Take me Home? Understanding Refugee Resettlement Knowledge on the WVU Campus

Studies find that knowledge about refugee resettlement plays a significant role in the willingness of communities to accept refugees. Knowledge about refugees and refugee resettlement plays a significant role in other factors that shape refugee acceptance such as perceived ethnic threat. Perceived ethnic threat, or the belief that an ethnic group poses a threat economically, socially, or culturally to another, contributes significantly to a host community’s willingness to accept and care for refugees. This perceived threat escalates as federal governments use refugees and migrants as scapegoats for acts of violence and terror and blur the lines between refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. This line of scholarship points to the importance of knowledge about refugees, who creates the knowledge, and how people receive knowledge about refugee resettlement. This paper focuses on the context of the West Virginia University (WVU) campus in Morgantown, WV. On average, West Virginia receives fewer than 20 refugees per fiscal year. This is partially a result of a negative political climate towards refugees at the state level, and misinformation about refugees that has led to hostile and unwelcoming attitudes towards refugees. However, there have also been movements in support of refugee resettlement through the work of Catholic Charities and the West Virginia Refugee Interfaith Ministry (WVRIM), who continue to advocate for refugee resettlement in the state. As a result, this paper aims to explore the dynamics of refugee resettlement knowledge on the WVU campus, where students from both inside and outside the state come together.