Exploring Identity Changes of Sudanese Refugee Women in Cairo: Liminality and the Frustrating Struggle between Stability and Change

Abstract

Kunz (1973) argued that refugees are a distinct social type, whereas Coker (2004) referred to Victor Turner’s (1967) influential work on liminality to highlight the inherent ‘transitional’ nature of a refugee’s identity. It is an identity that is essentially liminal – a state characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. Refugees are faced with the loss of patterns that sustained previously established identities and new factors that require effective adaptation and identity transformations. The interplay between these factors results in tremendous identity struggles. Not surprisingly, identity confusion is one of the most common stressors facing refugees (Baker, 1983; Stein, 1986).

Family, Boundaries and Transformation. The International Mobility of Professionals and Their Families

“…Mobility entails also a transformative and developmental experience (Märtsin & Mahmoud, 2012). When moving, the individual changes and develops as a person by becoming (an)other (Märtsin & Mahmoud, 2012), by re-establishing a sense of "sameness" and identity (Mahmoud, 2008;Märtsin, 2010), or by transforming personal trajectories, plans, beliefs, relations and knowledge along with external changes. We suggest that boundary work occurs in these transformative movements and developmental trajectories, between past, present and future selves and significant others as they develop through time, and can relate to more situated gender identities, cultural values (like in Hela's case) or national categories (Nathalie and Luke).…”