Intergenerational Ambivalence Among Iranian Refugee Families in Finland

This article focuses on the process through which intergenerational ambivalence is experienced by a group of adult children and their parents with an Iranian refugee background living in Finland. This ethnographic study provides an insight into how the families’ struggles to mobilize capital in different forms can contribute to their experience of intergenerational ambivalence. The study indicates that when the parents’ social, economic and cultural capitals accumulated prior to migration are not accessible or valuable in Finland, they become dependent on their children’s conduct. This produces a contradictory demand on the participants’ roles as parents and children, where they face difficulties in navigating their role expectations. The families in this study expressed a significant ambivalence in their intergenerational relationships associated with these stressful conditions.