Título  Experiences of discrimination and the management of identities among Portuguese migrants in Switzerland
Autor  Ana Barbeiro
Orientador Spini Dario
Ano  2025
Institutição Faculté des Sciences Sociales et Politiques, Université de Lausanne
Grau  Doutoramento
Área  Ciências Sociais e Políticas
Palavras-chave  
URI https://serval.unil.ch/en/notice/serval:BIB_E4B3DA68D84C 

Resumo 

Migrants’ identities are challenged through acculturation dynamics. Belonging to a social category such as a “migrant” can make them vulnerable to discrimination and represent an identity threat. In this case, migrants engage in strategies to cope with these threats and manage their identities. This thesis investigates migrants’ Identity Management Strategies by integrating Life Course Approaches’ principles (time, context, and experience) into the framework of Social Identity Theory. The empirical approach consists of a case study of Portuguese migrants in Switzerland, within a mixed-methods design. Data was collected through a survey questionnaire and life story interviews. Results show that individual mobility, as a migration project, is a long-term strategy for migrants who endure difficulties and discrimination in the first years of their migration trajectories. Experiences such as discrimination in work and housing contexts are the most reported and tend to disappear with increasing length of stay in Switzerland. Shared representations of the Swiss society and the Portuguese migrants are mobilized to manage identities. In the slow individual mobility trajectories, migrants also engage in other Identity Management Strategies, such as social competition and social creativity. Social creativity strategies are associated with low levels of experienced discrimination. They are strategically mobilized in the life stories, in an identity performance that conveys the success of migration projects.  By the introduction of time, context, and experience in researching migrants’ Identity Management Strategies, this thesis shows that these relate to experiences, individual projects, shared representations, and perceived resources and vulnerabilities.