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Crisis Migration and Identity Disruption: An Integrative Perspective

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The present article advances a perspective on crisis migration and its effects on crisis migrants’ identities within their destination cultural contexts. It integrates insights from the literature on crisis migration and acculturation, framing it as a process of cultural identity expansion and transformation. The article reviews the challenges associated with crisis migration and how these challenges can interfere with cultural identity expansion and transformation. Key challenges enumerated here include traumatic events occurring before migration, family separation, sudden and unplanned departures from the country of origin, downward economic mobility in the destination country or region, and culturally stressful experiences. It advances predictions regarding how each of these challenges may interfere with the identity expansion and transformation that underlies acculturation, post-migration adjustment, and mental health. The article concludes with a proposed research agenda for evaluating and advancing the perspective presented.

Source: Review of General Psychology

DOI: 10.1177/10892680251352819