Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42702058›Full record

ArticleWomen's health (London, England)

"I belong to nowhere now": An interpretative phenomenological analysis of Pakistani migrant women's lived experiences of identity, nostalgia, exclusion and wellbeing in Norway.

Eisha Mehtab, Gulnaz Anjum, Halina Grzymała-Moszczyńska, Mudassar Aziz

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Article in Women's health (London, England). The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

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1citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Eisha MehtabDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Gulnaz AnjumDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.ORCID 0000-0002-2589-7884
Halina Grzymała-MoszczyńskaInstitute of Psychology, Ignatianum University in Krakow, Krakow, Poland.
Mudassar AzizDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.ORCID 0000-0003-3922-9841

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

BackgroundMigrant women's health and wellbeing are shaped by intersecting structures of gender, race, religion, and postcoloniality. Pakistani migrant women in Norway occupy a particular intersection of these structures, in which collectivistic kinship expectations, patriarchal norms, and postcolonial inheritance interact with Norwegian institutional gatekeeping. Despite a growing Pakistani-origin population in Norway, little qualitative research has examined how the identity work of recent first-generation Pakistani migrant women relates to their psychological and social wellbeing.ObjectivesThis study examined the psychological and social wellbeing implications of identity reconstruction among Pakistani migrant women in Norway, with particular attention to how acculturative challenges, structural exclusion, and gendered nostalgia shape stress, belonging, and adaptation.DesignQualitative study using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) with a postcolonial feminist orientation. The reporting of this study conforms to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ).MethodsEleven in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with Pakistani migrant women aged 20 or older who had migrated to Norway between 2020 and 2023 and were fluent in Urdu and English. Eight interviews were prioritised for in-depth idiographic IPA case work based on rich, idiographic suitability for analysis, and the remaining three were retained as contextual cases. Informational sufficiency was assessed through ongoing analytic memo-writing. Reflexivity, theory triangulation, and multivocality strengthened methodological rigour.ResultsFive interrelated Group Experiential Themes captured participants' lived experiences: (1) Resisting and severing gendered expectations, with implications for chronic stress and internalised surveillance; (2) Reconstructing identity in self-exile, with implications for self-efficacy gains and relational isolation; (3) Encountering exclusion in institutions and everyday life, with implications for anxiety, sleep disruption, and stress associated with administrative limbo; (4) Nostalgia, liminality, and limbo, with nostalgia operating as both an emotional regulator and an amplifier of loneliness; and (5) Intergenerational and inter-cohort cultural (dis)identification, with implications for diminished belonging and intra-community alienation.ConclusionIdentity reconstruction among Pakistani migrant women in Norway is a health-relevant process in which structural exclusion, gendered norms, and cultural nostalgia converge to shape stress, belonging, and agency. The Identity Meaning-Making Model offers a recursive framework with direct implications for culturally responsive mental health care and equity-driven integration policy.

Indexed as

AcculturationEmigrants and ImmigrantsSocial IdentificationTransients and MigrantsAdaptation, PsychologicalAdultFemaleHumansInterviews as TopicMiddle AgedNorwayPakistanPsychological Well-BeingQualitative ResearchSouth Asian Peopleidentityinterpretative phenomenological analysismigrationNorwaynostalgiaPakistani womenpostcolonial feminismwellbeing

Identifiers

PMID42702058
PMCPMC13554598

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