The Processes of Adaptation, Assimilation and Integration in the Country of Migration: A Psychosocial Perspective on Place Identity Changes
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Conceptual Delimitations: Individual Identity Changes as a Result of Migration
2.1. Migrant and Identity Change
2.2. Integration Process in the Destination Area
2.3. Adaptation and Assimilation to Integration
3. Materials, Methods, and Results
3.1. Research Method
3.2. Results
3.2.1. Explanatory Dimensions of Identity Change through Identity–Migration Theory
3.2.2. Interview Survey: “Individual Identity Changes Due to Migration”
- Self-esteem
- Mentality
- Migrants’ behavior and attitudes
- -
- The language of origin is gradually replaced by the language of the country of migration, including in family communities. In addition, almost all immigrants opt to educate their children in the language of the country of migration;
- -
- The number of mixed marriages is increasing, speeding up the integration process;
- -
- The birth rate of ethnic foreigners who remain permanently in the country of adoption tends, in the long term, to approach that of the natives;
- -
- The cultural practices of the country of migration (including gastronomy, consumption patterns, culinary tastes, and even social and protocol practices) are also adopted by immigrants. However, there is also a phenomenon known as acculturation. This is the result of direct and continuous contact between individuals and groups belonging to different cultures [42].
- Lifestyle
- Place/space of identity
3.2.3. Analysis Structured on Specific Themes
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
- In a positive sense
- In a negative sense
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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No. | Emigrant | Age | Gender | Status | Country by Migration | Period of Emigration | Education | Occupation | Rural(R)/Urban(U) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | A.S. | 28 years | F | Single | France | 6 years | Higher | Human resources | U |
2 | M.C. | 48 years | F | Divorced | Italy | 8 years | Secondary | Housekeeper | U |
3 | C.I.M. | 27 years | F | Married | Italy | 6 years | Higher | Housekeeper | U |
4 | F.G. | 47 years | F | Married | Greece | 11 years | Higher | Culinary field | U |
5 | B.V. | 52 years | M | Married | Italy | 6 years | Secondary | Constructions | U |
6 | M.I. | 54 years | M | Married | Belgium | 18 years | Secondary | Constructions | U |
7 | C.E. | 52 years | F | Married | Italy | 3 years | Secondary | Caretaker | U |
8 | L.B. | 28 years | F | Married | Italy | 11 years | 8 grades | Housekeeper | R |
9 | V.N. | 33 years | F | Married | Italy | 4 years | Higher | Parrish supervisor | U |
10 | M.R. | 54 years | F | Married | Italy | 13 years | Higher | Shop assistant | U |
11 | C.D. | 36 years | F | Married | Italy | 3 years | Higher | Housekeeper | U |
12 | M.R. | 43 years | F | Married | England | 4 years | Secondary | Housekeeper | U |
13 | R.B. | 44 years | F | Married | Italy | 4 years | Secondary | Caretaker | R |
14 | O.I. | 31 years | F | Married | Italy | 7 years | Secondary | Restaurant employee | U |
15 | G.H. | 29 years | F | Married | Italy | 6 years | Higher | Shop assistant | U |
16 | A.P. | 20 years | F | Single | Germany | 3 years | Secondary | Student | U |
17 | S.C. | 32 years | F | Married | Italy | 4 years | Higher | Housekeeper | U |
18 | R.N. | 39 years | F | Divorced | Italy | 5 years | Vocational school | Nurse | R |
19 | G.B. | 26 years | M | Single | England | 3 years | Secondary | Constructions | R |
20 | M.I. | 49 years | M | Married | Spain | 10 years | Secondary | Excavations | U |
21 | G.T. | 41 years | F | Married | Italy | 6 years | Secondary | Restaurant employee | U |
22 | D.R. | 56 years | F | Married | Germany | 15 years | Secondary | Housekeeper | U |
23 | S.I. | 43 years | F | Married | Italy | 5 years | Vocational school | Caretaker | U |
24 | V.M. | 35 years | M | Married | England | 7 years | Vocational school | Constructions | R |
25 | E.F. | 26 years | F | Married | France | 5 years | Higher | Statistical data operator | R |
26 | C.S. | 30 years | F | Single | Italy | 7 years | Higher | Restaurant employee | U |
27 | A.G. | 43 years | F | Married | Germany | 12 years | Secondary | Jeweller | R |
28 | D.B. | 46 years | F | Married | Spain | 9 years | Vocational school | Nurse | U |
29 | A.C. | 33 years | F | Married | Italy | 9 years | Vocational school | Housewife (married to an Italian citizen) | R |
30 | S.N. | 49 years | M | Married | Italy | 5 years | Vocational school | Nurse | U |
Pre-Established Themes for Cross-Cutting Analysis of Interviews |
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T1. Changes in self-image and self-esteem; |
T2. Changes in mindset, perceptions, and principles; |
T3. Changes in lifestyle; |
T4. Changes in cultural and civilizational elements; |
T5. Changes in identity place/space. |
T1. Changes in image and self-esteem | |
---|---|
Positive changes: -Many of the migrants interviewed had formed a positive self-image and felt an increase in self-esteem due to changes in their personal and professional development. They experienced in the country of migration certain aspects through which they found that they as individuals were appreciated, valued, and motivated in their activities and developed professionally. Negative changes: - Changes as a result of being offended, labeled, marginalized, and exploited through work and inadequate remuneration. - Changes as a result of personal and professional devaluation. - Changes in national representation. | Three people from rural areas (working in the fields, without a job and income), specified that in the country of migration, although it was difficult for them to adapt and integrate, they felt a positive change on an individual level. They learned a language, got to know other places and learned many things, had a job, and were appreciated for what they did. In this way they felt a change in their self-image and self-esteem. Nine of the migrants, as a result of the impact of a different social environment and changing perceptions of life, placed more importance on “themselves”,” which made them regain self-confidence, as well as because they interacted with and felt valued by other people from different cultures, different backgrounds, and different concepts. Five people overcame some relational barriers and gained self-confidence, i.e., changed their self-image and self-esteem:“I learned to see people differently and plus I was not coping with conflicts, and now I manage to be more self-controlled in a relationship with someone else”” (interview with S.C., emigrant from Italy, 32 years old). “You always have to be constructive; you have to raise yourself to the highest level”” (interview with M.I., migrant Spain, 49 years old). Seven of the emigrants felt devalued in human and professional terms: ‘“a ’‘slave,” “a ’‘servant,” “a ’stranger”: “It’s very hard to work there, it’s not easy, and you are a slave for them, because that’s what they consider you. You work very hard to earn a living, but that’s it, life as an emigrant is not easy” (interview with M.R., emigrant from England, 43 years old). “Nobody looks at you except as a slave. So you over there...they say you’re in the EU, you’re just a slave: that’s all and nothing more”” (interview with B.V., emigrant Italy, 52 years old). Six migrants had completed higher education in the country and had social status, and in the country of migration they had accepted jobs for financial reasons that did not offer them the place and value they felt they deserved. “I already felt marginalized when I arrived there. I went to university and I expected to be somebody and I ended up as a dishwasher so I couldn’t lift my head...Even if they accepted me, any word that bothered me I felt a total rejection from them. Maybe it wasn’t quite like that, but that’s how I felt then”” (interview with C.I.M, Italian emigrant, 27 years old). Regarding the national representation of Romanians, most of the emigrants were proud to be Romanian, and six people had moments when they were ashamed to reveal their nationality and even denied in various situations that they were Romanian. These aspects of declining self-image and self-esteem can be linked to the identity crisis. |
T2. Changes in mentality, perceptions, and principles | |
- Migrants learning and learning about different aspects of life; they encounter a new environment where they learn from the rules of their country of migration, their behavior and thinking. - Migrants undergo changes in mentality: Changes were identified in the mentality of migrant women, in the way women relate to the family and society. - Migrants undergo changes in their perceptions and principles of life and about life: Changes were identified in their perceptions of the family, of marriage between two people of different nationalities, and general changes were identified: They formed a different image of the world, of others, of themselves; they formed a different view of life in general; some became more critical, others more optimistic. | “You learn all the time from other people, you learn from their way of relating, you learn from their attitude, you learn from everything they say, you learn from what they do, you learn all the time” (interview with E.F., emigrant from France, 26 years old).“ Coming here I discovered many cultures, many types, ways of thinking different from mine, I learned to know them, to understand them, to accept them. I learned to accept their way of thinking, maybe before I wouldn’t have imagined or maybe I wouldn’t have accepted certain things, certain ways of thinking. Now I see them as natural”” (interview with E.F., migrant from France, 25 years old). Seven women in the sample investigated had changed their mentality about how women relate to family and society. They considered that it was normal to be subjected to insults, abuse, and not being able to make a decision for their own good because they were labeled by the community they belonged to. “I was used to keeping quiet and doing, not saying much about what I thought. Here I felt I was encouraged to be me as I really am”” (interview with G.T., Italian migrant, 41 years old). “The fact that I changed my mentality and saw things completely differently, that it’s not as I thought, because I had the impression that all women suffer as I do. And with the mentality here, with the shame of what the neighbor says, what my mother says, what my mother-in-law says, I kept quiet and said nothing. And I was under the impression that all women go through this. Now we can be blamed for it, because they say that all women go crazy when they go to Italy. It’s not that, it’s that they open up and see that life is not what they thought it was. I was very sure that all women go through what I go through and accept what I accept, instead I don’t”” (interview with R.N., emigrant Italy, 39 years old). “You see this life differently. I thought that this much I can do, this much can be done, whereas there I saw that you can do differently, you can live differently, can afford a lot more things that you can’t afford here”” (interview with V.M., emigrant from England, 35 years old). “I always paid attention to other people’s neuroses, to what other people wanted, to their opinion. Here I understood that it was time to live for myself, until now I lived more for others”” (interview with R.N., emigrant from Italy, 39 years old). |
T3. Lifestyle changes Lifestyles are expressions of individuals’ ambitions to create their own personal, cultural, and social identity in the context determined by the social and societal framework of their society, so lifestyle is defined as a structurally, positionally, and individually determined phenomenon [45]. | |
Positive changes: - The migrants interviewed correlated lifestyle with income levels and lifestyle. By observing the lifestyle of those abroad, emigrants had taken on board many aspects in this respect and aspired to a much higher standard of living. - A large proportion of emigrants have taken on patterns of behavior and education and ways of relating and relating to others, and have formed a different lifestyle based on these patterns. - Four of the migrants realized that the lifestyle they had picked up from abroad was suitable for all family members, and as a result they brought their whole family to settle in the country of migration. Negative changes: - Seven people experienced lifestyle changes, but in a negative way in that their lives were defined by overwork, some of whom were marginalized, labeled, offended, exploited and subjected to ”inhuman” treatment. | “Of course you realize a lot. Once you get there, once you’re working and you’re making good money, so you’re getting paid fairly for your work, of course you change. You automatically change. It’s a different life, you can do what you want with that money, have a different freedom of choice and freedom of living, have a different security”” (interview with L.B., Italian emigrant, 28 years old).“ You can live differently, you can manage your life differently with the money you earn abroad and even without proposing it you change your lifestyle: you eat better, you dress better, you travel, you visit all kinds of places etc”” (interview with V.M., emigrant from England, 35 years old). “Now I put more emphasis on quality and naturalness. The shortages make you accept a mediocre lifestyle, but the possibilities and models you meet here make you think and choose what life you want to have”” (interview with G.H., Italian migrant, 29 years old). “I’ve learned not to look over the neighbor’s fence to see if the grass is greener. Now I want to say that I respect everyone’s place, but my big demand is also that my place be respected”” (interview with M.C., emigrant from Italy, 48 years old). “It was hard for me at first, but once I got used to it I realized that I would be much better off with my family together. Here nothing works properly and you can’t survive. There, I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s another life, another world, you’re not afraid to go to a hospital, when you meet people they smile at you, the way of life is different. Once I got used to everything there, I would never go back to the country again. There I am a relaxed person, I work, but I work with great pleasure and I get paid, I have my own taboos, we visit, we go on trips, we go to the opera, shows, I have made new friends, I have a different life. I could even say that I’m a different person and I wouldn’t want to go back to the way I was when I didn’t enjoy anything in life”” (interview with D.B., emigrant Spain, 46 years old). “I had a job where I felt like a slave. I was put on chores from morning till evening; I was not allowed to leave the house and yard except once a week, 3 h shopping. I was taking care of a sick 93 year old lady, and the house and yard. I didn’t talk to anyone except the old lady’s children from time to time when they told me what I had to do. When I went out of the house, I was like a savage. I felt like I was getting lost”” (interview with D.R., emigrant Germany, 56 years old). “Romanians are characterized by “”’slavery’, a lifestyle—slaves to work”” (interview with C.I.M., emigrant Italy, 27 years old). |
T4. Changes in cultural and civilizational elements | |
- Regarding the culture and civilization of the countries of migration, most migrants mentioned that they had a particular impact on their individuality, taking on certain specific elements. - Twelve migrants specified that they had picked things up from other cultures, from being in contact with people of other nationalities, which had a major impact on their individuality. - In terms of the language of the country of migration, 22 migrants specified that they had mastered it to a large extent, five to a small extent, and three specified that they had assimilated it and learned it so well that it was part of their identity. - As for the culture and traditions of the country of origin, nine immigrants had given up some of them, considering that many of them “are not necessary”.” - Six of the emigrants tried to keep them, and to remember them by getting involved in various activities to preserve traditions and customs through churches and Romanian associations, whereas the others were indifferent to the culture and traditions of the country of origin. | When immigrants take over aspects of the culture of the host country, we can speak of cultural assimilation, which occurs when a group loses its characteristic cultural features and adopts the essential features of the dominant group; it involves changes in behavior, and sometimes in beliefs, values, and attitudes, including towards other minority groups. “Contact with all these cultures that are present in France made me look at things differently”” (interview with E.F., emigrant from France, 26 years old). “I learned a lot from them, from their culture and tradition. I learnt many culinary recipes that they make all the time; I learnt about their dance, their costumes”” (interview with F.G., emigrant Greece, 47 years old). “At the beginning it was very difficult for me with the language; I only knew a few words. Now I don’t seem to be able to speak Romanian sometimes. I have friends back home who tell me: what, have you forgotten your language? It’s easier for me to speak Italian”” (interview with C.I.M., Italian emigrant, 27 years old). “I’ve come to think, I practice and now I speak Romanian with you, but I think in Italian”” (interview with M.C., emigrant Italy, 48 years old). “I got used to the culture of the place, I don’t miss the culture and tradition of Romania at all” (interview with G.T., emigrant Italy, 41 years old). “It is important to keep our culture and tradition, even if we are far from home. Here we have Romanian churches where specific Romanian activities take place, we have meals on holidays with traditional dishes and recipes, have folk dances and dances with Romanians dressed in folk costumes. Basically, this is how we try to preserve our culture and traditions and in this way we show our children our tradition”” (interview with S.N., emigrant from Italy, 45 years old). |
T5. Changes in identity place/space The social space and the social reality in which the migrant finds him/herself reflects his/her identity and the shaping of a new identity. Identity has multiple meanings, because in today’s world we operate in a plurality of different worlds or realities space. [46]. | |
- When asked the question”, “Where do you feel ‘at home’”?” the majority answered that “home” is abroad. Some of them felt at home in the country of migration, due to the fact that they had settled there alone or with their family, forming an identity space. However, others said that they felt “at home” there because they no longer had a space of their own at home. However, for the most part, although they had a family and perhaps even a house, they felt at home in their country of origin, whereas in the country of migration they ‘felt “at ’home.” - The subjective appropriation of the surrounding world starts with the place that we identify with [47]. There were migrants who, having gone abroad for a certain period of time, on returning home realized that they did not find their place and that they had undergone certain changes with regard to their feelings of belonging and identity. - For some people, “home” was in the country of origin to which they wanted to return; they had become attached to the country of migration and consider it a second home. - Four of the interviewees specified that “home” is in the country and they very much want to return. The mere fact that they felt like strangers in the country of migration made them feel uneasy. In this way, they appreciated and loved their native places much more. | “Yes, I went back to Italy. On the train I heard the conductor speaking in Italian and I said: ‘thank you God’ I’m going back home, I’m going back home, remember, La Roma!” (interview with M.C., Italian emigrant, 48 years old). “I come here very rarely because my sister is still here. I come as if on holiday. Otherwise, I have nothing to do with this place. My life is there with my husband and my child”” (interview with A.G., emigrant Germany, 43 years old). “We are used to it there, it’s nice, sometimes I like it, sometimes I don’t, I’m the kind of person who adapts easily, I’d be very sorry to leave when it’s time to come home for good. I got used to Italy, for me it’s like a second home”” (interview with R.B., Italian emigrant, 44 years old). “Now I don’t know, because I don’t know where my home is anymore. When I’m here, I want there, when I’m there, I want here. I want there and here with them. Here is the big problem, here equals there, there equals here. It’s a terrible thing, I mean I don’t know where home is, that’s where home is because that’s where my daily life has been for years, my daily habits, with my taboos, with the few friends I have. Here is home because it is still my mother, it is my father, it is my daughters, my grandchildren, my neighbors, it is our flowers, the church bell on the hill, the church drum, it is Easter, Christmas, it is all ours. Where’s home, I wonder, there or here?” (interview with M.C., emigrant from Italy, 48 years old). “It’s nice here, you have everything you need, you get paid for the work you do, but my thoughts are still in my country. That’s my home, it’s like a second home, a transit home” (interview with V.M., emigrant from England, 35 years old). “I feel like a stranger in this country. I’m far away from my native places, my dear people back home, my family. Here I have no landmarks except work. I want to go back home.” (Interview with M.R., emigrant from England, 43 years old). “Here I will stay just for a while to save up some money and finish the house I started back home. I didn’t come to stay here. Here you are a foreigner, an emigrant, for me home is in my country, in my village, with my family”” (interview with M.I., migrant Spain, 49 years old). |
The sense of belonging seems to be a crucial stage in the processes of identity formation and reconstruction for migrants. Their desire for roots and stability and belonging challenges traditional constructions of social codes and national boundaries [48]. |
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Cormoș, V.C. The Processes of Adaptation, Assimilation and Integration in the Country of Migration: A Psychosocial Perspective on Place Identity Changes. Sustainability 2022, 14, 10296. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610296
Cormoș VC. The Processes of Adaptation, Assimilation and Integration in the Country of Migration: A Psychosocial Perspective on Place Identity Changes. Sustainability. 2022; 14(16):10296. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610296
Chicago/Turabian StyleCormoș, Viorica Cristina. 2022. "The Processes of Adaptation, Assimilation and Integration in the Country of Migration: A Psychosocial Perspective on Place Identity Changes" Sustainability 14, no. 16: 10296. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610296