Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 23, 2025

Behavioral Tasks for Examining Identity Recognition In Mice
Published on: February 7, 2025
"Let us define ourselves": forced migrants' use of multiple identities as a tactic for social navigation
Dieu Hack-Polay1,2, Ali B Mahmoud3,4, Maria Kordowicz5
1Crandall University, Moncton, Canada. dieu.hack-polay@crandallu.ca.
Background:
The article examines how and why multiple identities are altered, used and discarded by forced migrants.
Methods:
The research is located in the constructivist paradigm. We used thematic analysis to analyse data gathered through interviews with nineteen forced migrants.
Results:
We found that, though individual migrants can make deliberate choices about which identities to be associated with, they are constrained in the process by external socio-economic factors that lead them to adopt identities that are perceived to be advantageous to navigate the new social system. Moreover, the construction of forced migrants' identity includes significant contextuality, transactionality and situatedness.
Conclusions:
Our research contributes to the literature on migrant identity practice concerning the stigma associated with forced migrant status and the extent to which migrants appraise their reception in exile as undignified. Additionally, examining migrant identities allows the researchers to apprehend the diverse facets of identity as far as migrants are concerned. Future research may draw a larger sample to examine other impactful dimensions of identity fluctuation, e.g. gender, education, social media, the extent of prior trauma, etc.
More Related Videos
11:13The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
08:01Virtual Hand with Ambiguous Movement between the Self and Other Origin: Sense of Ownership and 'Other-Produced' Agency
Published on: October 28, 2020
Related Concept Videos
Social Identity
Role-Based Identity
Ethnic Identity within a Larger Culture
Social Foundations of Self IV: Self in Digital Communication
Marcia's Theory of Identity Status
Migration