Psychosocial aspects of young migrants life: Diasporic identity processes among South Asian young adults in Scandinavia

This paper explores some social-psychological aspects for South
Asian Young Adults in Denmark such as identity processes through
social relations across the geographical borders and psychological
diaspora consciousness and is a follow up of the project conducted in
the mid-nineties, in Denmark (N= 14). The diasporic conceptualisations
focussing on human centeredness and processes in migration combined
with life course perspective provide theoretical framework for this
study.
The method used is in-depth interviews, analysed through
condensation and meaningful categorisation of the narratives. The young
adults are perceived as active actors in relation to their life situation.
The results show the young adults as well as parental generations.
reinterpretation of the self, other and home. They also depict that the
young adults’ diasporic identities involve the countries of origin as well
as the Scandinavian welfare societies. However, the myth of return is not
supported, although the countries of residence have turned increasingly
restrictive in migration policies in the past years.
When we look at the present South Asian diaspora, the Scandinavian
countries like Denmark and Sweden are rarely named among the host
countires. In a similar vein the current migrations and Intercultural
psychological research in these Nordic countries hardly pays any
attention to this diaspora group. However, there are about 60,000 South
Asians (from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) in these countries, who
have primarily arrived as migrant labourers in the late sixties and early
seventies or a smaller number as refugees in the seventies and eighties
such as Gujaratis from the East Africa, Tamils from Sri Lanka and Sikhs
from India.
Diaspora involves several psychological and mental health issues;
the present paper is limited to the diasporic identity processes including
identity transformations in the life course based on a recently completed
research project in Denmark (Singla, 2008).