Abstract
For approximately 150 years, Baha’is in Iran have been persecuted on the basis of their religion. Limitations to aspects of their lives have compelled them to face “civic death” or migrate to other countries. This qualitative pilot study explored the experience of forced migration and how religion attenuates the disruption to the lives of Iranian Baha’is. Adaptive strategies that four participants utilised to re-establish continuity were examined. Participants who were satisfied with their lives developed a way to allow parallel cultural traditions (Iranian and Canadian) to co-exist; those who could not integrate found it difficult to maintain a balance between these traditions.
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Notes
To clarify the difference between cultural realignment and cultural alignment, the former will be used in the context of the participants’ experiences in Iran, since in this context the strategy will be utilised to return to normalising ideologies that they are familiar with. Whereas cultural alignment will be used in the context of the participants’ experiences in Canada, since in this context the strategy will be utilised to adapt to normalising ideologies that are foreign to the participants.
Although retreat within a margin has been classified as one of the four adaptive strategies in this paper, in this context, we use margin to indicate a situation where the people are excluded from others, as opposed to the situation where they actively withdraw themselves from the centre of society as a strategy of adaptation.
In order to clarify the trajectory of the fourth participant, Lina, it should be noted that she and her family fled to Africa where they had family to stay with while they waited for their paperwork to be processed.
See Taylor (2004) with regard to modernity and private fate.
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Talebi, M., Desjardins, M. The Immigration Experience of Iranian Baha’is in Saskatchewan: The Reconstruction of Their Existence, Faith, and Religious Experience. J Relig Health 51, 293–309 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-010-9351-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-010-9351-x