Browsing by Author "Atallah, Devin G."

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    A community-based qualitative study of intergenerational resilience with Palestinian refugee families facing structural violence and historical trauma
    (SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2017) Atallah, Devin G.
    The purpose of this study was to explore resilience processes in Palestinian refugee families living under Israeli occupation for multiple generations. Qualitative methods, critical postcolonial theories, and community-based research approaches were used to examine intergenerational protective practices and to contribute to reconceptualizations of resilience from indigenous perspectives. First, the researcher developed a collaborative partnership with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in a UN refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Then, with the support of this NGO, semistructured group and individual interviews were completed with a total of 30 participants (N=30) ranging in age from 18 to 90 years old coming from 5 distinct extended family networks. Using grounded theory situational analysis, the findings were organized in a representation entitled Palestinian Refugee Family Trees of Resilience (PRFTR). These findings explain resilience in terms of three interrelated themes: (a) Muqawama/resistance to military siege and occupation; (b) Awda/return to cultural roots despite historical and ongoing settler colonialism; and (c) Sumoud/perseverance through daily adversities and accumulation of trauma. The study findings shed light on how Palestinian families cultivate positive adaptation across generations and highlight how incorporating community-based perspectives on the historical trauma and violent social conditions of everyday life under occupation may be critical for promoting resilience. Results may be relevant to understanding the transgenerational transmission of trauma and resilience within other displaced communities internationally.
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    Centering at the Margins: Critical Community Resilience Praxis
    (2021) Atallah, Devin G.; Bacigalupe, Gonzalo; Repetto Lisboa, Paula
    Aims: This article aims to reframe resilience for use in community research and action in conditions of adversity marked by increasing natural disasters and by social inequities rooted in the coloniality of power, such as in Chile. Method: We review international resilience literature that explores responses to complex adversities, evaluating three “waves” of resilience research, including (1) “bouncing back,” which frames resilience as protecting functioning; (2) “bouncing forward,” understanding resilience as adaptation; and (3) what we are calling, the “centering at the margins” wave, which explicitly incorporates liberation psychology and decolonial, critical race theories to the study and promotion of resilience. Results: Building off “third wave” thinking, this article attempts to improve the social justice ethics within which research on resilience is completed by introducing a critical community resilience praxis. Conclusions: Critical community resilience praxis can aid the study of resilience by illuminating ways to avoid the reinforcement of social hierarchies and interlocking systems of oppression relevant to the work of disaster risk reduction investigators, psychologists, and differently positioned stakeholders engaged in resilience research and practice in complex settings internationally marked by histories of colonialism, consequences of climate change, and continual social inequities.
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    Developing Equitable Primary Health Care in Conflict-Affected Settings: Expert Perspectives From the Frontlines
    (2018) Atallah, Devin G.; Djalali, Ahmadreza; Fredricks, Karla; Arlington, Lauren; Bussio, Milagros; Nelson, Brett D.
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    Risk and Protective Factors Impacting Burnout in Bilingual, Latina/o Clinicians: An Exploratory Study
    (2017) Teran, Vincenzo G.; Fuentes, Milton A.; Atallah, Devin G.; Yang, Yi
    While there is a paucity of information in the research examining the training and professional experience of bilingual, Latina/o clinicians who provide mental health services in Spanish, a growing body of research has highlighted a series of challenges unique to this group of providers, including their concerns about burnout due to such challenges. This exploratory study is the first (to the best of our knowledge) to measure the levels of burnout among these clinicians and to examine the interrelationship between burnout and sociodemographic and individual characteristics. The extent to which these clinicians experience the challenges identified in previous studies was also investigated. Participants included 66 bilingual, English-Spanish, Latina/o clinicians. The results suggest that bilingual, Latina/o clinicians endorse lower degrees of burnout relative to their monolingual, English counterparts and that specific sociodemographic and individual characteristics influence burnout. Furthermore, the results support previous research findings highlighting the unique set of challenges encountered by these clinicians. Understanding the characteristics and dynamics that contribute to and protect against burnout has major implications for the training, support, and retention of bilingual, English-Spanish, Latina/o psychologists.
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    Toward a decolonial turn in resilience thinking in disasters: Example of the Mapuche from southern Chile on the frontlines and faultlines
    (ELSEVIER, 2016) Atallah, Devin G.
    Resilience thinking has moved into the forefront of global discourses on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and emergency response and recovery. Social justice frameworks have long been part of resilience thinking, conceptualizing multifaceted disasters as caused by interplays between physical, psychological, and sociopolitical dynamics that disproportionately impact marginalized communities, particularly in the Global South. Southern Chile is a poignant example, whereby marginalized indigenous communities, such as the Mapuche, are exposed to recurrent socionatural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and volcanic eruptions. Resilience in Mapuche communities, however, does not only include responses to these repeated major 'rapid onset' disasters, but also to complex legacies of systematic marginalization and daily 'slow onset' sociopolitical disasters including histories of settler colonization and ongoing inequities. Pathways toward resilience in many Mapuche communities do not simply rely on capacities of individuals or collectives to reduce risks to ahistoricized and depoliticized disasters. On the contrary, the very complexities of and intersections across environmental crises and racialized post colonial politics are manifest in daily indigenous family and community life. Thus, in an effort to improve frameworks useful for exploring complex dynamics in multifaceted disasters, the current paper provides a brief literature review outlining three general themes or Waves' of research on human resilience that have emerged throughout the decades. Key historical and contextual elements in the Mapuche-Chilean conflict are also introduced, supporting arguments for incorporating decolonization frameworks into the increasingly transdisciplinary projects of DRR with particular sensitivity and applicability to historically colonized groups and marginalized communities across the Global South. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.