About the research

Cross-cultural or intercultural transition refers to a set of very concrete phenomena: how we feel, behave, and change when we find ourselves in a new cultural environment.
The mere fact of being “abroad” in a new cultural space implies that we have to decode signs we are not used to, continuously fine-tune our expected scenarios, our representations of the new place as we find our old expectations falsified. The notion of “culture shock” (Oberg 1955) summarizes the often dramatic effect of the experience. As a consequence, we automatically set in motion a series of psychological mechanisms to help us regain comfort, a feeling of security and good thoughts about ourselves. The main objective of the research is to explore what happens in such adjustment processes, what makes it difficult, and why some people have it easier than others.

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Adjustment requires identity strategies

"I’m from Gabon when nobody speaks to me. I’m from Gabon only when no one wants to recognize me, when it’s only French society that is speaking, outside the company where I’m recognized. In reality, however, my work, my studies in Paris, in the Netherlands and the United States, with my postings and mobility, mean that I’m the only one who knows who I really am. In the midst of several cultures. It isn’t easy! It causes a lack of understanding within my family and amongst my friends because, quite simply, I don’t want my value to be reduced to the colour of my skin and country of origin (which was colonised by the French), or even to my social identity, which is that of a person with money and power within the firm where I have been working for more than sixteen years."
Interview with expatriate in Fernandez et al 2006: 57

Identity conflict is a natural companion of humans living in cultural contact zones. Tensions can appear along different fault lines, for example:
§ Between the identities one claims and those assigned or attributed: in this case strategies aim at repositioning oneself, manipulating categorisations.
§ Along incoherence of identities corresponding to different sub-cultures one is immerged in (e.g. simultaneous handling of company culture, local culture, expatriate culture etc.)
§ Between pragmatic and ontological functions of identity, i.e. its faculty to create links with the social environment and to give sense to the world (Camilleri 1985)
Identity strategies are efforts to answer such tensions, in order to integrate different facets of a multiple identity, overcome incoherence, and regain self-esteem and re-establish desired social relations. Identity strategies can comprise a wide range of conscious and non-conscious actions: how we present ourselves in interaction (including body appearance), how we explain ourselves and with whom we chose to spend time, and what activities we perform.
. There were many attempts to catalogue identity strategies employed by immigrants in general (see Camilleri et al 1985, Fernandez et al 2006)

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