Nowhere is as at home: adjustment strategies of recent immigrant women from the former Yugoslav Republics in southeast Queensland

This paper analyses adjustment strategies of women from the former Yugoslav Republics who have settled in Australia since 1991. The majority of these recent immigrants have been humanitarian settlers and refugees, and this ha s had specific implications for their adjustment strategies. In-depth inter views were conducted during 1996-97 with 52 former Yugoslavian-born women w ho resided in southeast Queensland. The women's assessments of their decisi on to immigrate resulted in three adjustment strategies: (1) loss orientati on, (2) ambivalence and (3) future orientation. Described separately, this typology delineates only ideal types, but is predictive of the kinds of set tlement and coping issues that are faced by individual immigrants. The adju stment strategies are primarily affected by the women's status as independe nt immigrants or refugees and humanitarian settlers, social capital and soc ial constraints in the host country.