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Forced Migration and Resilience pp 71–97Cite as

Long-Term Adaptation Among Naturalised Bosnian Refugees in Sweden—Existential Preoccupation, Spirituality and Resilience

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Part of the book series: Studien zur Resilienzforschung ((STRE))

Abstract

This chapter builds on the narrative qualitative data accumulated during the four-year-long doctoral research, which employed psychology approaches to refugee resilience and was conducted by the author in the period 2008–2012 in Sweden. It presents and discusses the research results obtained on the psychosocial wellbeing in the context of longitudinal adaptation to stressful refugee experiences. The chapter centres around twenty life stories of naturalized Bosnian refugees and their cognitive restructuring through religious meaning-making in the aftermath of forced migration. The key research findings disclose that self-construed religious meta-narratives, employed as the means of processing both individual and collective psychological suffering caused by war, social disruptions and uprooting, are significant to personal wellbeing as they promote individual resilience in a long-term perspective of post-migration adjustments.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As a “state of complete physical, mental, (family), social and (spiritual) well-being and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity” (see WHO’s official website at www.who.int).

  2. 2.

    It is worth noting that many individuals from this group tend to ventilate their life experiences through writing them down as a diary or making them known at various internet sites that serve as a meeting point for the dispersed Bosnians all over the world. This type of data is not presented in this chapter but instead served as a complementary comparison for the researcher in the analysis of the interview-based data collection.

  3. 3.

    By 31st August 2000, 360,749 refugees had been repatriated to BiH, and 321,730 IDPs had returned to their pre-war homes of origin (UNHCR 2000). See www.unhcr.org

  4. 4.

    From a metatheoretical standpoint, human beings are viewed as (co-)authors of their life stories, struggling to compose a meaningful account of the critical events of their lives and revising, editing or even dramatically rewriting them when the presuppositions that sustain these accounts are challenged by unanticipated or incongruous events (see Neimeyer 2010).

  5. 5.

    This is the leading Swedish administrative agency tasked by government, different agencies, private sector and researchers with producing and communicating statistics for decision making, debate and research as well as coordinating the Swedish system for official statistics. See www.scb.se.

  6. 6.

    According to SCB 2006, out of a total number of 56,800 resettled Bosnian refugees in Sweden, 12,385 Bosnians live in Skåne (Malmö: 5,502), 12,250 in the Gothenburg region (Gothenburg: 6,053) and 5,418 in the Stockholm region (Stockholm: 2,571). The rest of the Bosnian population is spread throughout the country's less populated regions, although the main concentration is in cities and larger urban centres. See www.scb.se.

  7. 7.

    Only members of the BiH’s war refugee population resettled in Sweden were eligible informants out of a total of 56,400 members of the Bosnian population resettled in Sweden (SCB 2006).

  8. 8.

    For the employment situation of the Bosnian refugees in Sweden, see Bevelander (2009) and Povrzanovic-Frykman (2009).

  9. 9.

    This could be compared to the extensive review conducted by an international expert panel in 2007 which identified the promotion of hope as an evidence-based intervention principle following mass trauma in adults (see Hobfoll et al. 2007: 820).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Palacky University Olomouc, Olomouc, Czechia

    Selma Porobić

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  1. Selma Porobić
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Correspondence to Selma Porobić .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany

    Michael Fingerle

  2. HTWK Leipzig, Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany

    Rüdiger Wink

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Porobić, S. (2020). Long-Term Adaptation Among Naturalised Bosnian Refugees in Sweden—Existential Preoccupation, Spirituality and Resilience. In: Fingerle, M., Wink, R. (eds) Forced Migration and Resilience. Studien zur Resilienzforschung. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27926-4_5

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