The Formation of Minority Groups and Networks in the Case of Palestinian Students Living in Greece: The Effects of Collective Trauma, Suffering and Belongingness
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This chapter presents the analysis of a pilot study which is part of an on-going research on conflict, collective trauma and belonging in the multicultural environment of modern Greece. For the purpose of the study, in-depth interviews of 20 Palestinians students, living and studying in Greece for at least 2 years, were analysed. It is explored how minority groups and networks are formed in a foreign country under the need to belong, their role as the transitional space between them and the new cultural environment, as well as the way these newly formed belonging groups affect their members’ identity and the sense of otherness. In the analysis of the interviews of the Palestinian students, it is argued also that the collective trauma and suffering resulting from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affects not only the Palestinian students’ identity but also the way they create bonds and form their belonging groups in a foreign environment. It is argued also that the fundamental ambivalence between groupishness and individuality is even more prominent in these minority groups characterizing both intragroup life and intergroup phenomena.