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The Role of Syrian Refugees in The Sharing Economy and Technology Sector in Germany: A Neoliberal Approach to Integration and Empowerment
Abstract
From January through December of 2015, Germany accepted nearly one million refugees.
Though arriving with diverse skillsets and past experiences, approximately half of
these refugees share one thing in common: they are Syrian. As the influx of Syrians
in Germany represented a larger trend of what was happening throughout Europe during
this time, it seemed fitting to study their case for this thesis. This study sets
out to explore innovations that give refugees agency to contribute to their own advancement
and integration. Over the course of three months, twelve refugees were interviewed
and fifteen were surveyed to produce the results for this work. The work presented
here suggests that the existing dependency-creating aid structure must be changed
to give agency to refugees. Such changes improve integration of refugees and enable
them to contribute in a meaningful way to their host communities. The three chapters
in this work will narrow in on this topic. Chapter One will go on to provide further
background and context about Syrian refugees, German policies and practices as they
relate to integration, and the field of social entrepreneurship. Chapter Two and Three
argue respectively that the sharing economy and the technology sector can be used
to help Syrian refugees integrate into their communities in Germany. Comprehensively,
this research contributes to a growing field of work around how refugees can serve
as economic boon instead of burden.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
International Comparative StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11864Citation
Smith, Emma (2016). The Role of Syrian Refugees in The Sharing Economy and Technology Sector in Germany:
A Neoliberal Approach to Integration and Empowerment. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11864.Collections
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