Intergenerational Trauma among Post-Soviet Afghan War Migrants

Abstract

Trauma can influence an individual's own life while subsequently extending to the second generation (Assari, 2020). For nearly 4 decades, Afghanistan has been under an endless state of war or unrest. Considering the compound nature of trauma that Afghans have undergone will offer significant background evidences and perspective for exploring what has been transmitted and how the transmission happens in Afghan migrant’s families. Although, existing literature explained the intergenerational outcome of trauma in diverse populations. This is one of the first study of its nature to explore the intergenerational transmission of trauma amongst the successive generation of post-Soviet Afghan immigrants settled in Pakistan. This is an explanatory study utilizing Interpretative Phenomenological Approach to analyze their lived experiences. A sample of 6 participants (n = 6), were recruited from different cities of Pakistan through purposive sampling. Successively, semi-structured face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with the study participants. Overall, quantitative results suggested the intergenerational transmission of trauma among the descendants of Afghan migrants. From the phenomenological analysis, the major themes developed were: Narration of war/migration stories, visualization of parent’s experience, collective pain and suffering, adopting behavioral patterns of parents, feeling of mistrust, living with fear, identity crisis, resentment over parent’s experience, continued cycle of pain, sense of shared loss, gratitude and optimism. Results of the study have implications for International Psychology in the areas of migration and trauma research, mental health and psychosocial support intervention