Safe shelter?

x Sponsored content on Research Live and in Impact magazine is editorially independent.
Find out more about advertising and sponsorship.

In October 2016, the semi-permanent refugee camp in Calais known as ‘The Jungle’ was closed by the French authorities and cleared of an estimated 8,136 inhabitants.

The lucky ones were relocated to temporary centres outside of Calais, while others – scared and alone – fled the embers of the camp to seek refuge elsewhere. The camera crews and reporters left along with them, and the story soon departed from our TV screens, as if the problem had simply disappeared. Since then, grassroots charity The Worldwide Tribe has been working to educate people that an issue of this size cannot be extinguished simply by the closure of a camp. 

The charity is finding that it can generate significant impact by using qualitative research techniques, focusing on individual stories and capturing in-the-moment ethnographic footage, as opposed to anonymous news reels. Through its work, The Worldwide Tribe has been able to offer support and donations to what is a growing number of refugees across Europe, who – out of sight of the media – remain victims of a humanitarian crisis on a global scale.  

In 2017, market research agency RDSi collaborated with The Worldwide Tribe to help it understand how the crisis is viewed from the UK, to gain further support to the cause through grants and increased public awareness. Its work has culminated in a large piece of pro bono research, designed to show where the refugee crisis ranks within the UK public’s charitable spectrum – and whether empathy or apathy is most commonly felt for those people displaced by war, persecution and natural disaster. 

The research, conducted in partnership with SSI (now Research Now SSI), identified that – for most UK adults – prioritisation of charitable causes could be likened to a field of vision; they typically find it much easier to focus on the issues immediately in their sightline, rather than those further away. 

Using implicit response testing (IRT), we found that UK adults were more inclined to say that ‘close proximity’ issues – such as cancer, the elderly and animal welfare – were higher priority charitable causes than the refugee crisis. They were also significantly quicker to reach that conclusion, meaning their responses were more automatic and rooted more deeply in their subconscious. Only half of respondents felt that the refugee crisis was a high priority, and they took longer to bring that answer into focus. 

Using the research, we were able to consider and quantify some of the factors that may be contributing to that longer consideration time. 

The data shows us that for some it is a lack of understanding of the issue that is causing hesitation, with three-quarters of participants claiming to have little or no knowledge of the refugee crisis. This lack of understanding can lead to inaccuracies in the way the UK views the refugee crisis, and this can lead to misconceptions. 

When presented with a series of individual stories, one-third of participants were unable to accurately identify a refugee as a person displaced by war, commonly confusing them with asylum seekers, economic migrants and illegal immigrants. The research delves deeper into this aspect and illustrates that these misconceptions can often create dangerous negative feelings. 

The survey showed that 56% of UK adults believe there is a direct relationship between the arrival of refugees and an increase in terrorism, and more than half associate the acceptance of refugees with a feeling of being less safe. This can lead to dissociation with the cause ( 45% believe refugees are not their problem) and in some cases opposition ( 40% think the UK has its own problems and has no obligation to refugees). 

In time, work by charities such as The Worldwide Tribe should help to educate the UK population on the plight of refugees and give people the correct knowledge and understanding to make an informed decision about whether they see the cause as a worthy one. We’ll be helping The Worldwide Tribe in this process by using the data to advise on where misconceptions lie, and which areas of society present the greatest opportunity for education, as ethnicity, age, affluence and region all play a role in creating diverse opinions. 

If these misconceptions can be addressed, there is hope that more people will see the worthiness of the cause, and deliberation about whether they are a high priority could be reduced.

The Worldwide Tribe and RDSi is launching ‘100 Days of Displaced Data’ – 100 daily tweets from the research to illustrate the permanence of the refugee crisis, regardless of fluctuations in media coverage. Follow @worldwide_tribe and @RDSi on Twitter.

Dave Power is senior research director at RDSi

This article was first published in Issue 22 of Impact.