ARTICLES Navigating Migrant's Agency, Muslim Identity, and Workplace Integration: A Feminist Biographical Study of a Highly Skilled Iranian Woman in Japan

This study examines the transnational migration experiences of highly skilled women from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The study applies feminist ethnography with a feminist biographical approach that employs an intersectional analysis to examine the Muslim identity negotiation in transnational contexts. The research centers on the migration biography of Shermine, an Iranian woman whose journey from exclusion to advocacy illustrates the complex interplay between individual psychological variables, including motivation, hope, self-efficacy, and perseverance, and structural barriers in transnational contexts. The analytical dimension of psychological resilience provides a crucial lens for interpreting the biography of Shermine, specifically by operationalizing resilience through observable and measurable outcomes, such as sustained goal-setting, utilization of coping mechanisms, and successful social engagement. By leveraging psychological resilience and various forms of psychological resources, the subject in this study, Shermine, not only renegotiated her own Muslim identity but also channelled this experience into a resource for collective action. The study contributes to sociology of migration literature with focus on how the migrant's identity is better understood as a negotiation, where the migrant's agency (their motivations, resources, and strategies) is exercised within a field defined by the host country's policies, prevailing ideologies, and intersecting systems of power. The study claims that understanding the interaction between micro-level psychological dynamics and macro-level host country structures is essential for developing more effective integration policies and workplace practices that recognize the complex dynamics of skilled women's migration in contemporary Japan.