Psychological advances in refugee perspectives on migration and integration

Emanuele Politi, Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, KU Leuven

Abstract: Migration trajectories of people asking for international protection (broadly defined here as refugees) are marked by broken relationships, loss of social support, and cumulated social exclusions. Yet, current social psychological theories and empirical investigations lag behind in addressing this urgent societal issue. Starting from the basic tenants of a social ecological model of health, I will present recent empirical evidence on the role of proximal social environments as spaces enabling resilience of refugees. Concurrently, I will introduce social psychological literature on intergroup helping, and take examples from the current Ukrainian crisis to illustrate the importance of community involvement in volunteering and solidarity-based actions. Finally, I will familiarize students with transformative research practices that guarantee high relevance and broad impact of research outputs in terms of policy recommendations.

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