Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to use Bourdieu’s Theory of Capital–Field–Habitus to explore how refugees, asylum seekers and migrants accumulate and mobilise social, cultural, symbolic and economic capital to find meaningful work in the Australian construction industry.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reports the results of a survey of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who have either successfully or unsuccessfully searched for employment in the Australian construction industry.

Findings

The findings dispel widely held negative stereotypes of about this group by describing a highly capable workforce which could address significant skills shortages in the industry, while concurrently diversifying the workforce. However, it is found that refugees, asylum seekers and migrants face considerable barriers to finding meaningful employment in the construction industry. In circumventing these barriers, education institutions, charities and community-based organisations play an especially important role, alongside friends and family networks. They do this by helping refugees, asylum seekers and migrants accumulate and deploy the necessary capital to secure meaningful work in the construction industry. Disappointingly, it is also found that the construction industry does little to help facilitate capital accumulation and deployment for this group, despite the urgent need to address diversity and critical skills shortages.

Originality/value

Employing Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Capital–Field–Habitus, the findings make a number of new theoretical and practical contributions to the limited body of international research relating to the employment of refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers in the construction. The results are important because meaningful employment is widely accepted to be the single most factor in the successful integration of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants into a host society and the construction industry represents an important source of potential employment for them.

中文翻译：

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难民、寻求庇护者和移民在澳大利亚建筑行业找到有意义的工作的经历：布迪厄分析

目的

本文的目的是运用布迪厄的资本-场域-习惯理论来探讨难民、寻求庇护者和移民如何积累和调动社会、文化、象征和经济资本，以在澳大利亚建筑行业找到有意义的工作。

设计/方法论/途径

该论文报告了对在澳大利亚建筑行业成功或失败寻找工作的难民、寻求庇护者和移民的调查结果。

发现

调查结果描述了一支高素质的劳动力队伍，可以解决该行业严重的技能短缺问题，同时实现劳动力多元化，从而消除了人们普遍对该群体的负面刻板印象。然而，人们发现难民、寻求庇护者和移民在建筑行业寻找有意义的就业面临着相当大的障碍。在规避这些障碍的过程中，教育机构、慈善机构和社区组织以及朋友和家庭网络发挥着特别重要的作用。他们通过帮助难民、寻求庇护者和移民积累和部署必要的资本来确保建筑行业有意义的工作来做到这一点。令人失望的是，我们还发现，尽管迫切需要解决多样性和关键技能短缺问题，但建筑行业对促进这一群体的资本积累和部署几乎没有什么帮助。

原创性/价值

研究结果采用皮埃尔·布迪厄的资本-场域-习惯理论，为有关难民、寻求庇护者和移民工人在建筑中就业的有限国际研究做出了许多新的理论和实践贡献。结果很重要，因为有意义的就业被广泛认为是难民、寻求庇护者和移民成功融入东道国社会的最重要因素，而建筑业是他们潜在就业的重要来源。