Role of temporality in adolescent refugees’ sense of a good life
Researchers: Mari Kira
Collaborators: Andrea Belgrade, University of California; Noor Salem, Columbia University; Fiona Lee, University of Michigan
Project Summary:
Adolescent refugees are exposed to the traumas of forced displacement while they are undergoing developmental transitions from childhood to adulthood. This makes them a particularly vulnerable group. We conducted a Photovoice study with 14 Middle Eastern adolescent refugees resettled in the United States to inquire into how they conceptualize, experience, and strive for a good life. Our findings highlight how adolescents employ temporality – i.e., connections between past, present, and future – to satisfy their psychological needs and experience a good life. We identify four temporal strategies in fostering a sense of a good life; past-present contrasts, resourcing from the past, envisioning the future, and growing from processing past adversities. With this, we highlight how not only community factors existing in the present, but also refugees’ interpretation of them through wider timeframes, matter for refugees’ sense of a good life.
Resettled adult refugees’ careers and wellbeing
Researchers: Mari Kira
Collaborators: Andrea Belgrade, University of California; Noor Saleem, Columbia University; Marie Pattipati, University of Michigan; Fiona Lee, University of Michigan; Katja Wehrle, University of Giessen; Ute-Christine Klehe, University of Giessen
Project Summary:
Our research focuses on refugee populations in Germany and the USA; on people who have been forced to leave their homes due to war and/or persecution. Traditionally, research on refugee populations has adopted a deficit perspective and covered topics such as trauma and integration problems. However, a life cannot fully be understood by looking only at its sorrows. Taking a strengths perspective, our work extends refugee studies by offering novel insights into refugee wellbeing, work integration, and psychological growth.
Identity threats, threat emotions, and identity work among workers suffering from Long-COVID
Researchers: Mari Kira
Collaborators: Katja Wehrle, University of Giessen; Ute-Christine Klehe, University of Giessen
Project Summary:
This study focuses on the experiences of workers suffering from the Long-COVID syndrome. We specifically explore identity threats in the context of Long-COVID, and we seek to understand how people cope – How do they recraft their work identities, while developing a new, unexpected identity as a person with a disability? Our study addresses several questions. First, what kinds of work and health identity threats do Long-COVID sufferers experience, and what kinds of emotions emerge in relation to these identity threats? How do people employ identity work to cope with these threats and the related emotions? To illuminate workers’ temporal experiences of Long-COVID and trace the disability, work-related, and personal identity development, we ask: How do these experiences shape people’s identity development and identity growth?
Discrimination, identity threats, and coping among Asian American individuals
Researchers: Mari Kira, Ashley Ke
Collaborators: Fiona Lee and Allura Casanova, University of Michigan
Project Summary:
We address identity threats and identity growth among East Asian-American individuals, especially during the time of the present pandemic. Building on Dr. Kira’s earlier conceptual and empirical work on identity threats and identity growth, we have collected qualitative interview and survey data seeking to explore the identity threats and novel negative stereotypes encountered by East Asian-American individuals. We also map their coping strategies when dealing with these negative experiences and their narratives of resulting identity growth.
Positive vocational identities among resettled refugees
Researchers: Evita Schaefer, Mari Kira
Project Summary:
The main focus of our study is the (re)construction of positive vocational identities among resettled refugees. Being displaced oftentimes means that refugees lose former professions they identified with and are forced to reconstruct a new professional identity. Furthermore, it is an even greater challenge to construct a positive vocational identity, as seeking refuge comes with structural and interpersonal barriers, identity threats to the former vocational identity, and a struggle with a positive sense of self. However, a positive vocational identity is crucial to flourishing at work since it has been linked to work engagement, favorable self-views, and reduced ingroup/outgroup effects and therefore to psychological functioning, positive emotions, and social functioning.