Nature and Belonging in the Lives of Young Refugees: A Relational Wellbeing Perspective

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper focuses on an important topic, namely the relationship between nature contact, wellbeing and belonging in the resettlement experiences of young refugees.

The author applies a relational approach to understand the subjective, material and relational dimensions of the wellbeing generated through young refugees’ interactions with nature, and how those wellbeing dimensions inform young refugees’ sense of belonging in Finland, building on participant-made artworks and art-informed interviews.

 The introduction provides a good overview on discourses and narrows down to the situation in Finland. The state of art and the project framework are clearly presented.

To be considered and addressed by the author:

The authors refers to material and non-material benefits that refugees can gain from nature contact. While there are examples given for the non-material benefits, such examples are missing for the material ones. (36, 51). To understand better the holistic approach, please consider providing examples.

Methodology is sound. Regarding materials and methods, some further information is needed. The paper would benefit from more detailed information on (1) the participants whose artwork was included in the study, especially country of origin, year of arrival, year of artwork, gender (a respective table might be helpful), (2) on the workshop program (timespan, number of sessions, specific tasks), and (3) on the interviews (e.g. duration, guiding questions).

Information on the author’s professional background would better allow to follow the interpretation of artwork and interview findings. In the discussion the author’s cultural background is mentioned; please make this more explicit.

Concrete numbers should be presented  (1) instead of “several participants” (288), and (2) instead of “some interviews in English, others in Finnish” (230).

Findings are interesting to read, quotes are well chosen and illustrative.

A statement that participants gave their consent for publishing their artwork and for the interviews, as well as a statement on anonymization (names used) needs to be included.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments! Below are my responses and edits, in blue.

The authors refers to material and non-material benefits that refugees can gain from nature contact. While there are examples given for the non-material benefits, such examples are missing for the material ones. (36, 51). To understand better the holistic approach, please consider providing examples. Examples of material benefits added (40-42).

Methodology is sound. Regarding materials and methods, some further information is needed. The paper would benefit from more detailed information on (1) the participants whose artwork was included in the study, especially country of origin, year of arrival, year of artwork, gender (a respective table might be helpful). Participant details added in a new table (228-235). In order to secure the privacy of participants I avoided attaching specific identifying information to their text and artworks.  

(2) on the workshop program (timespan, [dates added to Fig. 3 (283-291)] number of sessions, specific tasks), [more information added (197-202)] and (3) on the interviews (e.g. duration, guiding questions) More details added [202-210].

Information on the author’s professional background would better allow to follow the interpretation of artwork and interview findings. Details added (243-244).

In the discussion the author’s cultural background is mentioned; please make this more explicit. Details added (625).

Concrete numbers should be presented  (1) instead of “several participants” (288), [edited (312)] and (2) instead of “some interviews in English, others in Finnish” (230) [Details added (250)].

A statement that participants gave their consent for publishing their artwork and for the interviews, [endnote added (213)] as well as a statement on anonymization (names used) [endnote added (295)] needs to be included.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper. The topic is really important, and the quality of the writing extremely high.

I have only minor suggestions on how the paper might be improved:

Standardise your terminology in the opening few paragraphs: You use "country of origin" and "home country" interchangeably, as well as "destination country" "host country" and "receiving country". This gets a bit confusing.

You provided excellent an literature review, particularly in regards to the nature/wellbeing nexus. If you have a bit more space, you could consider incorporating some secondary literature on refugee/refugee youth wellbeing and belonging in general.

My main queries relate to the Drawing Together project. In the Methods section, or the description of the project, I think you should try and address these kinds of questions: How many former refugee youth participated in the project in each country? How were they selected/invited to participate? Why were those three countries involved? Who coordinated the project? Who funded it? What outcomes were you hoping to achieve, and were these outcomes met? How long was each artmaking session, and how many sessions did each participant attend? Where were the sessions held (i.e. in participants' towns, or did they have to travel to bigger urban centres)? etc.

Further, I also have some questions regarding the interview methodology: How did you choose whether to interview the former refugees in English or Finnish? Were there any challenges with this process (i.e. how good is the participants' knowledge of these languages?) Are you a native speaker or English and Finnish? Were there any issues translating the data, and how did you seek to mitigate them? etc.

Do you have demographic data about the 17 participants? 

It wasn't clear - do your results relate only to the Drawing Together participants in Finland, or in all three countries?

Results: You mention birds were the most common animal. Did you ask participants why they chose to depict birds? I wonder if (a) there is abundant birdlife in Finland and/or the birdlife is very different in Finland to their home countries (b) birds are significant to the artists culturally or religiously (c) birds represent something in the artworks e.g. freedom. It would be interesting to tease out this idea, if you have the data.

Do you use the participants' real names? I don't recall seeing mention of pseudonyms. It would be worth detailing in the Methods whether you have used pseudonyms or real names (if the latter, note that you have consent to do so).

When you talk of a participant's artwork, are you able to also include information about which country they have come from? If you are unable to provide more detail for confidentiality reasons, that is fine; but if you can add some more detail then I think this information would help us better appreciate the nature they depict in their art and the meanings they derive from it. e.g. Samir missing mountains would have more poignancy if we knew why.

In the Discussion could you make some broader observations e.g. Did you notice commonalities between participants from the same country/region? By gender or age? etc.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments! Below are my responses and edits, in blue.

Standardise your terminology in the opening few paragraphs: You use "country of origin" and "home country" interchangeably, as well as "destination country" "host country" and "receiving country". This gets a bit confusing. Terms standardised to ‘home country’ and ‘receiving country’ (24, 31, 34).

You provided excellent an literature review, particularly in regards to the nature/wellbeing nexus. If you have a bit more space, you could consider incorporating some secondary literature on refugee/refugee youth wellbeing and belonging in general. Thank you! There is not much space left for additional references, so I will leave it as is.

My main queries relate to the Drawing Together project. In the Methods section, or the description of the project, I think you should try and address these kinds of questions: How many former refugee youth participated in the project in each country? How were they selected/invited to participate? Why were those three countries involved? Who coordinated the project? Who funded it? What outcomes were you hoping to achieve, and were these outcomes met? [Addressed in endnote I, with additional project information available through the link provided].  How long was each artmaking session, and how many sessions did each participant attend? Where were the sessions held (i.e. in participants' towns, or did they have to travel to bigger urban centres)? etc. [Details added in endnote ii].

Further, I also have some questions regarding the interview methodology: How did you choose whether to interview the former refugees in English or Finnish? Were there any challenges with this process (i.e. how good is the participants' knowledge of these languages?).  Are you a native speaker or English and Finnish? Were there any issues translating the data, and how did you seek to mitigate them? etc. I’ve added details for these (248-254).

Do you have demographic data about the 17 participants? I added a table with these details (233).

It wasn't clear - do your results relate only to the Drawing Together participants in Finland, or in all three countries? Yes, only Finland. I added some clarification of this (227-231).

Results: You mention birds were the most common animal. Did you ask participants why they chose to depict birds? I wonder if (a) there is abundant birdlife in Finland and/or the birdlife is very different in Finland to their home countries (b) birds are significant to the artists culturally or religiously (c) birds represent something in the artworks e.g. freedom. It would be interesting to tease out this idea, if you have the data. Yes, this was very interesting point that emerged in the artworks, though I didn’t go more deeply into it here, as the interview data about it was not so deep. In some interviews, participants described the birds (as well as trees) in symbolic or religious terms, but I didn’t focus on those because my focus was on actual nature contact (see endnote v).

Do you use the participants' real names? I don't recall seeing mention of pseudonyms. It would be worth detailing in the Methods whether you have used pseudonyms or real names (if the latter, note that you have consent to do so). The names are all anonymized. I added an endnote to clarify this (292).

When you talk of a participant's artwork, are you able to also include information about which country they have come from? If you are unable to provide more detail for confidentiality reasons, that is fine; but if you can add some more detail then I think this information would help us better appreciate the nature they depict in their art and the meanings they derive from it. e.g. Samir missing mountains would have more poignancy if we knew why. Thank you. As the participant group was quite small I've avoided attaching specific information in order to secure their privacy.

In the Discussion could you make some broader observations e.g. Did you notice commonalities between participants from the same country/region? By gender or age? etc. Thank you. In order to keep within space limits I focused on the discussion points already present in the text. There were some hints at commonalities but they were not so clear, given the small participant group size.