Acculturation Strategies and Mental Health of Afghan Immigrants in Iran: An Anthropological Study

Mental health is a key factor in social life and its importance is emphasized in recent social sciences. Self-esteem, independency, ability to cope with pressures and stressors of life, social efficiency and participation in activities of community, are considered important factors of mental health. Historical observation of disadvantages and mental disorders in the immigrant population have helped to shape and improve prevailing theories on immigration and mental health and disorders. Immigration raises the issue of mental health since challenges such as learning new language, dealing with cultural differences, economic and residential instability, distance from ancestral lands and homesickness make the process of acculturation stressful, hard and complicated.  Although it seems that all immigrants are struggling for more adaptation and improvement of their status in the new culture, but in practice, each immigrant has a special strategy for acculturation or socialization in their new situation that has different consequences. These strategies can be adaptation, similarity, separation and marginalization in the new culture. In this article, we try to study the mental health of Afghan immigrants in Iran, using anthropological qualitative methods and applying theoretical frameworks of acculturation, considering social and demographical characteristics. The goal of this article is to draw conclusions concerning the relationship between status of immigrants and their mental health.