Adaptation Strategies Through a New Identity: A Comparative Analysis of Two Generations of Chechen Migrants in Belgium

The study analyses the structure of the formation of identification strategies, social, cultural, religious attitudes of two generations of Chechen migrants: those who arrived in the country as adults and their children, who grew up in migration conditions. The analysis is based on comparing the results of sociological studies conducted by the author in 2011 among Chechen migrants who came to Belgium in the 90s during two Chechen military companies and the results of studies conducted in 2019 among the second-generation Chechen migrants who grew up in Belgium. The analysis made it possible to build a new paradigm of the process of adaptation of migrants of two generations due to the process of identity transformation. At the same time, it was revealed that the adaptation strategies of parents changed during the period of growing up of children from forced integration into someone else's social order due to the lack of a real alternative to the conscious adoption of basic life strategies in the country of residence. The adaptation of children who grew up in the migration conditions differs from the nature of the adaptation of parents. If the adaptation of parents was primarily limited to the level of acceptance/rejection of everyday practices and the temporary prospects of their and their children's residence in the country of migration, then adaptation as a process of the second generation of migrants affected deeper levels of identification characteristics. The paper attempts to analyse the content of the discourse "new identity". This new identity model, which we are cautiously "groping" among second-generation Chechen migrants, can serve as a vital resource for adaptation in places of settlement. In some sociological studies, the respondents themselves designated this new model as "new Chechens".