Graduate Studies, UNL
Embargoed Master's Theses
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ORCID IDs
First Advisor
Satveer Kaur-Gill
Second Advisor
Jordan Soliz
Committee Members
Angela Palmer-Wackerly
Date of this Version
7-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Citation
A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate College at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Major: Communication Studies
Under the supervision of Professors Satveer Kaur-Gill and Jordan Soliz
Lincoln, Nebraska, July 2026
Abstract
Trauma occurs when individuals experience life-threatening events, leading to lasting psychological, emotional, and social consequences (Dibo, 2022). Chronic trauma, resulting from repeated exposure to traumatic events, has deleterious health implications, particularly for refugee communities. The Yazidi community, displaced by the 2014 genocide and resettled in the United States, continues to face trauma exacerbated by acculturative stress, discrimination, and limited structural support in the host country (Clauss-Ehlers, 2019). Despite the profound effects of political, cultural, and structural violence on refugee health, dominant psychological and health frameworks often inadequately capture culturally grounded narratives of chronic trauma. Existing literature on the direct and indirect health impacts of forced migration among Yazidi genocide survivors remains limited.
Guided by the culture-centered approach (CCA; Dutta, 2008), this study seeks to understand, interpret, and conceptualize the meanings of trauma and health shared by Yazidi refugees resettled in the United States (U.S.) after the 2014 genocide in Iraq. The aim of this study is to provide culturally grounded insights that center Yazidi voices on their health before designing and disseminating a culturally centered, trauma-informed intervention with local NGOs for the Yazidi community living in the Midwest in the next phases of the research study (not reported in this thesis). The CCA’s emphasis on dialogic methods that center voice to uncover erased health narratives at the “margins of the margins” (Dutta et al., 2024) is instrumental in the sensemaking of chronic trauma by Yazidi survivors, centering the voices of genocide survivors. Thus, in the formative phase of this study, 20 in-depth interviews with Yazidi male genocide survivors on their meanings of trauma, analyzed using modified grounded theory with CCA’s structure, culture, and agency fulcrum as the sensitizing framework, will be discussed, centering their conceptualizations of trauma and health. Through the application of CCA, this research study highlights how Yazidi survivors understand, interpret, and conceptualize their trauma in the diaspora as structural violence, and how their lived experiences reveal structural and cultural barriers to achieving health equity as salient for strengthening healthcare systems and non-governmental organizations serving marginalized communities such as the Yazidi community living in the Midwest.
Advisors: Satveer Kaur-Gill and Jordan Soliz
Comments
Copyright 2026, Haroon Al Hayder. Used by permission