Migration and Identity Change

This criminology assignment investigates the impact of migration on the identities of Syrian refugees who have settled in the UK. The research employs a qualitative methodology, including an interview with Mr. X, a Syrian refugee, and analysis of secondary sources. The study aims to understand how the war in Syria and the challenges of adapting to life in a new country have influenced Mr. X's sense of self, exploring themes such as cultural loss, social support, and psychological well-being.

Running head: CRIMINOLOGY
Criminology
Name of the Students
Name of the University
Author Note

1CRIMINOLOGY
Introduction
Migration can impose several negative impacts on an individual that includes loss of religious
and cultural customs and social support systems along with self-identity crisis. In the recent
years, the number migrants from Syria to UK have severely increased due to the Syrian war.
Aim of the research
The aim of this research is to find out how identities of individuals who have migrated from
Syria to UK, have been affected by migration. The objectives of this research are to investigate
the affect of the war in Syria on an individual’s identity who have migrated to UK.
Methodology
In order to conduct the research, qualitative methodology will be followed which will include
interviewing Mr. X who has migrated from Syria to UK during the time of war by asking him
open ended questions. This study will also include analysis of secondary sources related to the
research topic.
While Pountney and Maric (2015) have produced detailed analysis of classic and
contemporary anthropological researches, La Barbera (2015) has challenged the traditional
discipline division and also contains detailed research on how identity is negotiated in migration
process. According to Smeekes et al. (2017) multiple group membership is highly required to
deal with the issue of identity crisis faced by the Syrian refugees in Turkey. Syrian refugees and
the UK (2016) has done detailed analysis of the crisis faced by Syrian refugees in UK and
measurements taken by the UK government to deal with the mentioned issue.
Apart from analyzing the four mentioned sources, an interview will be conducted with
Mr. X, who was a resident of Syria and was compelled to flee to UK during the Syrian war. The

2CRIMINOLOGY
interview will be conducted in the residence of the interviewee. Considering the fact that Mr. X
is suffering from financial crisis due to his loss for the war, the interview will be a paid
interview. The interview will be conducted at 7.30 am on 1st February and the whole process
will take approximately 2 hours. The lists of open ended questionnaires that will be asked to Mr
X are:
1. How were you treated as a refugee in UK?
2. Why do you think that migration have affected your self-identity?
3. How severe is the impact of migration on your self-identity?
4. Do you think that there are political reasons behind the issue?
5. How does this crisis impose impact on your self-esteem and psychology?
The major strength of this research is that this research will contain authentic information
coming from an individual who himself have witnessed and gone though the situation. The
limitation of this research is that since the interview is collected from a single interview, the
data extracted is not generalized throughout the whole population (Kumar 2014). In order to
overcome this issue, several number of information will be collected from a good number of
sources.
An ethical problem that may be faced during the interview is that the interviewee may feel
uncomfortable while sharing his personal experiences. In order to solve this issue, he will be
assured that the information shared by him will remain confidential.

3CRIMINOLOGY
Gantt chart
A week by week timetable for project from January 22nd to April 19th
22nd Jan- 1st Feb 1st Feb- 20th Feb 20th feb-20th March 20th March-19th
April
Preparing
Interview
Questions

Conducting
Interview and
analyzing the
answers

Gathering
Information from
other sources

Preparing final
report

Expected outcome
It is expected that within 20th February, the interview conducted on Mr. X will be
analyzed completely. Besides that, the effect of migration on Mr. X will be successfully
evaluated by the end of 19th April.

4CRIMINOLOGY
Reference list
Kumar, R., 2014. Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage.,pp 25-36
La Barbera, M., 2015. Identity and Migration: An Introduction. In Identity and Migration in
Europe: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (pp. 1-13). Springer International Publishing.
Pountney, L. and Maric, T., 2015. Introducing Anthropology: What Makes Us Human?. John
Wiley & Sons.
Smeekes, A., Verkuyten, M., Çelebi, E., Acartürk, C. and Onkun, S., 2017. Social identity
continuity and mental health among Syrian refugees in Turkey. Social psychiatry and psychiatric
epidemiology, 52(10), pp.1317-1324.
Syrian refugees and the UK. (2016). [ebook] Available at: https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Syrian
%20Refugees%20and%20The%20UK.pdf [Accessed 21 Jan. 2018].