Survival Loops: Refugee Coping Strategies in Protracted Crises

Refugees living in contexts of protracted displacement face overlapping andrecurring crises that extend beyond the initial experience of forced migration. This articleexamines how refugees in Malaysia navigate such crises while living under conditions oflegal precarity, economic marginalization, and social exclusion. Drawing on longitudinalqualitative interviews with refugee community leaders conducted across four rounds between2020 and 2022, the study identifies 32 distinct coping mechanisms employed in response toexternal shocks and everyday structural constraints. These mechanisms are grouped into fivecategories inspired by Lazarus and Folkman’s stress-coping framework: problem-focused,emotion-focused, meaning-focused, social-support-based, and maladaptive coping. Theanalysis shows that while many coping strategies provide temporary relief and demonstrateconsiderable agency within refugee communities, structural barriers significantly limit theirlong-term effectiveness. Legal exclusion, restricted access to formal employment, and socialmarginalization shape the range of coping strategies available and often prevent adaptiveresponses from translating into sustained improvements in wellbeing. To capture thisdynamic, the article introduces the concept of a “survival loop,” a cycle in which crisestrigger coping responses that alleviate immediate pressures but ultimately reproducevulnerability over time. By situating coping strategies within the broader structural conditionsof protracted displacement, the study contributes to crisis and refugee studies by highlightingthe limits of resilience-focused approaches and emphasizing the importance of structuralinterventions in shaping long-term wellbeing.