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About the Author
Jowan Mahmod, PhD, is a multidisciplinary researcher focused on how digital technologies, identity, and shifting social norms are transforming contemporary societies. Dr. Mahmod’s work challenges dominant narratives by examining the psychological and sociological forces behind polarization, perception, and collective behavior. She is currently writing a second book that shows why polarization makes more sense once the deeper dysfunctions driving it are understood. You can follow her work at wehavebeenfooled.substack.com.
A recurring finding in sociology is that when existential security increases, attachment to traditional value systems tends to loosen. In economically and politically advanced societies—where basic survival is largely taken for granted—individual autonomy expands, openness to diversity and change increases, and religiosity fades. As personal freedom and self-expression take center stage, the pressure to conform to group norms usually weakens.
Yet, in many migrant communities across the democratic West, we see the distinct opposite. These communities are often defined by a resistance to change and a doubling down on religion and nationalism. Stranger still is the generational drift, in which second- and third-generation immigrants frequently prove more conservative than their parents, clinging to highly idealized views of a homeland they have scarcely experienced firsthand.
Why does migration intensify nationalism rather than dilute it? And why do younger generations so often become more religious than both their parents and the populations back home?
The standard explanations—social alienation, racism, or xenophobia—fall short. These patterns emerge even in contexts where systemic exclusion is minimal or absent. The answer, instead, lies in the mechanics of identity. Migration activates group consciousness more potently, and more persistently, than life in the homeland typically does. To understand this, we must look at how social identities are triggered and how the migration setting fundamentally alters the conditions under which those identities become salient. Not every migrant community displays the same pattern, but isolating this mechanism helps explain why so many do.
How and When Social Identities Are Activated
We all contain multitudes. Our “social identity” refers to the various groups to which we belong. These can be defined by our ethnicity, religion, nationality, and race, but also by our sex, class, profession, and even the sports teams we cheer for. These identities do not sit side-by-side in perfect equilibrium; they compete. When one surges to the foreground, the others fade into the background.
Which identity dominates in a given moment depends largely on context. An American might view himself primarily as a patriot when the Olympics are on, viewing fellow citizens as the in-group and rival nations as the out-group. But place that same man in a heated debate about guns, Greta, or God, and a conservative identity may take over, recasting his liberal neighbors as the out-group. Identities are fluid. Who belongs to “us” in one context can quickly become “them” in another.
But identities differ in their relative strength. Historically, the “kings of all identities”—to borrow a phrase from law professor Lawrence M. Friedman—have been ethnicity, religion, and nation. When one of these giants is triggered, everything else is pushed aside. These are the loyalties that are easiest to mobilize, easiest to defend, and, historically, the easiest to kill for.
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