Qualitative analysis reveals that volunteers challenge self-sufficiency norms in refugee resettlement, suggesting implications for support structures.
The US refugee resettlement system revolves around the idea of self-sufficiency. Resettlement volunteers have an important role in enforcing refugee compliance with self-sufficiency mandates. Yet self-sufficiency narratives may also conflict with volunteers’ desire to provide welcome and care. Drawing on interviews and participant-observation with volunteers in South Carolina (USA), this paper describes instances of volunteers “going rogue”—that is, purposefully defying self-sufficiency directives by going above and beyond the bare minimum of care mandated by law and agency policy. Ultimately, going rogue does not eliminate the power asymmetries of resettlement; but it does reveal how non-state actors may render asymmetries unstable.
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Nagel et al. (2026) studied this question.
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