “explicitly or implicitly contest the corporatization of educational life” and, even in doing so, “may unwittingly become incorporated into a neoliberal educational hegemony” (1–2). Thus, research that can demonstrate the tangible democratic, educational, and health benefits of such cross-space collaboration for refugees is ostensibly needed. Our work seeks to fill part of this gap in scholarship and practice, particularly as it underscores how knowledge about the experiences of displaced and dislocated peoples is produced, reproduced, and withheld by institutions.

3. Methodology

We utilized a qualitative descriptive approach to guide the organization, review, and analysis of Summit materials. Though most often employed with interviews, this approach is typically used when the primary research focus is to provide a rich and detailed description of a phenomenon from those who can offer unique insider or internal knowledge regarding the who, what, where, and why of a phenomenon (Bradshaw et al. 2017; Neergaard et al. 2009)—a key dynamic of our work together. Interpretive findings drawn from qualitative descriptive designs are also considered helpful to practitioners and policymakers (Sandelowski 2000)—another important aspect of our project. An inductive process, this approach, which drew on elements of content analysis (Vaismoradi et al. 2013), allowed us to build on the literature tied to institutional, community, and public spaces. Furthermore, this approach recognizes the subjective perspectives of all involved parties (Bradshaw et al. 2017)—participants (in the Summit) and researchers (who both contributed to and analyzed the Summit). It also allowed us to utilize our situated knowledge, lived experience (as people involved in the refugee/New American community outside of the university), and recollections to build a rich discussion of our research context, including a written history of the Summit, and to identify Summit report gaps and limitations.

A qualitative descriptive inquiry that utilized content analysis was an appropriate methodological choice. The coupling of both allowed us to place emphasis on a literal description (Sandelowski 2010; Vaismoradi et al. 2013), while also recognizing the subjective nature of qualitative research (Marshall and Rossman 2015), including that multiple interpretations of a phenomenon can exist. In doing so, we focused on the “what” of Summit perspectives, which were tied to different “who” groups. Thus, it permitted us to consider “where” the differences between perspectives existed, ultimately leading to the potential “why” of benefits and challenges tied to the Summit.

3.1. Data Sources

Data are drawn from the situated knowledge of five (of six) authors who were embedded in the conception and implementation of the Summit at different points in time over the eight years, i.e., one author was involved in the design, coordination, and execution of the first Summit and engaged in subsequent Summits; another author engaged as a participant in years three and four and then served in supportive roles in years five through eight; a third author engaged as a participant (community outreach and leadership roles); finally, two authors were Summit participants and served in leadership in the last two Summits. Importantly, the article is also based on the situated knowledge of one author, who is a member of the larger Western New York (WNY) refugee community as well as a graduate student. Thus, as described as part of the purpose of qualitative descriptive design, we draw on our varied recollections, experiences, and perspectives.

Additionally, using content analysis, we reviewed eight final reports (totaling 137 pages) completed after each Summit (see

Table 1. The reviewed Summit reports.

#	Year	Title of Report	Theme	Roles of Community
1	2014	Refugee Health Summit 2014	Not explicitly stated, but culturally engaged healthcare is a theme throughout the report	Summit Planning Committee Speakers/Panelists Attendees
2	2015	2nd Annual WNY Refugee Health Summit	Community conversations to build pathways toward culturally engaged healthcare in Buffalo, NY	Summit Planning Committee Refugee Health Strategic Advisory Group Speakers/Panelists
3	2016	3rd Annual WNY Refugee Health Summit	Not explicitly stated, but culturally engaged healthcare is a theme throughout Keynote: Trauma and Cultural Adjustment	Summit Planning Committee Speakers/Panelists
4	2017	4th Annual WNY Refugee Health Summit: Explore Barriers and Solutions to Promote Culturally Engaged Healthcare for Refugees	Not explicitly stated, but culturally engaged healthcare is a theme throughout Key Workshop: Health Literacy	Summit Planning Committee/Panelists
5	2018	5th Annual Western New York Refugee Health Summit: A Summary and Recommendations	Making UB community connections to improve refugee health and wellbeing	Summit Planning Committee Speakers/Panelists
6	2019	6th Annual Western New York Refugee Health Summit: Housing for Refugee Health and Wellbeing: A Summary and Recommendations	Mental health perspectives and practice and housing for health	Summit Planning Committee Speakers/Panelists
	2020	Summit was not held2
7	2021	7th Annual Western New York Refugee Health Summit: Social Connectedness in Times of COVID-19: Run of Show Document3	Innovative programming and solutions to improve social connectedness during the COVID-19 pandemic Key Panel: Education	Summit Planning Committee; Speakers/Panelists/Facilitators Keynote (community residents compensated for their time)
8	2022	8th Annual Western New York Refugee Health Summit: Moving Towards Whole Health for New American and Refugee Youth4	Whole health for new American and refugee youth	Summit Planning Committee; Keynote; Speakers/Panelists/Facilitators (community residents compensated for their time)

) and five years of evaluations (all of which are available). Reports were compiled by staff and graduate assistants who took notes during events. Initially, reports were used as an internal record for tracking and follow-up, whereas later reports became public-facing. Starting in 2018, reports were shared with the planning committee for review prior to online publication. Six reports were published on the University at Buffalo Community for Global Health Equity (UB CGHE) website. The final two Summits, held during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022, do not have finished reports but a run-of-show document and draft report, which were utilized in our review and analysis. Reports were not completed for these years due to limited organizational support (the university did not replace a a key staff member who left the position in late 2020). Finally, in 2022, some of the authors wrote a reflection on the challenges of co-constructed and community-engaged research for an internal university publication that informed some of the thinking in this article (see Lemke et al. 2022).

3.2. Data Analysis

As stated previously, we analyzed eight Summit reports and related documents, also utilizing authors’ varied temporal perspectives and recollections regarding experience planning and implementing the event. Our content analysis involved organizing key information from the reports, including the following: year; report title; themes (if stated and/or derived from the title); goals; purpose or objectives; keynote speaker and focus; panelist names and focus; breakout sessions, workshops, or group discussions; recommendations; and reflection on the Summit from the previous year. In organizing this information, we were also keen to take note of who was on the Summit planning committee and the extent to which refugee community partners were included.

Importantly, across the social sciences, there are not agreed upon and shared definitions for the terms “community”, “institution”, “public”, and “space”. Furthermore, depending on the level of criticality influencing said concepts, disciplinary definitions can differ. Thus, all authors initially read the reports through the lens of Hurtig and Chernoff’s (2020) concept of contested spaces of teaching and learning. After our initial reading of the reports, our team developed definitions for the three constitutive and, at times, overlapping spaces. These definitions were important to our coding process, as they served as shared definitions across disciplines for how we conceived of the said spaces.

Four authors (first, second, third, and sixth) utilized the definition template to read and code report text for examples of institutional, community, and/or public space. The coders discussed and compared how they coded the text, as well as workshopped their findings with the larger team. All co-authors verified and agreed to the findings herein.

3.3. Limitations, Identity, and Significance

This article did not entail gathering new survey data, conducting interviews, or collecting field research. Thus, data collection and analysis were limited to six published Summit reports, one run-of-show document, and one draft report. Though limited to textual data only, our literature review helped us to develop a nuanced understanding of space and place, as well as consistency in our collaborative research efforts. Given that five of the six authors were co-designers of the Summit and embody varied disciplinary and life perspectives, team discussions regarding Summit experiences permitted us to identify additional report limitations. This included inconsistency in report authorship, and only four of the eight documents listed people or organizations involved in Summit planning (including article authors). Some irregularities existed in report format, detail, online publication, and included information (e.g., keynote versus panelist statements; institutional versus community leaders; non-refugee versus refugee participants). We also have questions about whose voices were represented in the report and whose were left out. Thus, though we consider the report “official” Summit knowledge, we recognize that reports present only part of the Summit story.

Drawing from the work of Boveda and Annamma (2023), report analysis and working through our recollections meant drawing a distinction between our individual positionalities and the actual positioning of our identities in relation to power structures—here UB (and its nested entities, the Office of Global Health Initiative in the School of Public Health and Health Professions and the university-wide Community for Global Health Equity). Importantly, though all authors research and some partner extensively with displaced populations (outside of UB), three of the six authors are white women, while the remaining three authors are black and brown women who self-identify as refugees (1) and immigrants (2). Aligned with the methodological assumptions of critical, feminist, and anti-colonial frames of inquiry, we discussed our identities and how aspects of what constitutes our lived experience intersected (over time) in similar and/or different ways relative to the institution (e.g., student versus faculty; non-tenured versus tenured status). In doing so, we recognized historicity and power differentials within these relationships.

Rather than distant observers of the Summit, we view our work as part of the critical-raced-gendered and anti-colonial research traditions that endeavor to push knowledge construction to identify and question insider-outsider dynamics and epistemic privilege in qualitative inquiry—which are personal, political, and power-based (Delgado Bernal 2002; Koyama and Turan 2024; Lemke 2024; Pillow 2015; Sayegh et al. 2022)—and also of particular import in migration research (Carling et al. 2014). Though our individual identities and professional experiences differed, our research team identity became a larger influence on our processes, findings, and recommendations. In short, interrogation of and iterative reflection on our individual and team identity allowed us to take up the kinds of questions posed by Boveda and Annamma (2023) regarding professional situatedness, relationships between collaborators, and divides in critical theoretical and methodological training. This work moved analysis beyond mere description of the Summit data to offer a rich discussion of the research context, including background on Buffalo and a written history of the Summit and its situatedness within higher education. Along with our analysis, this history maps what is necessary for the co-construction of knowledge and space that authentically includes refugee voices—a key contribution of our work. Our reflection also permitted us to provide more critical policy and practice recommendations—another contribution of our article.

4. The Buffalo Context: Refugee Resettlement and Community Health Equity

Located on the western edge of the state of New York, Buffalo, the 78th largest US city and second largest city in the state with a population of 278,290 (in 2020), is a top resettlement municipality (the US overall hosts a small percentage of the global refugee population). Resettlement of refugees in Buffalo increased in the early 2000s; between 2003 and 2013, 9723 refugees were resettled in the county within which the city of Buffalo is located (PPG 2018). In 2017, Buffalo and the surrounding region experienced an influx of residents from Puerto Rico after it was hit by Hurricane Maria. As of 2023, the top countries of origin for refugees resettling in New York State were Guatemala, Colombia, Afghanistan, Burma, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Refugee Processing Center n.d.).5 In Buffalo, the Karen people, originally from Burma, are the largest group of resettled people (Partnership for the Public Good 2015).

Four resettlement agencies in Buffalo administer services to refugees upon arrival, including Catholic Charities, the International Institute of Buffalo, Jewish Family Services, and Journey’s End Refugee Services; several small-scale refugee-led organizations and mutual support groups also provide complementary support and a sense of home. At the municipal level, an Office of New Americans was established in 2016, and a New Americans Study was published the same year. In 2016, the Erie County (where Buffalo is located) County Executive6 formed a New Americans Advisory Committee as part of the “Initiatives for a Strong Community” plan (Erie County 2016). At the state level, Refugee Services, located within the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), administers refugee services (OTDA n.d.). In 2017, New York State initiated the Enhanced Services to Refugees Program (ESRP), the first of its kind in the country. During this time, the Trump Administration terminated temporary protective statuses for specific displaced groups and suspended the Refugee Admission Program, with a negative impact on overall refugee resettlement (Lemke and Nickerson 2020). Funding from ESRP allowed resettlement agencies to continue working with clients beyond federal funding and support limitations.

Buffalo is routinely ranked one of the most segregated municipalities in the US, with most white residents living in predominantly white neighborhoods and attending a small number of mostly white public and private schools. According to the US census, about 33% of the city’s population is Black, and a vast majority lives on the city’s East Side. US census data for 2018–2022 suggest that 10.8% of Buffalo’s homes are for foreign-born residents, many of whom reside on the city’s West Side, though some are being resettled on the East Side as well. In a review of Buffalo Public Schools (BPS) and municipal services, Lemke (2020) found that despite the existence of multiple and varied resources, the city’s Black population experiences high rates of poverty and compounded spatialized isolation. Such space-based disconnection is characterized by limited access to amenities including banks, health centers, and supermarkets (Food Equity Scholars 2022; Raja et al. 2008; Judelsohn et al. 2017), poor transportation infrastructure, and negative encounters with law enforcement. Pre-existing racial segregation creates a poor landscape for the resettlement of refugees, and the absence of thoughtful strategies can create tensions between Black communities and New American communities.

This context is important given the connections between refugee resettlement in Buffalo and local systems. For example, the number of English Language Learners (ELL) attending BPS has doubled over the last decade, with ELL students comprising 18% of the student body (Smith and Özay 2018). Five elementary schools and one high school offer dual language programs; specialized programs also exist for students with refugee backgrounds, including the Newcomer Academy aimed at older students (Smith and Özay 2018). Research on this shifting context demonstrates that social, political, and normative factors can prompt new forms of marginalization and isolation when students transition to the US (Lemke and Nickerson 2020). Still, schools that center refugee student and family cultural histories, alongside culturally and linguistically responsive trauma-informed care, can disrupt anti-deficit thinking among staff and assist communities in rebuilding their homes (Lemke et al. 2021).

4.1. Higher Education and Global Health Equity

A focus on refugee resettlement is present among higher education institutions in Buffalo, including the institutional space of interest in our article. The largest public university in the state of New York, UB and its leadership publicly support (im)migrant and refugee groups, including the university’s own international/refugee students (Wuetcher 2017). Educational and research opportunities for/with (im)migrant and refugee student populations have also grown. For example, UB offers courses on aspects of displacement, refugee resettlement, and whole health and wellbeing. Faculty, staff, and students also conduct research on global (im)migration patterns, including but not limited to the following: education (Bailey et al. 2023; Lemke and Nickerson 2020; Lemke et al. 2021); food systems (Judelsohn et al. 2017, 2020; Khojasteh and Raja 2016); housing (Özay 2020); healthcare access (Griswold et al. 2007, 2018; Kahler et al. 1996); mental health (Kim et al. 2021, 2022); reproductive health (Agbemenu et al. 2019, 2022); and social services (Nam et al. 2022).

The Immigrant and Refugee Research Institute, located in UB’s School of Social Work, “utilize(s) research as a tool to sustain the dignity of every immigrant and refugee” (Buffalo Center for Social Research n.d.). Many from UB have supported the community-led World Refugee Day celebrations in Western New York since their inception in 2010. A member of the international Scholars at Risk network and a partner of the Scholar Rescue Fund of the Institute of International Education (IIE-SRF), UB works with international scholars, threatened for their research in their home countries, to continue their work in the US. The Office of Global Health Initiatives (OGHI), housed in UB’s School of Public Health and Health Professions, also has a mission to “identify, engage in, and advance innovative and sustainable solutions to significant global health problems,” one of which is initiatives around refugee health (OGHI n.d.).

In 2014, UB’s Office of Provost and Vice President for Research (VPR) called for faculty teams to submit proposals for the “Communities of Excellence” Initiative. Following a multi-step selection process, four teams were picked from hundreds of proposals. One of these four, led by faculty from the School of Architecture and Planning, the School of Public Health and Health Professions, and the School of Engineering7, formed the Community for Global Health Equity (CGHE) in 2015. The vision of the CGHE was to create a university-wide “scholarly community with an aim to improve people’s lives around the world” (Global Health Equity n.d.), with a focus on the Global South. CGHE leadership viewed the Global South as a space and place created from power differentials across the globe (rather than simply a geography). CGHE also sought to make systemic improvements to health equity through inter-linked activities that spanned multi-discipline research, education, and action/engagement—and to do so in partnership with affected communities.

4.2. Refugee Health and Wellbeing and the Summit

The idea for the Summit came from a conversation between the Office of Global Health Initiatives (in the School of Public Health and Health Professions) and refugee leaders. OGHI hosted the first two Summits. Once the university-wide CGHE formed, one staff member moved from OGHI to CGHE, and the two entities co-convened the Summit for the remaining years. Leadership from these entities met with a small group of resettlement leaders to discuss meaningful community-university partnerships. This initial group convened by OGHI, which included institutional members and community representatives,8 conceived the idea to convene healthcare providers, refugee resettlement groups, and university researchers “to examine barriers and explore solutions to culturally engaged health care provision for refugees” (OGHI and CGHE 2016). The focus on improving healthcare provision for refugees was particularly important in 2013 because city-wide conversations about language access—interpreters and translators—were limited to non-existent (language barriers persist today).

CGHE coordinated the Summit (in partnership with OGHI) from year three onwards. From the outset, the Summit was co-designed with community partners and researchers. CGHE operated through transdisciplinary teams (e.g., Refugee Health and Wellbeing) comprised of faculty, students, and community partners who, in the early years of CGHE, received support from two full-time, university-funded staff.9 Leadership convened a planning committee that included UB faculty, staff, and partners representing 11 organizations, including community-led organizations (Burmese Community Support Center and HEAL International), government (Buffalo Public Schools and NYS Department of Health), and not-for-profit resettlement agencies and service providers (Catholic Charities, Jewish Family Services, Journey’s End, Jericho Road, Community Health Center of Buffalo, and Neighborhood Health). The Summit was held at UB’s downtown campus, which is more accessible via public transit (compared to its other two campuses); however, in 2021, it was fully virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Summit foci were determined by a community-university planning committee, and together, resettlement representatives, resettled communities, and university representatives identified topics that were relevant to Western New York communities. In general, planning partners wanted service providers to be better prepared/informed to serve refugee/New American communities and viewed the Summit as a mechanism to do so. Importantly, in 2022, community partners urged CGHE to change the name from the “Refugee Health Summit” to the “New American and Refugee Health Summit,” as the term “refugee” has mixed associations and was determined to be traumatic for some community members.

As our literature review demonstrated, the co-construction of teaching and learning with refugee community partners is not a prevalent concept. Nevertheless, CGHE and the CGHE Refugee Health and Wellbeing team prioritized this co-construction. For example, the core aim of the most recent CGHE Refugee Health and Wellbeing leadership team10 was to “cultivate co-constructed research-policy-practice partnerships at local, national, and international levels with the aim of supporting and growing equitable resettlement processes for displaced children, adults, and families” (Lemke and Agbemenu n.d.). Thus, both entities embedded within research and practice have a focus on refugee communities displaced to Buffalo. Over eight years, the Summit convened actors from institutional (i.e., university researchers, students, government), community (i.e., non-profits, service providers), and public (i.e., resettled residents and refugee-led groups) spaces. How displaced/dislocated peoples were involved (or not) in co-designing processes and spaces varied, not all ethnic/country of origin groups were present in all Summits. Drawn from analysis of Summit reports, the following sections provide insight into how the intersections (and contestations) among the three spaces can facilitate or hinder co-constructed knowledge concerning refugee health and resettlement for transformative change.

5. Institutional, Community, and Public Spaces: The Summit

Despite its limitations, the Summit was a space to ideate and enact co-construction with refugee communities (and institutional and community actors). The size, scope, motivation, and themes of the Summit expanded and then contracted. The shifting nature of the Summit and the space its leaders sought to create was partly strategic and partly tied to institutional (university) support, including physical space, organizational and logistical support, and monetary resources. The nature of refugee community member and service provider involvement also varied, including contributions to theme, content, and recommendations for needed and/or ongoing partnerships and policy change.

The first four Summits were largely exploratory (focusing on better healthcare for refugee communities), given that, at the time, it was the only space where clinical care providers, community organizations, not-for-profit organizations, resettlement agencies, and university researchers were gathering to discuss issues resettled communities faced. The inaugural Summit’s objectives were to describe barriers to, identify successful models of, and build collaborator networks for providing culturally engaged care (OGHI 2014). The next three Summits also focused on this theme (OGHI 2015; OGHI and CGHE 2016; CGHE and OGHI 2017) (see Table 1). For example, one Summit report highlighted a panel where an interpreter and community health worker reflected on their experiences working with refugees in Buffalo (OGHI 2015). Their shared sentiment was that “one of the most important things a doctor must do is ask patients for their stories. Doctors must know their patients; they must build a culture of trust and understanding” (OGHI 2015, p. 7). Culturally engaged care was explored by a keynote speaker11 who discussed trauma and led a training on intercultural conflict management and peacekeeping (OGHI and CGHE 2016). This theme was also examined through three breakout sessions on topics including social policy and healthcare provider responsibilities, understanding the resettlement system to improve patient health, and building a research agenda to support universal health coverage (CGHE and OGHI 2017).

Subsequent Summits focused on aspects of health, often with connections to other structures, systems, spaces, and factors shaping the social determinants of refugee health. For example, the 6th Summit was the first year that explicitly moved beyond the medical system (to structural determinants of health), with a theme on both mental health and housing for health. One section of the Summit report discusses the connection between the environment and health. It stated that “where we live contributes to our mental and physical health and wellbeing. As a social determinant of health, the neighborhood and built environment directly influence individual and community health and health outcomes” (Scates et al. 2019, p. 9).

Two Summits, the 5th (2018) and the 7th (2021), explored how relationships across spaces can bolster refugee health and wellbeing. Like the first four, the 5th Summit had themes of building culturally engaged and preventative care but also extended this focus to urban and regional planning (Scates et al. 2018). The 7th Summit, which took place during COVID-19, focused on social connectedness and, like the first four, connected health to related structures and systems. This Summit also included panel-based presentations and dialog among resettled people, practitioners, scholars, and policymakers, as well as centered refugee student and community perspectives and supported their leadership in the Summit (UBSPHHP et al. 2021). For example, opening Summit remarks ((dis)connectedness among refugee groups in times of crisis) were delivered by an individual who was the head of a local resettlement program and herself had been resettled12 (UBSPHHP et al. 2021).

Finally, the themes of the 7th and 8th Summits (2021 and 2022) thoroughly examined education. In 2021, the first of two panels explored educational practice and policy responses to the pandemic and how both could better foster social connectedness for refugee communities. Importantly, this panel included students (whose families had been resettled to Buffalo), educational policy researchers, and a local school district representative (UBSPHHP et al. 2021). The 2022 theme was broad in terms of health but also highlighted refugee youth. One panel included researchers and service providers who discussed the challenges of meeting the mental health needs of refugee communities. Two additional panels included refugees, and one, “Whole Communities for Youth, By Youth (co-designed/led by youth)”, underscored challenges in navigating US educational institutions. Insights from this panel resulted in the following policy takeaway: “[Educators should] establish community and school programs targeted toward refugee and new American youth to (1) foster a safe space for shared experiences and networking and (2) channel youth into programs and groups that serve their strengths and experiences” (CGHE 2022, p. 7).

As discussed in greater detail in the following section, each Summit aimed to co-construct knowledge and solutions. Though earlier Summits were exploratory in nature and themes evolved over time, Summit goals were rooted in collaborative planning committee meetings and evaluations from previous Summits—all of which were carried out by actors from all spaces. For example, the goal stated in the 2nd Summit is “to collectively build pathways toward culturally engaged health care” (OGHI 2015, p. 2). Additionally, multiple goals addressed connections and intersections in institutional, community, and public spaces. The 5th Summit included the goal of “examining barriers and exploring solutions to build culturally competent environments, improve clinic operations, improve mental health care, advocate for positive change in Medicaid, and support rising leaders” (Scates et al. 2018, p. 4). Finally, the 6th Summit focused on mental health and housing, and the last Summit explored “partnerships that seek to improve educational environments, support mental health care, and build culturally holistic care models” (UBSPHHP et al. 2021, p. 1).

6. Co-Constructing Knowledge and Health Equity through the Summit

As discussed in the previous section, the Summit was a framework for community-led and co-constructed events and also for how universities might serve the community, not just research interests. Our analysis and collective reflections identified three ways that the Summit offered this structure. First, in planning the Summit, there was representation from community partners, although this waned over the years. Second, in composing the agenda and speakers for the event, we aimed to highlight refugee voices but did not always center them. Third, the institution served as a facilitator rather than an educator in this space and process. We also identified clear outcomes and challenges inherent in the Summit.

6.1. Representation on the Planning Committee

A planning committee gathered annually to develop each Summit. While convened by university professionals and maintaining a strong institutional presence, there were efforts to include community members. Representatives from different refugee communities and service providers joined the committee, with an extensive listserv maintained annually and invitations to join sent to Summit attendees of the previous year. Summit planning participation in certain spaces (community and public) could have been limited due to factors including social networks, modes of communication, and time. For example, although Buffalo is home to multiple ethnic groups from Burma, not all were represented in Summit planning. Invitations may have been sent, but the communication method and lack of connection to the community did not result in full representation. Still, to this end, all spaces—community, institutional, and public—were involved. Moreover, while refugee community members sat on the planning committee, refugees are a heterogenous group, representing many different ethnic groups and communities. Thus, representation by one refugee community leader does not equate to representation of the full community.

While not all refugee groups were equally present at each Summit, many laid the Summit’s foundation and helped guide the themes discussed in the previous section. Identified by the inaugural planning committee, goals and areas of concern included the participation of “good people, funding, and an organizational structure” and a “resource center or platform that collects information for providers and refugees and is a host to all programs working with refugee resettlement and post-resettlement” (OGHI 2014, p. 4). This would help to “decrease duplication of services and provide better coordination of care” (OGHI 2014, p. 4). Also included were community needs, such as “…local talent or human capital to address leadership, education, and empowerment” and “…more robust relationships between health centers and resettlement agencies” (OGHI 2014, p. 4). Priorities for research and services in Buffalo also came together with organizers who represented all three spaces.

In the early years of the Summit, the Public Health Representative II, NY State Department of Health Western Region, who worked explicitly with refugee residents was involved, but their commitment waned over the years. Depending on the year’s theme, representatives from public spaces had varying levels of involvement. For example, in both 2019 and 2021, the themes (housing for refugee health and wellbeing and social connectedness in times of COVID-19, respectively) called for heavy involvement. One set of report recommendations identified needed action from the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency, the Erie County Department of Social Services, and the City of Buffalo (Scates et al. 2019). The 2021 Summit (no formal report) also provided an opportunity to comment on knowledge and service gaps:

Through actions such as critically framed lessons, restorative discipline practices, and a range of school-community programming, there were policy gaps at all levels of the school ecosystem. This included the fact that the school needed more multilingual and mental health support staff, additional training on how to assist students who experienced sexual trauma, and an alternative assessment to testing given language barriers.

(UBSPHHP et al. 2021, p. 5)

In short, the Summit welcomed different perspectives from different spaces regarding how refugees exist in, navigate, and rebuild home in these same spaces. The co-construction of this event allowed for different angles of the refugee experience to be shared and provided a mechanism to address ongoing challenges.

6.2. Efforts to Highlight Refugee Voices

As outlined in the literature review, events involving refugee communities may be transactional or one-sided, with our analysis, in part, supporting some of this scholarship. Summit organizers endeavored to provide opportunities for refugee voices to guide the Summit; however, we found that the Summit fell short of centering refugee voices as it was an institutionally led event. Still, over time, we also observed an increase in refugee participation at the event.

In the early years, the reports evidenced a need to hear voices from differing refugee communities. In the second Summit, for example, breakout groups were formed to “develop goals for the next 1 to 5 years” (OGHI 2015, p. 9), and organizers ensured that facilitators from the university, the refugee community, and a resettlement agency led each breakout group. In addition to planning committee and attendee participation, refugee community representatives were involved as panelists, facilitators, and in sharing their work by event tabling; however, who tabled is only captured in one Summit report (e.g., Focused Learning for Youth shared information on a refugee-led after-school program and Refugee and Immigrant Breast Health Awareness Project shared research findings and resources) (OGHI and CGHE 2016, pp. 5–7).

Furthermore, as Summits progressed, more refugees had leadership roles in the event (e.g., keynotes, facilitators). By the final Summit in 2022, refugee voices were featured in sessions designed and led by refugee youth. In the last two Summits, keynotes were also given by refugee community leaders (who were compensated). In 2022, the keynote was given by a representative13 of a service provider at a resettlement agency (at the time, the only staff in a leadership position with a refugee background) and the president of the Bhutanese Community of Michigan. Offering a critique of the way that refugee community service providers engage with refugee youth, the keynote stated:

Youth should be viewed as ambassadors—their unique youth energy can be channeled, they can be mobilized and offered agency, and then they can engage in valuable and meaningful ways with their new homes and the old cultures of their relatives. Unfortunately, many services for new Americans and refugees provide immediate assistance rather than sharing tools to empower youth in their own lives.

(CGHE 2022, p. 6)

Despite the increased leadership of refugee voices over the years, Summit reports were largely produced by the institutions (OGHI and CGHE). The reports also do not capture whose voice is heard. For example, in one report, questions are posed such as “What are the existing barriers to culturally engaged health care provision?” (OGHI 2014, p. 3). Panelists listed in the report answered these questions, but it is unclear if the questions are institutional or community-based. Additionally, deficit language is sometimes used in the reports. This same report stated, “many refugees are unable to explain what is happening, and they lack understanding of complex medical terms and issues” (OGHI 2014, p. 3). Such issues are not unique to refugees and underscore potential cultural and linguistic gaps in interpreter training.

Still, in the presence of actors representing all three spaces—institutional, community, and public—there existed a call to move beyond transactional relationships toward more authentic, engaged, and empowering connections with resettled refugee communities. While focused primarily on building the capacity of service providers, the aim (even if not consistently achieved) to center the co-production of knowledge was present. Key to this aim was facilitating opportunities to learn from and alongside refugee communities.

6.3. Institutions Serve as Facilitators, Not Educators

In the US, typical educational refugee spaces are English-centered and focus on learning English (in a one-sided manner—the educator teaching the refugee). The Summit attempted to flip this, offering a hybrid setting between communities. Here, individuals—representing all three spaces—researchers, service providers, and government officials—learned from refugees. Unlike typical university-led educational workshops, the Summit was a generative and often organic event where attendees and organizers learned from one another. From the outset, attendees discussed mobilization of human capital, stating “we must create an infrastructure to provide an educational forum for refugees to teach each other about available programs” (OGHI 2014, p. 9). In reflecting on more recent Summit notes, attendees indicated it was a useful event for people to check in with a community of learners, obtain a sense of work occurring in Buffalo, form collaborations, and hear from refugee community representatives. Thus, the Summit was a venue for community members to share intimate community-centric insights and, in turn, for researchers and service providers to build culturally and linguistically informed work agendas.

Summit organizers aimed to expand the event beyond the institution in various ways, including through building partnerships in the community. Included in one report is an example of an institutional and community partnership, the Mental Health Working Group, which aimed to develop tools to understand gaps in mental healthcare, support a peer mentoring model, and “promote nontraditional and culturally relevant mental health and wellness programs” (OGHI and CGHE 2016, p. 3). Efforts like this—which bridge institutional spaces to others—came out of the Summit. Organizers also sought to create mechanisms wherein relationships could be built and maintained beyond the Summit. For example, one report listed it as a goal to “develop a sustainable online platform for information sharing among health care professionals serving refugee patients in Buffalo” (OGHI 2015, p. 3). Piloted by the OGHI and taken over by UB’s Immigrant and Refugee Research Institute, this aim expanded beyond the institution to refugee-serving communities (Buffalo Center for Social Research n.d.).

As facilitators, we aimed to help the institution meet the needs of a community it does not typically serve. Thus, faculty, student, and staff organizers, whose work was premised on building co-constructed learning and knowledge as well as increasing health equity for historically minoritized communities, had to counter existing power relations. While the ways this was accomplished were not captured in official Summit reports, in our collective reflections, we acknowledge that organizers bent university rules to meet the needs of multiple attendees. For example, for events on campus, university policy did not allow us to offer childcare. Furthermore, organizers viewed this as crucial to creating an inclusive event, especially when Summits were held on weekends. While we did not hire childcare providers, we set up spaces for children with enrichment activities.

The institutional role was also to organize, share resources, and facilitate conversations among stakeholders. The issues presented at the Summits were often worked through in breakout groups or workshop settings, and the results show a role for the institution in three different ways. First, the institution was a venue for better training and educating service providers (especially medical professionals). For example, one report recommended training “community leaders in psychoeducation through the community health workers/peer support group model and increasing medical provider training and social worker training” (OGHI 2015, p. 10). Another report called for increasing cultural sensitivity training for service providers working with refugee populations (Scates et al. 2018). Second, there was also a clear need to better connect refugees with institutions. Two reports recommended recruiting and training people with refugee backgrounds to work in medical fields, both training and connecting them with potential employment opportunities (OGHI 2015; OGHI and CGHE 2016). Finally, there was a call to amend and improve research and clinical practices with refugee communities. For example, the 2018 Summit and elements of the 2021 Summit (both focused on education) emphasized building culturally and linguistically responsive research environments.

Overall, organizers did not consistently engage in co-constructed facilitation and sometimes dominated. Though Summit reports were designed to advocate with the university administration and the wider policy community, there were noticeable shifts in language over the years. For example, in the first four years of the report, the authors repeatedly used the term “we.” In year one, the report stated that “we need to stress the importance of trauma-informed care when treating patients” (OGHI 2014, p. 3). This “we” refers to the institution as opposed to the refugee community. In later years, there was also an increase in language such as “must” and should,” also connoting institutional as opposed to community recommendations. Furthermore, there are numerous examples throughout the reports of research on/with refugee communities, but led by institutions, as the Summit organizer is a research entity. In year two, the report outlined a “three-part initiative to assess cultural competency among outpatient and inpatient healthcare facilities as well as from refugee patient perspectives” (OGHI 2015, p. 4). While it is natural for the institution to be leading research conversations, more efforts towards community-led and participatory action research and opportunities for refugee populations to share research needs are warranted.

6.4. Summit Outcomes

The first few Summits resulted in measurable outcomes. The inaugural Summit recommended convening a steering committee. By year two, this committee was named the Refugee Health Strategic Advisory Group with Summit working groups (cultural and linguistic competency and preventive care, provider recruitment, and mental health). These groups were jointly led by a UB faculty member and a resettled community member or resettlement representative. The working groups presented updates to the public during the 3rd Summit. The strategic advisory group met regularly but eventually determined that more dialogic exchanges and planning could best be supported through pre-existing quarterly round table meetings organized through Buffalo’s resettlement agencies and open to the community.

In addition to a steering committee and working groups, a 2nd Summit goal was to “develop a sustainable online platform for information sharing among healthcare professionals serving refugee patients in Buffalo (OGHI 2015, p. 3). This portal would inventory the language and cultural resources available in the community. After the inaugural Summit, the OGHI began the development of this portal by surveying all participants from the first year (OGHI 2015, p. 3). Soon after, the School of Social Work took ownership of the portal and housed it within its Immigrant and Refugee Research Institute. Similarly, measurable examples were not visible in subsequent reports.

The relationships established through the Summit also supported the development of curriculum. In 2017, CGHE hosted a Global Innovation Challenge focused on refugee health and wellbeing (CGHE n.d.). Open to all university students, this annual learning competition provides a way to explore global health challenges. Resettled community members were hired as expert fellows to speak at, support the week-long event, and select the winning team. The School of Public Health and Health Professions launched a course on refugee health and wellbeing, an elective that continues. Finally, the Summit created opportunities for impact beyond institutional space and within community and public spaces. For example, members of the cultural and linguistic competency working groups piloted an educational program funded by CGHE and co-led by resettlement agencies and the UB Schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Social Work. This project hired refugees and interpreters as standardized patients to provide feedback and support to aspiring health profession students.

Finally, a significant part of the Summit was the opportunity to connect with others, the impact of which cannot be fully measured. In analyzing reports as well as through our collective reflections, we found several examples suggesting that the Summit fostered individual and collective growth within institutional spaces and beyond. For example, UB graduate students conducted research from the perspective of the refugee community. Others gained cultural competency in outpatient healthcare facilities. A resettled community partner, a core member of the Summit planning committee, co-authored a book chapter on refugee health and wellbeing with university partners. Importantly, the refugee leaders who were involved in conceiving the Summit continue to work with UB faculty and staff today. For example, in the 2024 Western New York World Refugee Day (WNY WRD) celebration—a community-led and community-facing event envisioned by two community leaders involved in the Summit conception—multiple UB faculty and staff were involved (two co-authors of this article helped with tabling, while another, in a personal role, was involved in providing logistical support).

6.5. Challenges in Co-Construction

Co-constructing institutional, community, and public spaces and related learning processes is challenging. Analysis of Summit reports revealed that challenges included maintaining balanced representation of different communities, varied viewpoints, and the limited value of the event by university leadership. Additional challenges involved the capacity limitations of UB faculty and staff to facilitate the Summit without institutional support.

While Summit organizers tried to center the voices of those with lived experiences as refugees, this was not consistently possible, and institutional organizers had numerous blind spots. The same people with refugee backgrounds (typically from groups that were more established in Buffalo) routinely played a role in the Summit. Institutional organizers aimed to have voices representative of institutional, community, and public spaces, but this was challenging to maintain across time. As discussed previously, 11 community organizations and 11 schools within UB assisted with the inaugural Summit (OGHI 2014). Planning committee representation changed annually, and by 2023, the Summit planning committee was primarily made up of university faculty and staff.

The reports did not discuss the evolution, but in reflecting on the Summit, we identified barriers to community participation. First, meetings often occurred during business hours, perhaps making attendance difficult. Second, aside from CGHE staff, individuals were not compensated for their time serving on the planning committee. This might account for the challenges involved in keeping community members engaged. Third, changes in staff and COVID-19 interruptions might have impacted community involvement overall. Fourth, while organizers made efforts to engage the public by inviting all Summit attendees to participate on the planning committee, institutionalized communication methods (email, calendar invites) may not be inclusive/preferred/engaging for community partners. Finally, and possibly the most important reason, was the departure of key staff from CGHE in 2020 (who designed and coordinated the Summit with community leaders for 6 years). This severed the web of multi-year informal and authentic relationships across institutional (CGHE) and public spaces (refugee communities). Here, we found that people, not institutions, sustain relationships.

Despite increased institutional representation on the planning committee over time, organizers of the last few Summits prioritized funding speakers who came from community and public spaces. Not only was funding provided to honor presenters’ time and expertise, but also to overcome potential economic challenges created by COVID-19. Of course, this resulted in the Summit becoming more costly to host. From an institutional perspective with priorities in research and teaching, the Summit was viewed as a volunteer service activity. Conversely, Summit organizers saw it as a generative event as opposed to a one-way educational workshop. Thus, the compounding effects of increasing expenses (alongside ongoing inadequate institutional funding) and philosophical differences between university administration and CGHE faculty/staff ultimately resulted in the Summit being an unsustainable event.

While the design of each Summit was the result of many voices, the work to execute it fell on the shoulders of a couple of university staff members (whose roles were not solely focused on the planning, implementation, monitoring, or evaluation of the Summit). For example, between 2014 and 2020, there was a full-time CGHE staff member who undertook Summit planning; the final two Summits were led by part-time faculty and staff. While five of the eight reports concluded with recommendations or next steps, little to no monitoring took place (as there was no capacity for the job description of staff). Finally, who the Summit is for was a routine question of concern for organizers (especially in later Summits). The idea of wanting more refugee community members to attend was discussed, but translating that into reality proved difficult. Ultimately, the Summit was facilitated by the institution and co-constructed with the community (not-for-profit) and public leaders, which had the effect of excluding members of the refugee community from leadership roles.

7. Discussion

The spaces for constructing knowledge about the experiences of displaced peoples largely remain inaccessible to individuals resettled in the United States. More importantly, there are few instances where knowledge spaces are co-constructed by resettled refugees. Knowledge spaces are social constructs shaped by power differentials across institutional, community, and public spaces (Lefebvre 1991). In this article, we explored the benefits and challenges inherent within organizational spaces that aim to co-construct knowledge with and ultimately benefit local refugee communities. We did this through reflection and analysis of reports from the Summit, an event that ran for eight years in a refugee resettlement region of the US.

During this time, the Summit served as a knowledge production space that convened actors across institutional, community, and public spaces. UB’s OGHI, and later CGHE and OGHI together, were successful in serving as a “convening organization” (Butterfoss and Kegler 2009) for a collaborative knowledge production effort that spanned the three domains. Conceived jointly by leaders in the refugee community and two university representatives, the Summit exemplifies how institutional spaces can be wedged open to simultaneously serve public and community purposes.

Akin to Boise et al.’s (2013) description, the Summit was a space to gather institutional actors (university, government, large-scale resettlement agencies, school districts, healthcare providers), community actors (small-scale and refugee-led not-for-profit organizations), and multiple publics (refugee residents, youth, and allies) to surface issues that impact resettled refugees. This was a particularly important move in Buffalo, which is home to a growing number of resettled refugees (who, some argue, are part of the city’s revival). Indeed, attendees came from varied clinical, educational, and social service settings and were eager to learn how to better serve refugee populations.

The Summit was co-organized by a group of individuals who represented the various publics (refugee leaders and refugee-led small not-for-profit organizations) and institutions (universities and large-scale refugee resettlement agencies). Community organizations (or individuals who had resettled in Buffalo) were involved in guiding/advising Summit design and sharing knowledge during it. University faculty and staff carried the bulk of responsibility for convening and organizing the Summit. This sharing of work is important given that universities have more resources. Engaging displaced peoples in the framing of knowledge spaces drew organizers’ attention to the questions and topics that were most relevant for displaced peoples. For example, in 2014, Summit organizers (including refugee leaders) focused on language access/cultural sensitivity training among healthcare providers. In 2021, community advisors urged university organizers to focus on refugees’ lack of social connectedness, accentuated in the wake of COVID-19. That said, the framing of knowledge spaces by displaced people was not without complications. Notably, during some Summits, some resettled people were reluctant to voice critiques of institutional services (e.g., city government), possibly for fear of retribution.

The Summit also illustrates how difficult—perhaps impossible—it is for well-meaning faculty, staff, or university centers to co-construct lasting knowledge spaces with refugee communities in a hegemonic university habitus (which operates with neoliberal logics). The strategies used by Summit organizers attempted to disrupt conventional power dynamics but ultimately did not fully succeed. Instead, the Summit may have unintentionally furthered the ambitions of large-scale institutions involved in the Summit, and as Hurtig and Chernoff (2020) suggested, it might have unwittingly furthered the neoliberal ambitions of higher education. Thus, the Summit illustrates the contradictory ways in which knowledge spaces are formed, sustained, and contested (Hurtig and Chernoff 2020) across institutional, community, and public domains.

The co-construction of knowledge spaces depends on the authentic relational infrastructure of individuals across the three spaces. There is both a positive and a troubling characteristic of this relational infrastructure. On the positive side, members of CGHE faculty and staff had personal, authentic relationships within the Western New York refugee and (im)migrant community, which fostered trust and information sharing for, during, and after the Summit. These relationships did not exist in binary realms (institutional vs. community vs. public). Indeed, people (not institutions) built relationships with their whole selves and held multiple identities simultaneously (in the Summit, researchers were also New Americans; refugee leaders were also employees of the large-scale institution). The troubling aspect is the invisible and uncompensated nature of relational infrastructure across institutional, community, and public spaces. Across domains, the labor of people of color and women remains undocumented. For example, the labor of the initial founding group—one immigrant woman of color (university), one white woman (university), and representatives from resettlement agencies and a refugee-serving health clinic (community/public)—remains largely unknown (until the publication of this article). Among this core group, the labor of individuals from the community/public group was also uncompensated.

Lemke et al. (2021) argued that microsystem challenges can serve as a counterweight and even provide solutions to macrosystem obstacles. Our findings suggest that the Summit faced variable challenges over its existence—and that microsystem challenges overcame some (but not all) of those challenges. For example, in its early years, the presence of refugee residents (not resettlement agencies) on the planning committee created Summits most useful to the community at the time (training of healthcare providers to provide culturally sensitive care). During these same years, however, refugee leaders were not compensated. During more recent Summits, organizers pivoted to provide funding to refugee speakers to honor their contributions, an important move suggested by Wieling et al. (2020). Moreover, this provision of funding did not fully recover the relational infrastructure lost when key staff departed CGHE (in 2020) following CGHE restructuring. In fact, though resettlement agencies were present, few/no refugee leaders were present in planning the final Summits. In many ways, both microsystem and macrosystem solutions need to co-exist to truly co-construct a knowledge space.

Ultimately, the Summit was not a neutral space (Lefebvre 1991). University administration and faculty/staff held more power/resources. Not all parties were involved similarly in the planning, budgeting, and implementation processes that influenced the Summit. Nevertheless, actors and activities—both micro and macro—melded the boundaries across community, public, and institutional spaces to co-construct the Summit as a learning space to advocate for refugees’ aspirations. Ultimately, the Summit was successful in creating a space where concerns of refugee residents could be raised alongside their allies (CGHE, resettlement agencies, other ally organizations, and individuals) regarding service provision for refugees (by hospitals, schools, social service agencies, and others), albeit with imperfection. Despite the space the Summit created—imperfect as it was—constriction of resources from the university led to its halt, with no clear plans for continuation from CGHE leaders. Thus, a knowledge production space variously co-constructed by actors across institutional, public, and community actors was dissolved.

8. Recommendations

Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers focused on promoting global health equity are beginning to recognize the key role of social, economic, and political determinants of health—yet to also de-colonize public health research means to name, critique, and bring about action around macro- and micro-level structures of oppression (e.g., ableism, capitalism, racism, and sexism) (Lemke et al. 2022). This includes addressing forms of distal and proximal oppression perpetuated by the US government and its academic institutions, intergenerationally transmitted in ways that maintain a world order that dispossesses and dislocates millions of people from their homelands. This means calling out military engagements in places like Afghanistan, Gaza, the Syrian Arab Republic, and Ukraine, and how all illuminate the ways global-to-local policies and practices are rooted in neoliberal and settler colonial logics and geopolitics.

Engaging in university activities co-constructed with displaced communities requires that research benefit the “people” and “place” most impacted. Some scholars suggest that ethical “principles” and established evidence-based “precedents” (Reid et al. 2021) should guide projects and events, and displaced peoples must be involved in establishing these same principles and the precedents. In short, community members’ interests take precedence. As detailed earlier, in preparation for the Summit, UB organizers met refugee community leaders to understand issues faced by community members. Next, organizers connected with an advisory group of community members, faculty, and other experts to co-develop the Summit agenda. Each of these steps was a check to ensure that community members voiced their opinions. Additionally, organizers aimed to support refugee-owned and led businesses and organizations by engaging them as purveyors of food and entertainment.

Mere representation of community leaders in planning committees is insufficient (and potentially harmful). Even when in positions of leadership, individuals may not accurately represent the full range of a community’s experiences, views, or concerns (Lemke et al. 2022). Especially in communities with proficiency in languages other than English, it can be challenging to engage with a predominantly English-speaking community, and translation services may be needed. As underscored by our efforts in this article, when engaging with refugee communities, constant reflection on researcher identity and our relationships in and outside the communities we study is necessary. It is also important to iteratively reflect after events to examine how the engagement proceeded and if anything came of the event. Such reflection builds on research documenting ethical concerns in migration research (Carling et al. 2014) and inter- and transdisciplinary public health research concerned with “health equity tourists” (McFarling 2021)—many white, who at best have heightened awareness of structural oppression, or worse, have opportunistic agendas that can contribute to uniformed, performative, and even racist and/or heterosexist scholarship (Lemke et al. 2022). In short, analysis of Summit reports revealed that we advocated for increased training around researcher identity and respective privilege, as well as made conscious efforts to center community partners on research projects, panels, and publications—efforts we recommend here.

Finally, it is crucial to, over time, invest in reciprocal relationships. While in some instances this may look like monetary support, at other times the community or public may need organizational support from the institution. We need to ask for and listen to what is needed. When it comes to monetary support, in the later years of the Summit, organizers ensured that the budget covered the honoraria for refugee community members (even if none was paid to academic speakers/panelists). How payments are delivered is also a crucial issue for procedural equity, i.e., funding must be processed in a timely fashion and, if possible, be provided in a way that is useful for the recipient (Lemke et al. 2022). For example, Agbemenu et al. (2020) reported that her immigrant research participants prefer cash or gift cards from which cash can be extracted. This allows honoraria or other forms of compensation to be used in more flexible ways, as refugee community members might opt to send research study compensation to families within their countries of origin. That said, even if an individual researcher (or group of researchers) is mindful of procedural equity for their community partners, they often run afoul of university regulations, which may prohibit cash disbursal. For true procedural justice, university research administration (and finance), too, must establish more equitable protocols to ensure equity for community partners/participants who partner with their faculty/researchers.

9. Conclusions

As Buffalo becomes home to more refugees, UB (and similar institutions) is positioned to work with and for previously displaced/dislocated communities. Engaging with community members (and spaces) in authentic and ethical ways better facilitates co-produced knowledge and partnerships that enrich all three spaces. As outlined in our recommendations, institutional spaces can cement this work, so it continues uninterrupted and in a meaningful and community-centric manner. In short, it is essential for institutions to maintain rigorously designed and carefully implemented infrastructure (e.g., CGHE) that supports activities akin to the Summit. Failure to do so stymies the possibility of systemic change.

As gleaned from Summit reports and our reflections, essential to the co-production of knowledge is a transformative approach to global health equity and community-centric research with (im)migrant populations. Merely identifying determinants of health is insufficient. It is imperative to engage in the rigorous de-colonization of public health research, dissecting and challenging the macro- and microstructures of oppression that perpetuate inequities. This involves confronting the historical legacy of dispossession and dislocation, often facilitated by governments and academic institutions, and actively working towards dismantling these oppressive systems.