Migrants: Adaptation and identity
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The book is addressed to psychologists, sociologists and to all persons that are interested in migration problems
Vsevolod Konstantinov
Konstantinov Vsevolod Valentinovich- head of the department of the general psychology of the Penza State University (Penza, Russia).
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Migrants - Vsevolod Konstantinov
Table Of Contents
Migrants: Adaptation and identity
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Migrants: Adaptation and identity
Introduction
Nowadays practically all countries of the world are captured by the migratory processes and problems arising in consequence of an intensification of migratory streams. In modern Russia the problem complex connected with adaptation and integration of migrants to new living conditions increased in the menacing proportions for the last decades. The migratory situation in any country can become complicated because of the armed and ethno political conflicts. Russia is not an exception in this context. So, thousands of refugees arriving the last half-year from the southeast of Ukraine showed again severeness of the problem of the compelled migrant adaptation in the accepting community. The flow of Ukraine refugees has a spontaneous character. As a result the real opportunities of the accepting regions aren't taken into account, social tension grows, conditions for distribution of ideas of national and ethnic intolerance are spread, and all this has a background with stressful condition of people that left the homeland against the will.
The migratory processes proceeding in Russia territory create a threat of socio-political stability. Along with economic and political affairs for Russian society national problems are also unresolved. Therefore it is important to pay attention to the representatives of various ethnoses which have already taken roots in Russia and formed the national and cultural autonomies because during economically and geopolitical unstable periods they are also vulnerable for emergence of radical views and the interethnic conflicts in many regions.
Quite often the neighborhood fact with migrants is perceived by representatives of indigenous local population as threat and, in turn, determines growth of nationalist sentiments. The situation of interethnic communication, on the one hand, gives to the individual more opportunities for acquisition of knowledge of features of the people and other ethnic groups, promotes development of interethnic understanding and formation of communicative skills. On the other hand, in the conditions of radical social and economic transformations the processes which are characterized by surge in awareness of the ethnic identity by citizens amplify. Identity — is basic psychological construct, is concentrated expressing essence of the person. In transitional or crisis life situations, and also in the conditions of the increased intensity in society the person becomes more difficult to rely only on himself. And he in search of a support and protection seeks for expansion of the social and psychological borders, going beyond the I
and consciously declaring the indissoluble communication with any leads to formation of group hyper identity for which structure the expressed imbalance in favor of a positive image of the group is characteristic. It assumes the movement from natural preference of own group on a number of parameters to absolute conviction in its superiority over foreign
groups. The individual possessing hyper identity perceives the world as menacing and it is ready to defense.
Thus we see that migration and close interethnic interaction as its consequence often determine emergence of numerous problems, as at the migrants taken out of a habitual social context and at indigenous people. It is possible to distinguish the psychological discomfort arising because of moving to a new living place and an absence of conditions for productive integration of migrants into the new social and cultural environment.
Chapter 1. ADAPTATION OFTHE MIGRANTS TO THE NEW LIVING CONDITIONS IN THE MIDDLE VOLGA REGIONS
The spontaneous nature of migration to the Russian Federation in the last twenty years has defined the formation of the multimillion numbers of the migrants that have appeared on the territory of our country and often demonstrate psychological unwillingness to solve the problems of adjustment to the new place, to the new conditions of life adequately. As the practice shows, during the 1990s the authorities of the Russian Federation were not able develop a successful scheme that would help the migrants to adjust with a new the system of social relations. As many people are involved in the process of the forced migration, the necessity of forming such a mechanism as an effective system of adaptation of people is evident. And this fact is noted by many authors in their works.
The study of N.Lebedeva «Social psychology of ethnic migrations» can be marked out among the works of the Russian authors, published in the 1990s, that are dedicated to the problems of the forced migrants. The author in her work conducted social and psychological analysis of the empirical study of migratory groups adaptation. Besides she considered social and psychological aspects of migrants’ ethnocultural adaptation and criteria of successful adaptation. Through this analysis the author pointed out the conclusions that successful adaptation for the forced migrants is «adaptation akin to integration» and unsuccessful adaptation is «adaptation akin to psychological defense or isolation»[1]. Foreign researches of the problems related to the migration of the population started at the end of the 19th century and were actively realized during the whole 20th century. The vast empirical researches permited to discover the fact that the majority of migrants experince the nostalgic feelings during different periods of their lives. Karl Jaspers in his work «Nostalgia and Crime» tried to clarify the phenomenon of nostalgia from an existential point of view, and he interprets nostalgia as a characteristic reaction similar to the psychosis of reclusion[2]. The 20th century is marked by the great interest to the problem of migrants’ adaptation. To start with, the ethnologists and anthropologists researched the processes and peculiarities of adaptation to study the collective behavior. In these works H.Blumer described such events as «… crowds, gatherings, panic spirits… spontaneous mass movements, social movements»[3], and acculturations which were characterized by R.Redfield, R.Linton and M.Herskovits as «a result of direct lasting interaction of groups to different cultures, which results in changes of culture patterns of one or two groups»[4]. At first, acculturation was considered as a phenomenon of a group level, later a concept «psychological acculturation» appeared. If acculturation meant the process of changes in the group culture, then psychological acculturation meant the process of changes in one’s psychology, but in both cases, we can observe changes of attitudes, value systems, role behaviour of people belonging to a group in the acculturation process. The latter half of the twentieth century can be characterized as the period of rapidly growing interest to the problem of migrants’ cross-cultural adaptation, it was the period of one of the peaks of migration processes, and that was due to the large-scale migratory processes after the Second World War which was reflected in the works of Stonequist[5], Foa, Chemers[6], Lazarus[7], Bendek[8]. These authors in their works examine the adjustment of the migrants to a new cultural environment. Greater attention is paid to the different pathological symptoms, such as: deviant and delinquent behavior, psychosomatic disorders. The general and main direction is that a subjective feeling of harmony with the nearest environment makes the adjustment of the migrants successful. Along with the study of the problem of migrants’ adjustment to the new environment foreign scientists also studied the problem of the so-called «cultural shock». This term was introduced in science strengthened in there by the efforts of K.Oberg[9]. He From his point of view, the adjustment to the new sociocultural environment is connected for the migrants with a large psychological discomfort: with the loss of a social status, with significant changes in the system of social attitudes, with the loss of