Introduction

Abstract

This issue serves as a companion piece to a previous JPIC publication (n. 3, 2022), edited by Fortuna Procentese and Laura Migliorini, which served primarily to describe the individual and societal burdens associated with the current migrant crisis, and to present state-of-the-art methods for continuing research in this area. Conversely, the aims of the present volume are to deepen how existing psychological knowledge related to migration issues, inform future scientific, and technological responses as well as cultural and political advances and what additional research is required on this topic.

Keywords:

• Engagement
• hope
• migration contexts
• resilience
• sense of community

Introduction

This issue of JPIC addresses the challenges and possibilities that define life today for millions of immigrants, migrants, and refugees. While acknowledging various barriers and palpable fears, there is a common thread of hope that runs through this issue. The aspirations behind the most jarring dislocations are unveiled. The importance of resilience is reaffirmed as well as factors that may promote engagement within a newfound community. The role of economic factors is discussed with a special emphasis on the meaning and value of work. Potential interventions are reviewed.

This issue serves as a companion piece to a previous JPIC publication (n. 3, 2022), edited by Fortuna Procentese and Laura Migliorini, which served primarily to describe the individual and societal burdens associated with the current migrant crisis, and to present state-of-the-art methods for continuing research in this area.

Some background

At the start of the new millennium, a great tension has surfaced, between calls for change and challenges to the status quo, and an equally strong resistance to identity diffusion that has precipitated nationalist tendencies.

From the “Arab spring” to the chaos in Syria, cultural, economic, and political issues, as well as widespread access to social media, are leading to a greater demand for entrance and exits across borders. However, this flux in the social order has led many individuals to seek a greater sense of rootedness in national, community, religious, or racial identity. Brexit (UK) is one example. The current civil rights protests in America can also be seen from the perspective of a budding national identity crisis. Such identity-preservation strategies may be fueled by a hope to preserve the past, and to root individual identity in a fixed matrix of values, language, culture, etc. As Spinoza noted, hopes are set against fears (cf. Steinberg, 2018). In particular, the threat of a new cultural order may stoke fears of the “other,” leading to radicalized identities, a growing attraction to fundamentalism and populism, as well as terrorism and hate crimes.

Italians and Italian Americans are sensitive to the plight of migrants and refugees. For Italians who remain in their native land, the migrant crisis triggers reflections of the heavy toll laid upon the South by the North after the unification of Italy (cf. Barzini, 1996). Italian American immigrants carry the memory of their ancestors who were greatly maligned, and considered “lower-class” in every sense, from intelligence and work ethic to culture and esthetics (Mangione & Morreale, 1992).

It is understood that wellbeing and happiness are strongly related to organizational and community factors. However, mental health concerns often fail to receive the same level of political, economic, or cultural support as physical health issues. The World Health Organization (World Health Organization, 2019) reports that one in four people in the world will suffer from a mental health disorder in their lifetime (The current global estimate is 450 million individuals). However, more than 40% of countries do not have a mental health policy. More than one-third of the world’s countries spend just 1% of their budget on mental health.

Mental health concerns extend to the plight of migrants, who may manifest “multiple layers of hopelessness” (Brown, 2019, p. 2310). There is a half-century worth of clinical evidence, demonstrating that hopelessness may precipitate depression, suicide, and other forms of self-destructive behavior (Franklin et al., 2017). With these ideas in mind, there is a great need for psychologists from both Italy and the USA to come together to share their knowledge and insights regarding the psychological and social factors that span a “dark to light continuum,” from struggle to hope.

Specifically, how can existing psychological knowledge related to migration issues, inform future scientific and technological responses as well as cultural and political advances? What additional research is required on this topic? Against this backdrop, in October, 2019, Italian scholars (Caterina Arcidiacono, Fortuna Procentese, Raffaele Felaco) joined with members of the Italian American Psychological Society (IAPS) such as Anthony Scioli, Jo Ferrari, Santo Di Nuovo, and Pierangelo Sardi, co-organize an academic conference at the University of Naples Federico II entitled: “From Conflict and Hate to Healing and Hope.” More than 50 presentations were scheduled along with multiple panel discussions, addressing a wide range of psychological and social issues related to the migrant crisis. The articles in this issue represent several of the core themes that emerged from this meeting. Because hope is the major theme that underlies this issue of JPIC, the editors of this issue invited Anthony Scioli, a noted hope researcher, to contribute to this introduction. In preparation for this section, we reviewed the PsycInfo database, and found 3, 433 publications that included the keyword “hope.” Collectively, the keywords: “immigration,” “migration,” and “refugee” account for 12,869 publications. In contrast, we found just 67 publications at the intersection of these two categories of keywords (2% of all hope publications; 1% of publications dealing with dislocated individuals).

The scientific status of hope

In 1959, the eminent American psychiatrist Karl Menninger bemoaned the lack of scholarship on hope, complaining that “our shelves are bare, the journals silent” (Menninger, 1959, p. 481). Over the past two decades, the social sciences have witnessed an increasing interest in the topic of hope, framed against a larger acknowledgment of the role of emotions, attachment, and character strengths in promoting human flourishing and social capital. A search for “hope” as a subject term in the leading electronic database for psychology (PsycInfo) shows 1195 articles between 1656 and 2005 (29 articles per year over a 359-year period). However, in just the past 15 years, 3123 publications have appeared (more than 2000 per year).

Within psychology, there is a longstanding goal approach to hope that began with Mowrer (1960), then Stotland (1969), and most recently, Snyder et al. (1991). This perspective has been criticized by Scioli (2020) for: overemphasizing mastery and achievement concerns, confounding hope with optimism and self-efficacy, and ignoring important attachment, survival, and spiritual elements, as reflected in seminal works of Erikson (1950) on trust and hope, Breznitz (1986) on coping and hope, and philosophers such as Marcel (1962) and Lynch (1965) on faith beliefs and hope.

In contrast, Scioli, Ricci, Nyugen, and Scioli (2011) define hope in the following manner:

[Hope is] a future-directed, four-channel emotion network, constructed from biological, psychological, and social resources. The four constituent channels are the attachment, survival, mastery, and spiritual systems (or subnetworks). The hope network is designed to regulate these systems via both feed-forward (expansion) and feedback processes (maintenance) that generate a greater perceived probability of power and presence as well as protection and liberation. (pp. 79).

The attachment aspects of hope include trust and a sense of connectedness. Survival hope consists of reality construction (imagination) and reality surveillance (grounding) processes. The mastery component includes perceived strengths and cherished ideals. Neither human efforts nor the individual’s civil society will fully address these basic needs. Consequently, a fourth need for spirituality emerges to fill in the gaps, to assure adequate attachment, survival, and mastery satisfaction. This four-fold approach to hope integrates scholarship across disciplines. Moreover, this approach to hope is broad enough to serve as a conceptual umbrella for understanding the fears and aspirations as well as the vulnerabilities and strengths of special populations, including immigrants, migrants, and refugees.

Contributions to this issue

The first article by Tessitore et al. (Tessitore & Margherita, 2022) is a qualitative study of Nigerian men and women, who reveal their deepest migratory hopes and dreams. Nigerian men seek to escape the frustration of blocked power and legacy possibilities while their female counter parts reference desired freedom from gender-locked forms of bondage, particularly forced prostitution. These gender differences must be placed in cultural and historical context. It would be erroneous to presume that certain dimension of hope will only be manifested by male or female migrants (e.g. attachment or mastery hope). For example, research by Esposito, Ornelas, Scirocchi, and Arcidiacono (2019) found that themes of liberation and greater agency were frequently expressed by migrant women held in an Italian detention center. With this caveat, the findings of Tessistore et al. do serve as a reminder that hope is not reducible to a simple, unitary wish but is a complex emotion infused by attachment, culture, and gender. In highlighting the role of liberation, it is noteworthy that a perennial symbol of hope is a broken chain (Scioli & Biller, 2009).

Novara et al. (Novara, Scaffidi Abbate, & Garro, 2022) present an empirical study of over 350 immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Europe. This article will be particularly interesting for professionals interested in positive psychology or quality-of-life studies. Resilience and a sense of community are highlighted, and assessed in relation to perceived life satisfaction, and an overall experience of wellbeing (via a general health questionnaire). This article also places another spotlight on the differential impact of immigration on men versus women. Social involvement is unpacked and different facets of community are explored along with multiple dimensions of health. Attachment and survival hope are the focus.

Procentese et al. (Procentese, Candice, Esposito, Arcidiacono, & Di Napoli, 2022) draw on “place identity” theory (Bernardo & Palma-Oliveira, 2012) to investigate the changing sense of self among young adult Italian immigrants in London during the time before Brexit. Using thematic analysis, the authors derive a number of important themes, from an atlas of migratory aspirations to patterns of identity growth. The dialectics of a more hopeful self-representation are not rooted in blind optimism, but instead, an embracement of more open vistas, as well as barriers and limits imposed by the host culture.

Di Nuovo et al. (Di Nuovo, Di Corrado, & Magnano, 2022) reflect on the construct of “work,” from philosophical, juridical, and economic perspectives to illustrate the deep impact that employment may have on the motives underlying hope (attachment, mastery, and survival). Utilizing a mixed-method approach with a study of recent immigrants from Bangladesh, Di Nuovo et al. demonstrate how these specific elements of work, summarized in terms of safety, equity, and self-hood, occupy a similar semantic space as hope, when the latter is viewed from an integrative perspective (Scioli et al., 2011). Mastery hope is the primary focus of this study.

Alfieri et al. (XXXX). surveyed more than 500 immigrant youth to explore the impact of social engagement on individual wellbeing and sense of community. Their findings suggest that particular forms of youth engagement (e.g. sport versus prosocial activities) are more likely or yield both higher self-esteem and a deeper sense of community. Additionally, the authors sought a deeper understanding of both the motives and perceived barriers associated with youth engagement in civic-minded activities. The role of trust in the development of hope is implicit in this study.

Charbonneau et al.’s (Charbonneau, deLeyer-TiarksL, Caterino, & Bray, 2022) meta-analysis highlights a growing literature on school-based interventions for refugees, migrants, and immigrants. The most hopeful finding is that the overwhelming majority of published interventions demonstrate a significant and positive effect on academic and social-emotion outcomes. According to Charbonneau et al., the greatest needs are long-term studies of impact duration, along with assessments of generalizability of interventions across special populations.

Sansone and Iatesta report on their evaluation of a curriculum for young children that is clearly qualified as a hope-building intervention, fostering attachment, mastery, and survival skills. Specifically, the starting Small Program (New York, USA) is designed to foster cooperation, self-control, and appropriate assertiveness. In bridging internal self-regulatory developments with social skills training, Sansone and Iatesta (Sansone & Iatesta, 2022) offer an intervention that is closer to the ecological model outlined by Di Napoli, Procentese, Carnevale, Esposito, and Arcidiacono (2019). While replications are needed with a larger sample, the outcomes reported here are impressive. Moreover, the mixed-ethnic sample suggest the potential for wider applicability across cultures, and among diverse immigrant groups.