remaking family life: strategies for re-establishing continuity among congolese refugees during the...

Social Science & Medicine 59 (2004) 1095–1108

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Remaking family life: strategies for re-establishingcontinuity among Congolese refugees during the family

reunification process

C!ecile Rousseaua,*, Marie-Claire Rufagarib, D!eogratias Bagilishyaa,Toby Meashama

aDepartment of Psychiatry, Montreal Children’s Hospital, 4018 St. Catherine Street West, Westmount, Que., Canada H3Z 1P2b Table de concertation des organismes au service, des personnes r!efugi!ees et immigrantes (TCRI), 5181, rue Beaubien est,

Montr!eal, Que., Canada H2S 1S5

Abstract

The restrictive immigration and refugee policies of many Western countries force most refugee families to remain

separated for long periods. Although there is much discussion among professionals in the community and the clinical

milieu about the problems families encounter after reunification, the strategies employed by refugees to restore family

life have not been paid much attention.

This longitudinal study documents the pre- and post-reunification experiences of 12 refugee families from the

Democratic Republic of Congo in Montreal. Our results suggest that family separation can be understood as an

ambiguous loss, in that the temporary absence of other family members cannot be fully acknowledged because of the

perpetual uncertainty and permanent risk to them. Memory work, in the form of shared family memories, attenuates

the pain of the absence. Once reunited, family members must re-establish continuity in spite of the many denied rifts

between them. The capacity to recall a personal, familial or collective history of previous separation and loss appears to

be protective, as if the memory of life’s discontinuities provides an opportunity to recreate a partial sense of continuity

out of repeating experiences of chaos.

r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Refugees; Separation; Reunification; Families; Democratic Republic of Congo

Unlike many immigrants, who can dream about and

plan their departure, refugees often flee their homelands

in a hurry, leaving some or all of their loved ones

behind, hoping to bring them to the new land as soon as

possible. Once in the host country (which is often

idealized by both refugees and government agencies),

refugees’ separation problem is rarely rapidly

resolved. Instead, in most Western countries (including

Canada), people claiming refugee status face legal

hurdles and are subjected to forms ‘‘clean violence’’, a

ing author. Tel.: +1-514-412-4449; fax: +1-

esses: [email protected]

[email protected] (M.-C. Rufagari).

e front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserve

cscimed.2003.12.011

form of violence associated with technocratic organiza-

tions (De Certeau, 1986) that is more subtle but as

damaging as other forms of organizational violence.

Refugee and immigration policies must respect the

various international conventions that the host country

has signed (for example the Geneva Convention, the

Convention Against Torture) and also respond to

domestic economic imperatives and the pressures of

public opinion.

These policies translate into administrative delays that

considerably prolong family separations. A Canadian

study of Central American and African refugees shows

that the mean time of separation among spouses is over

3 years—and greater for parents and children (Moreau,

Rousseau, & Mekki-Berrada, 1999).

d.

ARTICLE IN PRESSC. Rousseau et al. / Social Science & Medicine 59 (2004) 1095–11081096

Refugees often see family reunification as an event

that will put a happy end to a long series of losses, and

although refugees may eventually mention problems

ensuing from reunification, it is initially presented as a

big celebration. While the family reunion is a turning

point that can lend meaning to the many losses refugees

have experienced in their long journey, it also disrupts

the fragile balance that has been established during the

waiting period. The family reunion thus represents both

renewal of highly significant family bonds and at the

same time another loss—a ‘‘joyful’’ loss that is difficult

to cope with because it often cannot be mentioned.

The objective of this paper is to describe the

reunification process in refugee families from the

Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Za.ıre) in

Montreal and in particular to examine the strategies

that enable them to re-establish continuity despite their

many long separations.

Barudy (1989) distinguishes three main stages in the

family separation and reunification process: before the

separation, during the separation and the reunion itself.

Each of these stages defines a new balance or imbalance

in the family and determines, in part, what will become

of the family. As in the case of other migrants,

separations and cultural uprooting change family

relationships, roles and strategies (Williams, 1990), but

for refugee families, these reorganizations take on

distinctive characteristics.

For refugees, the question of what an extended

separation means to the various members of the family

and what their different expectations are, is one they ask

themselves frequently. Family members who have fled

abroad may be in a very difficult situation; they may feel

guilty, powerless and depressed about a separation over

which they have little or no control (Fox, Cowell, &

Johnson, 1995; Rousseau, 1990; Tseng, Cheng, Chen,

Hwang, & Hsu, 1993). Those who remain behind may

feel abandoned, or even betrayed or deceived (Moreau

et al., 1999). The long absence of one or more members

first leads to a reconfiguration of roles within the family.

Sometimes one of the parents must play the role of both

mother and father; sometimes the older children must

assume adult responsibilities or symbolically take the

place of one of the parents (Barudy, 1989). This

reorganization may also involve the use of surrogates,

including members of the extended family, outsiders and

sometimes even divine figures. The temporary nature of

this first reconfiguration of roles may make the family all

the more vulnerable (Williams, 1990). Once the family

has been reunited, it has another crisis to face in trying

to unite members who may have had very different

experiences. The longer the family has been apart, the

harder it is for them to regain their balance (Barudy,

1989). Replacement roles and the use of surrogates are

questioned. Roles must be redefined, taking into account

the past (family history and ideas of the home culture)

and the present (the reality in the host country, the

culture gap between family members). For those who

have experienced trauma, this process may be particu-

larly difficult if they need to hold on to well-defined roles

in order to rebuild their identity (Vinar & Vinar, 1989).

Little work has been done on the strategies of reunited

refugee families. Some host country institutions, such as

community organizations providing resettlement assis-

tance, may be able to help families when they are very

isolated by becoming a partial substitute for the natural

support network that has been lost (Moreau et al.,

1999).

Community and clinical work with refugee families

suggests that there are several kinds of losses associated.

First, for intrafamily relationships, a reunion means the

loss of the relationship because the original relationship

was restructured during the absence of the missing

person and also the loss of that person as he or she was

remembered. The memories of the person and the

relationship are reconstructed during the wait, some-

times through idealization, guilt, doubts about fidelity,

fears of abandonment, the need to be supported and

sustained by the long-distance relationship or, conver-

sely, the need to become independent, to make the

solitude bearable.

The reunion is also a time when people realize that

they are different. Changes in the body, mind and

worldview that have occurred gradually over the years

become suddenly and brutally evident through the eyes

of others who have not experienced the changes in the

same way. This may result in a loss of self-image.

Socially, expectations of the reunification may have

blurred some aspects of the reality of life in the host

country. This reality may have temporarily been

considered to be secondary and partially denied in the

face of the family urgency for reunification and the

intensity of the suffering experienced during the separa-

tion. Inasmuch as the reunion assumes a return to

normal—or at least a capacity to think about the future

again—the reunion may lead to a resurgence of losses

and disappointments pertaining to the host country,

associated with a growing or suddenly acute awareness

of the limitations of the new reality.

In this context, bonds are re-forged after reunification

by both creating and re-creating alliances and by coming

to terms with the many losses that this implies. Bonds

are rewoven in continuity and discontinuity with

representations of the self, the couple’s relationship,

the family and the social world. The timing of the

transformation of the bonds echoes the weight of the

months and years of separation and the evolution

of the personal and family plans of the various family

members. Family and social roles change along with the

positions of each family member in the personal and

family plans; these plans may coincide in varying degrees

or completely diverge once everyone is reunited. The

ARTICLE IN PRESSC. Rousseau et al. / Social Science & Medicine 59 (2004) 1095–1108 1097

ongoing negotiation of strategies for re-establishing

continuity in the reunion period, between the host

country and the homeland, and for coming to terms with

the many losses are at the heart of the family’s capacity

to re-establish equilibrium and cohesion around an idea

that they share, if only partially.

Method

The initial plan was to gather data by interviewing

Congolese families before reunification, a month after

reunification and 6 months after that, but the delays in

reunification experienced by the refugee families meant

that we had to alter our initial strategy. At each stage,

the interviews had a quantitative component, for which

several assessment instruments were used, and a

qualitative component based on semistructured inter-

views on key topics. To be included, families had to meet

the following criteria:

* Be in the process of reuniting.* Be expecting the imminent arrival of at least one

family member aged 12 or older, so that the point of

view of the first to arrive and the new arrivals could

be incorporated.* Include as the first arrival to Canada an individual

who had applied for asylum within the last 3 years.

Families were recruited in the Montreal area using a

nonprobabilistic sampling method. Prospective subjects

were drawn from the clients served by community

organizations that were members of the Table de

concertation pour les r!efugi!es et immigrants (TCRI),

an umbrella advocacy group for refugees and immi-

grants, and the Service d’aide aux r!efugi!es et aux

immigrants (SARIMM), a group that assists refugees

and immigrants. Further subjects were enrolled using

the snowball method.

Twenty-two of the Congolese families contacted

agreed to take part in one or more stages of the study

in the hope that their stories might help speed up the

reunification of other families from their country and

others seeking refugee status in Canada.

Fear that their involvement in the study might

interfere with recognition of their refugee status and a

desire not to dwell on their pre-migration suffering were

the main reasons that families gave for refusing to

participate. Some people who had initially agreed to take

part later withdrew when they were rejected by the

Immigration and Refugee Board. Their withdrawal

reflected their anger and disappointment with the attitude

of ‘‘Canadians’’. The complex process of recruiting for

and conducting our fieldwork has been described in detail

in a paper analysing the role of research in a situation

where social bonds have disintegrated (Mekki-Berrada,

Rousseau, & Bertot, in press).

The slowness of the immigration family reunification

procedure turned out to be the main problem in this

fieldwork project, which took over 2 years. Despite the

fact that all of those recruited were expecting other

family members to arrive very soon, the expectations of

10 families were not met during the course of the study,

despite our extending the time in the field as much as

possible. In order to speak to enough reunited families,

we therefore decided to interview some who had been

recently reunited, although we had not met them before.

This paper reports on all of the interviews with the 12

reunited families. Five were seen three times—once

before reunification and twice after—and the other

seven were met once or twice after their reunion.

We decided to interview all family members aged 12

and over in order to explore the terms of reference for

their interpretation of reality, past and present, and their

construction of family strategies. Terms of reference are

not explicit and conscious, but rather ‘‘an implicit

structure underlying words and deeds’’ (Corin et al.,

1992), composed of affective, cognitive and experiential

aspects that assign meaning. It is essential to highlight

the terms of reference of several family members so as to

understand family dynamics and problems of indivi-

duals and communities. A nonverbal approach was used

with children under the age of 12; these results are

reported elsewhere (Measham, 2002).

Although we initially intended to speak to both

spouses and all children 12 and over, it was not possible

in all families, chiefly because of the parents’ desire to

shield their children from any reference to their difficult

past (although they knew that the subject would not be

brought up unless the child wished to discuss it) and/or

because of family tensions arising from their reunification.

Our analysis of the changes in strategies over time and

the contrast between the various members of the family

therefore looks at only a subset of the families in the

sample. Because of potentially important information to

be gained regarding family dynamics, we felt it was

worthwhile to consider all of the reunited families in the

analysis even if we were unable to interview them all

more than once or to interview all family members.

To prepare the guide to the semistructured interview,

we used the method developed by Ellen Corin and the

Regroupement des ressources alternatives en sant!e

mentale du Qu!ebec, an umbrella group for alternative

mental health resources in Quebec (Corin et al., 1992).

The instrument was constructed by operationalizing the

research objectives and questions through a number of

topics. Once the topics were identified, they were

associated with a few keywords that characterized the

sought for content, as well as with standard questions,

framed in the form of statements meant to prompt

respondents to talk about these topics. The interview

guide was consisted of three columns: the topics, the

corresponding keywords and the standard questions. An


interviewer could tick off topics discussed while the

interview was taking place and being recorded. Each

part of the semistructured interview (at the different

stages of the study) was organized from an historical

perspective, moving from past to present, but inter-

viewers were instructed to follow the spontaneous logic

of the interviewee’s response, if it was organized in

another way. A checklist was used to ensure that all

topics had been covered.

The qualitative analysis was performed in four steps:

(1) transcription of interviews; (2) marking up of text to

indicate categories of information sought using NU-

DIST software, so that passages in each category could

be extracted separately; (3) retranscription of informa-

tion in each category, indicating characteristics of

respondent (age, sex, position in family, settled or new

arrival) and characteristics of family; (4) qualitative

analysis of content in order to determine response

profiles for each specific category of information.

The overall strategy for processing the individual

material for each category of information (i.e., family

history, meanings, roles, strategies, etc.) was to (1)

identify key recurring themes, (2) note whether what was

said was implicit or explicit (direct discussion of a topic

or indirect allusion, tacit understanding and/or avoid-

ance) and (3) document the shifts between past and

present, references to the homeland and host country.

The specific analysis of the concept of continuity dealt

with (1) means of establishing continuity (reinforcement

and metamorphosis of anchors, and continuity per se—

transformation of environment, continuity in disconti-

nuity) and (2) areas in which establishment of continuity

was particularly evident (tradition and spirituality,

family roles, social roles).

The material collected from all members of the same

family was analysed in two ways: (1) cross-sectionally

over time (T1;T2 and T3), noting areas of convergence

and divergence among family members, the relationship

between these convergences and divergences, and the

subjective perception of the emotional condition of each

of the members; and (2) longitudinally, noting changes

in convergences and divergences from T1 to T3 and their

influence on family relationships.

Background on Congolese refugees

In 1990, under growing pressure from the interna-

tional community, members of the political opposition

and the local population, President Mobutu was forced

to allow multiparty elections after 23 years of a single-

party system. This attempt at democracy led to extensive

organized violence. Mobutu reformed the Civil Guard

and the President’s Special Division (DSP), !elite forces

intended for the ‘‘maintenance of order’’, which

repressed popular movements. The opposition media

were silenced, and opponents and their families were

persecuted. Thousands of opponents were assassinated,

tortured, raped and/or ‘‘disappeared’’, as were thou-

sands of other civilians.

Starting in 1994, the genocide in the Great Lakes

region exacerbated existing ethnic and political tensions.

Laurent D!esir!e Kabila then exploited the situation to

gradually topple Mobutu and set up the Democratic

Republic of Congo, which at first gave rise to great

hope. The change ran out of steam, however, and the

violence continued. According to Lomomba and Ot-

shudi (2000), many factors explain the stagnation of the

situation: the ambiguous, to say the least, role of the

international community, the redistribution of neocolo-

nialist subcontracting roles on the regional chessboard,

and national despotism all combined with confusion

among political opponents and civil society. This is the

backdrop against which the refugees in our study were

forced to leave their homes and families to escape the

death they would have encountered because of their

ethnic, social or political affiliations.

Immigrants from the DRC who settled in Quebec are

mainly from Kasai, Bandundu, Bas-Congo and Kivu;

ethnically, most of them are Luba, Kongo, Mbala,

Hunde and Nande. In 1993, there were still relatively

few Congolese refugees in Quebec. According to official

figures, the 757 refugees from the DRC admitted to

Quebec between 1984 and 1993 represented 1.3% of the

total refugee population in the province. Fifteen to 40

individuals were admitted each year between 1984 and

1990, and 115–255 individuals annually between 1991

and 1993. From 1994 on, however, the influx of

Congolese refugees to Quebec increased. The figures

available from federal agencies indicate that Canada

admitted 712 refugees from the DRC in 1997. At that

time, approximately 60% of those who applied for

refugee status were accepted. The families who were

turned down were nevertheless allowed to stay in

Canada thanks to a moratorium on expulsions to

Congo because of the ongoing war. Furthermore, the

families of refugees who had arrived earlier began to

arrive. Nearly, 80% of the refugees from the Democratic

Republic of Congo to Canada have settled in and

around Montreal.

The 22 heads of families interviewed for this study

were between 35 and 49 years old, and overall were very

well educated (14 of them had been to university). Only

six were employed. They had been in Canada for a mean

of 2.1 years and had all obtained refugee status; some

were permanent residents or Canadian citizens.

Results

The Congolese families we interviewed always men-

tioned the suffering due to uprooting, and especially


separation. Some spoke of their extremely traumatic

pre-migration experience, many more preferred to make

oblique references to it, and others completely avoided

the subject, although in a brief, more structured

questionnaire used in the semistructured interviews they

admitted to having experienced major trauma. As in

earlier studies of refugees from the Great Lakes region

(Moreau et al., 1999; Rousseau, Bertot, Mekki-Berrada,

Measham, & Drapeau, 2001) the number of traumas

associated with organized violence reported by the

families was very high. In the nuclear family alone,

35% of families experienced torture, 40% imprison-

ment, 15% execution, 10% disappearance and 70%

various forms of harassment. The figures for extended

family were also very high.

The post-migration experience of long waits—first to

obtain refugee status, then the interminable delays

before the family arrives—are a form of paradox: many

people expect to feel relieved, but although they

acknowledge the value of the personal safety they enjoy

in the host country, they almost always feel bitter and

disappointed, if not angry.

For the Congolese, the family is the most highly

invested form of social organization. It evokes filiation,

common places and property, but also a feeling of

belonging that translates into affection, faithfulness,

cohesion and common defences against outside forces.

The powerlessness that the subjects feel when separated

from their families makes them question their identity,

the meaning of life, even their very desire to live. In some

stories, despair dominates, and suicide, a last resort (it

being a direct transgression of Congolese cultural

values), is mentioned implicitly or explicitly.

yand sometimes, I really must say, there have been

times when, without thinking of suicide, I’ve said to

myself, yes, but, why go through all this? Why not

simply go back to my own country, where I run the

risk of being killed right away, but at least, it would

be in peace. Because the suffering during the

procedure here is totally comparable to the suffering

of torture, and so then, the right to asylum loses all

meaning. Because, of course, I am protected by the

right to asylum in Canada, but the moral torture is

sometimes so bad that I might as well be back home,

in a cellar being tortured—it would be practically the

same. And the people who commit suicide, I wonder

if the same sort of idea hasn’t gone through their

minds: here or back there, it’s all the samey (37-

year-old man)

The other theme that runs through almost all of the

interviews is that of loneliness, especially of course in the

host country and before the arrival of the family, but

even when among family. It is everywhere, with

repercussions beyond the loss or absence of the family,

whether real or symbolic, or of the village. Given the

isolation and destruction of social bonds, God’s

presence, which may both help to contain suffering

and especially to enable people to accept their power-

lessness in so many areas, appears to be of crucial

importance. Turning to prayer and a direct relationship

with God is more frequent among subjects who have

experienced major trauma associated with organized

violence and those who are experiencing serious family

conflicts. It is possible that in both cases, re-establishing

family and social links is more difficult, and the

relationship with God may represent the best place for

re-establishing a bond when confidence in other human

beings has been shaken. In the Congolese community,

the notion of Providence plays an important role. It

represents God’s blessing and usually helps people

overcome adversity. If adversity persists, people say

that there may be a curse, that God has turned away or

gone away. Any revolt or protest is therefore futile and

death may be seen as deliverance.

In most of the stories, despite sadness and anger, the

experience of separation and reunification also allows

people to make plans that keep them going. Although

the families and individuals interviewed use widely

diverse methods of establishing continuity, depending

on the sphere (tradition and culture, family roles, social

roles), or the time, in a given family, one method tends

to dominate throughout the three stages of reunification.

We have divided the families into three groups: (1) those

who combine a return to their roots with the transfor-

mation process; (2) those who cling to their own

permanence and attribute change to the environment;

and (3) those who imagine their future in terms of

foreseeable disruption and loss. This approach provides

a way of determining successful family strategies and the

obstacles to family reconstruction, but does have the

disadvantage of simplifying reality, given that people

actually use combinations of different strategies.

Transformation of anchors

The first group of families and individuals plan and

begin their transformation before reunification by

reaffirming the links between the various anchors

(tradition, bonds and prior experiences) and the

metamorphosis. The respondents preparing for reunifi-

cation often anticipated making major changes in their

personal lives. For example, one 37-year-old man

awaiting the arrival of his children confided to the

interviewer:

They will have to be brought up the way it is done

here and at the same time we will have to keep in

mind that there are things we mustn’t give up on

immediately, our own rich heritagey It will be a


shock. We’ll have to make compromises. We’ll have

to take things slowly.

Family members may also begin the transformation

by situating it in continuity with the past. The same

man’s 14-year-old daughter spoke about how her

mother had announced the reunification to her: ‘‘We

won’t recognize your father at first, and then we will

recognize him, and we won’t be the same as we were

before.’’ This transformation rooted in the past begins

even before the reunion and takes place in several areas.

Role of tradition

To many, remaining rooted in tradition and in

spirituality is a major part of the plan underlying

reunification. Respondents often raised the need for this

anchoring, especially in relation to children, to whom

the parents wish to pass on their cultural values. As one

37-year-old man said: ‘‘We want to provide the children

with stability, a mooring somewhere, and pass on our

own culture to them, so they will know that they come

from somewhere. That’s essential to me and my wife.’’

The reminder of their roots also enables individuals to

cope with the many identity issues raised by migration.

Although rootedness primarily represents stability,

respondents often talk about their personal experience

in terms of longing and transformation with regard to

tradition.

I had what I often consider to be almost the

misfortune to have grown up almost entirely at

boarding schools, because I constantly thirst for our

traditions, for my grandparentsy I missed out on

something essential. (37-year-old man)

The evident need for sturdy roots in a situation of

discontinuity and loss recalls how fragile those roots

really can be, as a result of the transformations and

losses due to colonization and the attendant educational

system and urbanization. At the same time, this longing

is what enables some to cope better with exile: ‘‘At

boarding schoolyyou’re all used to being away and

that may be a very good thing, because personally, it

made me open to othersy It all prepared me very well

for isolation.’’

The hybridization of Congolese society is suggested

by the many references to tradition and religion. The

coexistence of superimposed heterogeneous systems

highlights the shortcomings of each. Thus, to many

respondents, an affirmation of religion is an indication

both of the desire to maintain this attachment and of its

limitations: ‘‘We are continuing on the same path (the

church)y I grew up among Catholics and I have never

wanted to change, because I figure, nothing is perfect.’’

(44-year-old man)

The Congolese are very religious, very religious. I

wanted to get married according to our customy I

told my wife we would have a fairly Western home.

(49-year-old man)

For this group of families, a rereading of the personal

and family experience leading up to reunification

includes both a reaffirmation of a link with their origins

and spirituality and an acknowledgement of the disrup-

tions, losses and limitations that accompany the expres-

sion and transmission of tradition.

After reunification, when refugees begin thinking

about handing down their culture to their children

(which is already on the minds of some parents before

reunification), the issue of tradition becomes a pressing,

complex problem. As in all immigrant families, children

must be brought up with contributions from the culture

of origin as well as from the host society, where the host

society culture may threaten to displace or entirely

replace their ancestral heritage.

Children must be supervised, be shown their origins.

They need to know how to keep what could be

considered the positive aspects of our civilization,

while at the same time trying to take from this culture

what enables people to develop better, take respon-

sibility for themselves, but without slavishly copying

everything you see in this society. (49-year-old man)

The still recent experience of separation, however,

colours the prospect of the assimilation of children into

the host society, by simultaneously reactivating the fear

of loss and the ability to find strategies to counter it. To

some refugees, the transmission of ancestral knowledge

and expectations may give meaning to the experience of

exile and open the door to transmission to future

generations:

In our family, all those called Shunda are the source.

They are cuttings, a piece of manioc that is planted in

the earth and in each generation it must be reborn

again. When I have explained to them where they

come from and why they have that name, they will

tell their children, too. (37-year-old man)

Roles of parents and spouses in the new family

Before reunification, the anticipated transformation

of family members is mentioned by this group of

families as an inevitable phenomenon with both positive

and negative aspects. Many heads of families emphasize

their firm ties to the past, which they see as a guarantee

of continuity in family relationships:

We had been married 15 years, and the relationship

that we had, the fact that we left doesn’t change that

much, in that the trust we had during those 15 years


means that we can’t complain too much. (44-year-old

man)

The disruption of the daily routine brought about by

living together again is mentioned. Some bring up the

possibility that family roles may change, usually based

on their experience in their own marriage in contrast to

the traditional model of the man as breadwinner and the

woman as homemaker, which the respondents describe

as common in Congo. The family transformation begins

in the mind, as the subject first remembers the family as

it used to be and then envisions it as it will be in the new

environment.

The way I was brought up, I always said that when

we could both be employed, then the housework, we

should do it, so that one person alone didn’t have the

sole responsibilityy Here, we’ll have to run the

household so that each of us does our part, as a job

to do at homey We’ll talk about it. We aren’t used

to it, and one person shouldn’t feel like a slave when

the others live differently. (44-year-old man)

After reunification, some losses, such as thwarted

career ambitions, but especially the rending of the social

fabric and the loss of a nearby extended family, seem to

bring the nuclear family together around a distinct

family plan and to tighten their bonds.

‘‘We know each other better’’, said one 43-year-old

mother, who liked the greater closeness to her children

that life in an apartment gave her, but could not stand

the confinement during times of conflict, because ‘‘you

can’t send them outdoors’’.

While many people, especially the children, lament the

absence of extended family, some parents find that this

loss simplifies their lives in a way, by cutting back some

of their obligations and reducing conflicts and contra-

dictory messages from the father’s and mother’s sides of

the family: ‘‘My philosophy has always been to avoid

outside interference [from the two families], even when

there are problems. I’ve always said that others confuse

the issue, they don’t help.’’ (54-year-old man)

The family’s transformation as it maintains or

strengthens bonds can be seen especially in emotional

relationships and in roles. Although separation is

virtually always equated with suffering, and the solidity

of prior attachments is usually an asset, separation

entails a lasting change in emotional relationships. Some

say that the separation was positive for them as a

couple, because it showed the strength of their existing

bonds, which is sometimes not noticeable in everyday

circumstances, and because the trial itself revealed

hitherto unknown strengths.

A new love is developing between us. (43-year-old

woman)

We are much closer, fonder of one another. (43-

year-old man).

The positive aspects of separation are also under-

scored by a number of children, who say that they are

closer to their parents. In the words of one 13-year-old

girl, ‘‘Mama pays more attention.’’

A 22-year-old man explained, ‘‘We discovered a side

to Papa that we hadn’t known when Mama was there:

he listens, he pays attention, he watches us. Because we

used to thinkythat he didn’t.’’ This young man spoke

of how the change persisted after the reunification. ‘‘We

still talk to Papa as much. Mama didn’t take over

again.’’

Because of the influence of Quebec society and the

loss of everyday bearings, the family’s metamorphosis is

most often described in terms of roles. The roles

of man and woman, mother and father, move away

from the traditional model. Men become more involved

in household affairs, partly because of the lack of

outside support (most families interviewed were origin-

ally well-off, and used to having domestic help), partly

because of the lack of other outside activities (work,

study) that prompts them to appreciate their home

somewhat more.

Our relationship is much more complementary than

it was before. (35-year-old woman)

He helps me with the work, he does the dishes, he

makes meals. (49-year-old woman)

Once again, many couples say that they had already

made something of a break from traditional gender roles

in Congo, and the changes in the new land were a

continuation in the same direction.

The effect of separation is felt when one of the spouses

must totally take the place of the other for an extended

period of time. Some families report a partial reversal of

the roles of father and mother:

I had become strict, alone with the childreny After

the separation, he let them get away with anythingy

I became a bit more like the father and he like the

mother. He is very calm, too calm for a father. (43-

year-old woman)

A 37-year-old man explained, ‘‘I am more inclined

to try to understand them, to forgive them, to

engage in a dialogue.’’ He told his wife, ‘‘You saw

them growing up, you maintain the same line of

conduct, but I am rediscovering them and they are

different.’’

Changes in the roles of parents and children, and of

children and adults, whether associated with the

migration or separation or both, are complicated by

the very great power that the host society grants to

children in relation to their parents, which accentuates


the loss of a certain amount of parental authority and

status, that had often begun with the separation:

Here the law comes between parents and children.

There’s no law for the family. (49-year-old man)

The children shout, they shout a lot. at home, they

have to be quiet, but here, they answer you and give

all their reasons. That’s their right. sometimes there

are more rights than obligations, you know. (43-year-

old woman)

Although for many the shift in parent–child relations

is smooth, they worry that their authority is being

undermined and that the rules of respect are being called

into question. In Congo, other adults may be involved in

bringing up the children, but other adults do not dare to

in the host country, and parents are left alone to guide

their children. Some wonder how to help their children

cope with the changes they are going through despite the

different cultural norms surrounding them—not denying

the change, but not giving up, either, on what holds the

family together.

The foreign space in which the family metamorphosis

is occurring allows a restructuring that accentuates often

already existing transgressions of traditional standards

governing relations between men and women, and

parents and children. The situation also forces the

family to constantly readjust to the new standards that

threaten its existence by undermining the structures of

authority and respect that govern family relations.

Finding a new place in society: an impossible task?

To most respondents, it is an enormous challenge to

establish continuity based on their social role and in

particular to find work in their field. The job crisis and

high unemployment rate of Quebec society certainly

play a major part in their problems.

Security is the word most commonly used by

respondents to describe Canada. Quebec also offers

the opportunity to live in French, a language spoken

very well by Congolese refugees, most of whom are

highly educated. But the host society is also perceived as

exclusionary—admitting the refugees out of pity or

charity but denying them full participation in society.

Faced with limited opportunities for financial and

professional success, refugees are bitter and disap-

pointed. One of the respondents recalled, however, that

the situation in Congo was perhaps no better:

There are no companies to work for [in the DRC].

There is nothing anymore. If the country is going to

function, people have to work, there can’t be a lot of

unemployment, but there is unemployment. Almost

everywhere the companies have shut down. So there

is no way to develop, no longer any way to live.

Those who stayed behind in Congo are in the fire.

(48-year-old man)

Problems entering the job market increase sharply as

time passes. Before family reunification, the need to find

a job for both economic and personal reasons is almost

always mentioned, but most refugees keep hoping that

things will work out and that they will be able to find a

job in line with their skills.

Some success stories mention flexibility regarding the

type of job a person is willing to take and their

perception of the host society as two of the keys to

success:

Before, no one called me. I thought, it’s because I’m

Black. Now that I have a bit of experience, I can hold

my head up. It’s because I’ve been acceptedy You

have to be patient. Now if you’re in a hurry and are

prejudiced, I think you may be unhappy your entire

life. (44-year-old man)

After reunification, the women’s paths seem rather

different from those of the men. Wishing, like the men,

to be personally and financially independent, some

women (working in sewing) are confident in their

abilities and rebuild profitable commercial exchange

networks fairly easily. Often not as well educated as the

men, the women are more interested in economic

security and getting out of the house than in social

recognition associated with a specific job. Their flex-

ibility leads them along a variety of paths to new means

of economic survival and social appreciation. For

example, one 43-year-old woman, having worked in

several factories, struck out on her own as a seamstress

and has managed to ‘‘find customers far away, in

Vancouver, Alberta, Sudbury’’.

The men first of all lament the lack of recognition of

their qualifications and the racial and ethnic discrimina-

tion they experience as a social and personal dishonour:

‘‘I don’t want to be treated as an inferior copy because

of my colour.’’ (49-year-old man)

Some come up with original ways of finding work,

maintaining a link to their homeland, despite mourning

the loss of recognition of their skills: ‘‘I’d like to be

independent as I was beforey I was an executive, but

can I be an executive here?’’ This 47-year-old man

mentions the necessity of going back to school ‘‘to learn

something that I can use later. For example, I come

from a country where there are diamonds; there are

diamonds in my own village. I could learn to be a

diamond expert herey’’. This idea opens the door to an

idea of going home, but the subject added, ‘‘I would like

to be useful to this country, to the future of this

country.’’

This last point is brought up often. Many men express

their desire to be part of Quebec’s future, which would

mean being recognized by society and beginning to put


down roots in their new home. Recognition is very hard

to achieve, however, and repeated failures are often

experienced as rejection—form of exclusion. Notwith-

standing the official Canadian line on assimilation and

multiculturalism, migrants cannot hope to escape their

marginalized status in the short term. For some,

attempts to participate in Quebec society; to them this

is equivalent to a total failure of their migration plan: ‘‘If

this country doesn’t give me a chance to dream, I don’t

know how I can stay here.’’ (37-year-old man)

It is hope that seems to support continuity of social

roles, hope comprised of personal questioning and

negotiations with the harsh reality of the host country.

Respondents have little power in the host society (which

makes negotiation difficult), and they must gradually

come to terms with the loss of recognition that was

theirs in another time and place, without losing their

self-respect. They must accept that they are ‘‘other’’

without totally giving up on building something,

however small, with the people here.

For this first group of families, who despite problems

seem able to reconstruct themselves as individuals and as

families after reunification, the strength of their anchor-

ing in the three areas examined (tradition, family, social

roles) resides partially in their history of transformation,

as if permanence and metamorphosis were interwoven to

form continuity.

Continuity of self: transformation of others

For another group of families, clinging to what used

to be as though time, place and life itself had little or no

effect on them, is a common way of establishing

continuity. In this group, the perceptions of family

members tended to diverge more and converge less than

in the first.

The transformation that some respondents talk about

relates primarily to the outside world. They do not feel

that they have changed and they do not see why their

family should change, either before or after coming

together again.

Before reunification, this position probably provided

a sense of security. Saying ‘‘it will be the way it used to

be’’ protects against unspoken losses, against the

unknown, against what has already been lost without

being fully realized, and makes it possible to keep the

memory of the absent person and the family relationship

intact.

As one 47-year-old man said, ‘‘I don’t see why it will

change. It’s not going to change just because we came to

Canada.’’ He then added that ‘‘the children are the ones

who will be bringing our culture, and I don’t think they

will really taste that [the host] culture’’.

A 34-year-old woman, not yet reunited with her

husband, with whom she had had some conflicts, said:

‘‘I have always remained the way I am. I have never

changed—he has changed.’’ She said the same of the

children, who had rejoined her some time earlier: ‘‘The

children have changed. They talk back to me as if I were

the maid. It will take time for them to understand

properly [and go back to the way they were].’’

Although sometimes a feeling of permanence may be

comforting, the predicted stability cannot withstand the

test of reunification and more often than not amplifies

rifts between family members, and between the respon-

dents and the host society.

After reunification, it is in the spiritual sphere that the

absence of change seems to have the most positive

aspects. The immutable permanence of faith protects

against life’s surprises and trials and especially against

other people: ‘‘I like staying with my brothers, who pray

with me, who live in the same world as I doyaparty

God will do it, because men always disappoint.’’

(48-year-old man)

Faith also appears to offer protection against change

in an immutably divided world in which adaptation is

perceived as a survival mechanism, a superficial change

that does not affect innermost identity: ‘‘We are

Christian. We act on God’s word. We cannot change.

When we change, we go to the other side of the camp.

We remain the same. On the outside we may look like

everyone elsey’’ (48-year-old man)

Denying personal transformation is a way of attaining

a certain kind of security, a form of stability in social

roles and the family sphere. This denial can be a source

of conflict, however, and it is often mentioned by the

spouse or the children of the person who is clinging to an

illusion of permanence. The gap between the

family members manifests itself in a number of

ways. First, there is a growing feeling of mutual

incomprehension, often accompanied by an inability

to share the other person’s experience of living apart

from each other. Some people talk a lot about the time

in their lives before the reunion and have the feeling they

are not being listened to. Others, on the contrary, avoid

talking about it, feeling that nothing has happened to

the other members of the family, as if time had been

suspended.

The conflicts threaten family cohesion and subse-

quently lead people to seek escape, in work and alcohol,

in particular. The conflict may be displaced into the

public sphere as a systematic denigration of the culture

of either the host country or the homeland. These

avoidance or confrontation strategies serve to externa-

lize or diminish internal tensions and to prevent the

family from breaking up, if possible.

Men’s inability to change the role they play in the

household is a particular problem. A pregnant respon-

dent complained that her husband continued to live as if

he were in Congo; to him, ‘‘nothing had changed’’. He

made his wife do everything, although she was the only

one in the household who had a job. Another woman


told us how her husband’s arrival had forced her back

into a traditional role:

Someone [her husband] arrives from Africa, [and] I

have to set the table. With the children, maybe I

don’t set the right number of places, [but] when he

shows up, I have to set the table properly, you know.

It’s very tiresome. (34-year-old woman)

Husbands who rejoin their wives expecting their

family lives to continue as they were in Congo are

unsettled because their wives have gotten into the habit

of going out and of managing without them.

He felt practically useless here. Back home, he’s the

one who put bread on the table. Here he felt as if he

was an observer, that he wasn’t really part of the

family. [y] ‘‘I feel like I’m losing my place in the

family’’, he told me. (34-year-old woman)

In this couple, the role change was necessary, but

turned out to be too hard to handle. ‘‘I saw someone

who had suffered a great deal. He didn’t know how to

do it [housework], but he wanted to do it [y], and in the

end he didn’t do anything.’’

To men whose wives had left the country alone ahead

of them, or whose children arrived before their wives,

being obliged to take care of the children and play a dual

role sometimes seemed impossible.

One 54-year-old man who had remained in Congo

with the children felt that he had failed in his task and

had not managed to change roles; he had friends and

family take care of the children instead. He still felt a

keen sense of failure, which reflected his loneliness as a

child: ‘‘I’ve been alone since I was 17. I grew up all

alone.’’ He wanted everything to go back to normal: the

family would start over when it got back together, and

everything would be as it used to be. His comments

reveal that he does not quite believe it, however: ‘‘I’m

home again. I’m putting 50 years behind mey It’s like

jumping into a void.’’

A 36-year-old man, whose children rejoined him when

he was alone in Canada, admitted to being under terrible

stress. The role change combined with his many losses

were too much for him: ‘‘I try to make their meals, but

the children don’t eat. I may lose the children, fail

them.’’ In despair, he mentioned suicide as a solution:

‘‘I’ve seen fellow countrymen die that way here.’’

Inflexibility in negotiating social roles is a major cause

of family break-ups. The head of the family may find the

loss of his employment-related status and his role as

family breadwinner harder to bear than the prospect of

the family breaking up. One man went back to Congo

after being unable to find work in Canada. His 22-year-

old wife had predicted the disaster before his arrival: ‘‘If

he doesn’t find work right away, it would be suicide.’’

Another man refused to quit his job and leave Congo.

After waiting for him for a long time, his wife gave up

hope and they divorced. Although these are extreme

cases, many male respondents, whose families have

coped well with the other challenges of profound

change, are disappointed with their new social roles.

Our data do not allow us to determine whether a

protective dichotomy between the immutable self and

the changing outside world is temporary, nor how it

subsequently evolves. Such a dichotomy is, of course,

always partial, and in trying to illustrate all the

situations in which it seems to dominate the picture,

we have had to sacrifice some complexity. Yet it seems

to be found in situations of personal or family paralysis

that indicate major problems in the reconstruction

process.

Continuity in discontinuity

The interviews show that sometimes a history of

disruption and multiple loss may become the main

thread of continuity in a person’s life. To many others, it

is a strategy they employ only occasionally or in a given

sphere. People learn from their losses, and this learning

can take two forms. First, the ability to survive and

come to terms with separations, sometimes even deriving

positive benefits from them, leads to the use of

separation as a means of escaping from a difficult

situation (it may not be desirable, but it is feasible).

Second, many losses may lead to a turning inward, a

focussing on a limited space in which the person still has

a certain kind of power: the power to predict and

anticipate losses.

Separation and reunification: always an option

Although many people can name some positive effects

of the separation and reunification process they have

been through, a smaller number acknowledge that the

separation might have been necessary and could become

necessary again:

I see that in life, from time to time, separation and

starting over are necessary, because sometimes when

you are together, well, you argue. You have some

time, but when you see each other again, it’s like a

new marriage. (43-year-old woman)

One 33-year-old woman told us how the separation

made her mature and helped her develop self-confidence.

She thought that she would not be able to get along

without her husband, but realized when he arrived that

it was not true, so she allowed him to be ‘‘free to leave

again’’. Frequently out of the house, she noticed that the

children adapted well to her absence. When she was

reunited with her sisters, at first she relied heavily on


them, then realized that she could count only on herself,

which pleased her. Relieved when her husband left, she

nevertheless did not have to get over the loss completely,

because ‘‘He might come back.’’

Here, separation and reunion, real or imaginary, have

repercussions both in the organization of everyday life

and in the long-term family structure. The ability to

break up and get back together again with a strength-

ened feeling of independence from loved ones is

empowering. The same 33-year-old woman complained

of her paradoxical dependency on the host country: ‘‘It’s

like being a parasite. This is the first time that I’ve lived

this way, and I don’t like it.’’

Sometimes there have been major family separations

even before one member has had to flee the country:

children are sent off to be raised by relatives, the

husband has gone away to work. The current separation

can therefore be seen either as unique, because it is

involuntary and more traumatic, or as just one more

separation, a long-distance relationship in which occa-

sional get-togethers and further separations are accepted

as given.

What these very different situations have in common

is the perception that separation and reunification are

not events that are ‘‘suffered’’ but partly ‘‘enacted’’.

Beyond their powerlessness in the face of the host

country’s red tape and the constraints of a war situation,

the people themselves may also decide, in reality or in

their dreams, to live together or apart. This amounts to a

partial self-empowerment that sees separation as an

option that is always open.

From one loss to the next, life is predictable

Repeated separations, sometimes associated with

traumatic events, may make a life story coherent, and

meaningful. When all may be lost at any time, the loss

itself and the capacity to survive it become features of

continuity. A history of loss thus becomes a thread

running through some narratives. ‘‘I was very much

marked by the wars,’’ said one 49-year-old man, who

first had to leave the area where he was born. ‘‘We had

to abandon all those things and our houses. We left it all

behind. It wasn’t easy to rebuild our lives afterwards.’’

Yet life goes on, including losses: his father’s accident,

separation from his parents when he left for Kinshasa,

assault by the army, and more. Separation and then

reunification are experienced, fairly calmly, as predict-

able events: that’s the way things are.

Sometimes losses or longings have to do with family

relationships, as in the case of this 22-year-old woman,

who finds continuity in being alone:

It didn’t change much for me, because as I told you,

here in Quebec, socially, you feel lonely, you’re pretty

alone. I don’t find it strange, because I can say that I

have lived practically alone for a long time, because I

lived with my elderly parents and all that. I’m the

only child left at home. That’s not much, but it’s true

that at that time, I withdrew a bit.

She talked about her father, describing him as ‘‘all

alone’’, saying:

He expected me to go to school, he expected that I

would help him and then later I would be someone.

[y] Back home, I thought I would further my

studies, but I didn’t. Here I think the same thing.

Several months later, in the second interview, she said:

‘‘Nothing has changed. I’m still the same. We’re still

waiting to see, to be able to do somethingywhich

means that nothing has changed, it’s practically the

same.’’

Loneliness and waiting are the bond between her and

her father, between Canada and Congo. Loneliness and

waiting are the two stable elements in her life: nothing

has changed, they have to keep on waiting.

Repeated separations are not always dealt with as

continuity, however. Sometimes they go beyond the

bounds of the acceptable or open the door to absurdity.

After 3 years of separation, a woman arrived in Canada

with her children just in time to be with her husband as

he lay dying of a sudden illness. Her disgust with fate

was immense, but the family will find meaning in

carrying out her husband’s plans for his children.

Discussion

To some refugee families that we interviewed, the

interplay between continuity and discontinuity has to do

with the ability to predict the oscillation between what is

‘‘the same’’—permanence embodied by traditional,

religious and family anchors—and the metamorphosis

forced by separation. The family, both as individuals

and as a whole, must shift its balance in anticipation of

the change, but without falling apart or becoming

disorganized. These families talk about imbalance and

loss and longing in their personal or collective past,

which in its ability to contain these many separations

allows them to envisage a future, however fragile. In the

stories we collected, longing is first identified in child-

hood (attending boarding school and early separations

from the family in particular). It especially concerns

events that may echo the separation currently or recently

experienced by the family, but also the loss of cultural

roots and ties with tradition. In this respect, the learning

of longing may have an historical aspect, related to

strategies for surviving colonization (Lomomba &

Otshudi, 2000), although this is never explicitly men-

tioned. Longing is also underscored in the adult life of

respondents, especially with regard to traumatic events


resulting from organized violence, which caused many

disruptions and losses in our subjects’ lives.

Other families need permanence for continuity. It is

first embodied in the subject, who hopes to find it in the

family, whether before or after reunification. This

compulsory permanence forces dichotomization, given

that changes in the individual or family must be avoided

or denied, by shifting them onto another person—the

host community, other family members—another

place—back home or over here—or another time—

before the war, before fleeing the country, before the

reunion. This dichotomy, although it may play a

protective role, seems to aggravate intrapsychic and

interpersonal rifts because of the lack of flexibility it

entails in family roles and in the obligation of

permanence associated with the representations of

different family members.

Finally, some families make loss or longing itself, in

its perpetual ups and downs and its predictability, the

main aspect of continuity in their lives. Our data do not

allow us to determine whether this is a temporary

construction, a form of prediction of loss designed to

attenuate the destructive effects when they occur, or

whether the strategy is employed over many years. This

strategy, like all those we have described, can only be

understood in the very specific situation of reunification.

Our findings recall those on continuity in situations of

cultural change, such as seeking asylum or migrating,

and in contexts in which loss and collective suffering

predominate. These studies have shown that focussing

on the permanence of anchors, with or without their

metamorphosis, is one possible response to the collective

suffering engendered by loss and trauma.

A number of authors suggest that trauma, loss and

repeated uprooting become part of a new identity that is

reshaped to include collective suffering (Kleinman &

Kleinman, 1997; Appadurai, 1996), as we have seen in

the first group of families. Lykes, Brabeck, Ferns, and

Radan (1993) note that the discontinuity engendered by

war and exile among Guatemalan women translates into

a reaffirmation of tradition. This return to tradition is

not, however, a step backward, given that tradition is

reinterpreted and thus transformed by the very context

that makes its affirmation necessary (Foxen, 2002).

Research on refugees also emphasizes the necessary

negotiations between change and permanence in various

areas of life after exile. Several ethnographic studies of

Southeast Asian refugees show that some changes in

male–female roles and concepts help maintain other

cultural areas that are important to community identity

(Krulfeld, 1994). Women seem to be particularly skilful

in this sort of give and take, as they must reduce the

conflict created by their participation in the dominant

society and at the same time embody the upholding of

their own society’s customs. The Congolese refugee

women that we interviewed displayed this same skill.

They seem to be able to navigate between their two

worlds—home and host society—both in terms of family

roles and social integration, more easily than the men.

They were not explicit, however, about where discussion

of past or future loss and longing would fit into their

strategies.

One last line of research, more psychological and

psychiatric, focuses chiefly on how loss and separation

may heighten vulnerability to any future separation,

even the kind that is an inevitable part of the life cycle in

any culture (Kinzie & Sack, 1991). From this point of

view, after loss due to war or persecution, the bonds of

family unity tighten defensively, tending to avoid any

change, as in the second group of families, who

construct a feeling of security on the foundations of

their perception of individual and family permanence.

Refugee families from the DRC who are being

reunited thus learn in a variety of ways what loss and

longing are, as they relate to the family primarily, but

also in terms of their social roles and their capacity to

pull together and fit in to a new place. This loss or

longing is superimposed upon other losses experienced

before leaving their homeland, making separation and

discontinuity key themes throughout their lives and

family relationships, and may paradoxically be incorpo-

rated into strategies for rebuilding continuity.

What probably makes family reunification so complex

is the interaction between the rifts created by migration,

traumatization and prolonged separation. In a situation

in which adaptation to prior experience (trauma) and

present experience is put on hold by a long wait, then

precipitated by reunification, the various levels of

experience are telescoped and must suddenly be grasped

all at once so that the family can create a history and

future for itself. A number of theories on family

dynamics can be useful to understand this process.

Suarez-Orozco, Todorova, and Louie (2002) propose

that attachment theory and object relations theory can

explain family interactions in a situation of family

separation and reunification. They suggest however that

object relations’ theory may have limited applicability to

immigrant families because they privilege a Western

representation of the family. Broader systemic theories

on the other hand are critical to understand the complex

dynamic among all family members and in particular the

systemic impact of grief reactions (Shapiro, 1994).

Steinglass (2001) suggests that the concept of ambig-

uous loss, originally introduced by Boss (1991), could be

useful in thinking about the specificity of refugees’

experiences of prolonged separation and the reunifica-

tion process. According to Steinglass (2001), these

events create a boundary ambiguity within the family,

in which absent members cannot really be considered to

be absent because of the perpetual uncertainty and

permanent risk to them. This situation recalls that of the

families of the ‘‘disappeared’’ in the Southern Cone of


South America, where the ambiguity of loss is accom-

panied by grieving that is both impossible and inter-

minable (Kordon & Edelman, 1988). Afterwards,

reunification does not really erase the absence, which

had never been fully acknowledged, making it difficult

to deal with the gaps that it caused.

Ricoeur (2000) introduced the idea that memory work

must be based on external markers that act as supports

and relays. The formal conditions for registering in

memory are related to a specific place and time. The

separation–reunification process introduces an ambig-

uous gap of time and place and thus mobilizes memory

in a way that allows the absent person to be present. The

ambiguity of loss may thus also feed the illusion of

continuity in the memories shared by family members.

Talking about the loss that giving birth at the end of a

pregnancy supposes, Aulagnier (1991) hypothesizes that

the mother’s investment in the imagined body of her

child, thought of as already unified and separate from

herself, is what enables her to minimize her grief over the

loss of this part of herself. In a family separation, the

imaginary representation of the absent person, as held in

memory, first allows people to face their initial loss:

absence. The gap between this representation and what

the other person has become, along with the transfor-

mation of the relationship, causes a second loss as

difficult to get over as it is to admit. Our findings suggest

that a partial shift of the family memory—nameable

memories essentially situated in a shared time and

place—toward a reminiscence of the gap and absence as

an integral part of this shared memory may facilitate

coming to terms with losses associated with the

transitions of reunification.

Because of the small sample size, these findings cannot

be generalized to all Congolese refugee families. In spite

of these limitations this study is, to our knowledge, the

first one to address family reunification from a long-

itudinal perspective documenting simultaneously the

perceptions of different members of the family. The

results, which provide some insight into the dynamic

involved in the reunification process, can help under-

stand family reunification in other contexts, and

cultures, even if the actual strategies used by the families

might differ as a function of their specific situation.

Without denying the possible vulnerability associated

with loss and trauma, this study invites us to better

document the strengths stemming from past adversities

(Rousseau & Drapeau, 2003).

Conclusion

The complexity of family and personal dynamics

documented by our study poses a challenge to the

development of approaches to prevention and treat-

ment. Although it is clear that changes in administrative

procedures to speed up and facilitate reunions are

essential, many questions remain about the most

effective approaches to community and clinical work.

When and where people talk about their family reunions

are crucial. Refugees may feel overwhelmed in an

institutional setting that reminds them of their power-

lessness in their new land. The best place for counselling

would therefore be either their home or a community

organization providing services to refugees, both of

which may serve as stepping stones between the home

land and the host country. As for timing, the need for

support and the necessity of rethinking the transforma-

tion, daring to talk about it and predicting it, appear to

be greatest prior to the reunion. Afterwards, people still

need help, although intervention at this stage is

perceived by families as being much more invasive.

Pilot programs should be organized to attempt to

answer the questions raised by our findings. Can we

really help with the reunification process and prevent

problems by working with people before the family

reunion takes place? When is the best time? Who should

be doing this work, and what form should it take?

Our findings suggest that clinical work with families in

the process of being reunited could focus on the

ambiguous losses associated with the separation and

reunification process. Clinical and community interven-

tion can help the refugee come to terms with these

ambiguous losses by allowing them to be named in the

present and situated in continuity with their history of

past losses. The link with the past would help people to

regard loss and longing as a source of strength as well as

fragility. Furthermore, rereading the past as a passage

from one always delicate, if sometimes precarious,

balance to another, would resituate the imbalance as

part of a vital development in progress and question the

reassuring, yet dangerous myth that the past represents

stability. In this situation, roles should not be chiefly

conceived of or discussed in terms of before and after,

here and there, but rather as part of family plans that

have been both transformed and sustained by memory.

Although often seen as a container that assures

continuity, memory also represents discontinuity, as

each day it modifies the past and incorporates it into a

new history. Memory, by focussing on separation and

loss, once again becomes a necessary link; from one loss

to another, history persists more through its power to

transform than through its permanence.

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