The Transformative Effects of Stigma: Coping Strategies as Meaning-Making Efforts for Immigrants Living in Greece

The present article examines the strategies that immigrants living in Greece use to cope with stigma that arises in their interaction with both Greek society and their communities of origin. Drawing on interviews and focus groups conducted with immigrants from a variety of countries, a dialogical analysis illuminates the ways in which immigrants actively negotiate stigmatizing perspectives and transform themselves. Strategies include the deployment of social categories such as those of ‘human being’ and ‘crazy’ person, and concepts such as those of ‘lawfulness’ and ‘fate’. These were used to construct meanings of equality and inclusion into society, to deny responsibility for stigma and to discredit stigma as absurd. They enabled participants to see themselves as proud, equal, self‐dependent individuals who plan actions for social change. The article suggests that coping with stigma should not only be understood in terms of stress regulation, leading to positive or negative outcomes, as suggested by current literature, but as a meaning‐making effort, through which individuals transform the way they see themselves and act within their world. A meaning‐making approach moves away from individualistic, outcome‐oriented explanations to a socially situated perspective on stigma that studies the processes through which social meanings are subjectively perceived as stigmatizing and are used to challenge stigma. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

immigrants; coping strategy; meaning‐making; transformation; Greece; communities of origin; stigma

This article studies the ways that immigrants deal with the stigma associated with their identity. Identity is viewed as constituted socially in a dialectic process between the person, social others and social knowledge, in the form of social representations (Duveen, [12] ; Howarth, [22] ). As immigrants encounter new social others and relate to their communities of origin in new ways, their movement triggers changes to their identity.

This study, conducted by the author in Greece, examined the experiences of immigrants through interviews and focus groups. The following questions are addressed here:

First: which perspectives about the self, coming from social others of residence and origin communities permeate the meaning systems of immigrants and what is their effect?

Second: which strategies are employed to deal with the stigmatizing perspectives of the other upon the self?

Third: what changes to self and world representations and actions does coping with stigma trigger for immigrants?

In the following sections, I first situate this project within literature that studies the challenges that immigration poses to identity, focusing particularly on stigma and ways of coping with it. After presenting the methodological and analytical procedures of this research, the analysis responds to the three questions outlined above. The four excerpts analysed show how the stigmatizing perspectives of Greek and origin community others are voiced in the discourse of immigrants, how they relate to them (e.g. dismiss, challenge) and what changes this encounter brings in the ways immigrants understand themselves, the world and plan their actions (i.e. as proud human beings, seeking to restore justice).

This article makes a contribution to the literature on stigma by departing from existing approaches that theorize coping with stigma in a stress‐regulating and outcome‐oriented way. It proposes a process‐oriented view of coping as a meaning‐making effort, which can be transformative as it leads to new self and world representations and to designing pathways of action that bring socio‐structural changes. A meaning‐making approach moves away from individualistic explanations by providing an insider's, socially situated perspective on stigma. It does so by studying the social meanings that are subjectively perceived as stigmatizing and the social meanings that enable individuals to challenge stigma, protect and transform the self.

The socio‐cultural approach to identity taken here originates in Mead's work (Gillespie, [18] ; Mead, [30] ). Mead argued that one is able to reflect upon him/herself because he/she takes the perspective of the other towards the self. It follows that the way one perceives her/his self is constructed through the ways he/she thinks is perceived by others. Thus, to understand identity, we need to understand how people evoke others in talking about themselves. The latter argument forms the basis of this article's interest in the effect of the perspectives of social others on immigrants’ identity.

Since identity is socially constituted, the change of social context, as that of migration, can trigger self‐transformation (Chryssochoou, [8] ). Increasing studies on the field of migration and identity show that moving to different socio‐cultural worlds leads to self‐transformation of tourists, international students and migrants (Gillespie, [18] ; Märtsin, [28] ; O'Sullivan‐Lago, de Abreu & Burgess, [36] ). New categories become relevant for self‐definition (Chryssochoou, [7] ), such as that of ‘immigrant’ or ‘asylum seeker’ (O'Sullivan‐Lago et al., [36] ), and movers have to negotiate the boundaries of their ethnic category membership (Verkuyten, [47] ).

This process of identity redefinition takes places in dialogue with both the social context they originate from (Bhatia & Ram, [4] ) and the one they enter. As research places emphasis on the latter, this article also considers the effect of the encounter of immigrants with their home communities.

Immigration poses a threat to identity (Chryssochoou, [7] ; Deaux, [10] ; Timotijevic & Breakwell, [44] ). Immigrants are associated with criminality and exploitation of the welfare system (Gillespie, Kadianaki & O'Sullivan‐Lago, [20] ; Figgou, Sapountzis, Bozatzis, Gardikiotis, & Pantazis, [14] ). Further, on the basis of essentialist representations of citizenship (i.e. the existence of natural national qualities), they are denied inclusion in the local society (Gibson & Hamilton, [17] ). Thus, they have to cope with stigmatization, dehumanization and marginalization (Chryssochou, [8] ). In this study, I will focus on the ways that immigrants encounter and deal with stigma.

The detrimental effects of stigma have been well documented in research. Early on, Allport ([1] ) and Fanon ([13] ) spoke about distortions of the ego, feelings of inferiority and self‐hate caused by internalization of stigmatizing images. This victimizing image has recently been replaced by a more active and less bleak picture of the targets of stigmatization (Crocker, Major & Steele, [9] ; Howarth, [24] ; Oyserman & Swim, [37] ). These approaches present the negative effects of stigma for minorities, such as low‐self esteem (Mendoza‐Denton, Downey, Purdie, Davis & Pietrzak, [31] ), stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, [41] ) and rejection anxiety (Deaux, [10] ), but they also discuss a plethora of coping strategies individuals employ for self‐protection (Goffman, [21] ; Miller & Kaiser, [33] ).

Stigma is understood as a life stressor and coping with stigma is linked to stress‐coping models (Miller & Kaiser, [33] ). There are several distinctions along which coping strategies are categorized in the literature, such as prevention and promotion focused (Oyserman & Swim, [37] ), or problem and emotion focused (Stutterheim et al., [42] ). Miller and Kaiser ([33] ) provide a comprehensive categorization of stigma responses, distinguishing between voluntary (i.e. conscious coping) and involuntary (i.e. uncontrollable) ones. Voluntary responses, which are most relevant here, are further differentiated to engagement (i.e. dealing with stigma) and disengagement (i.e. denying stigma or avoiding stigmatizing situations). Engagement strategies include primary‐control (e.g. collective action) and secondary‐control (e.g. cognitive restructuring) efforts, which refer to efforts to change or adapt to a stigmatizing situation accordingly.

Albeit from a different theoretical perspective, Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, [43] ) suggests similar strategies that individuals employ to regain a sense of a positive social identity, (e.g. change social group, protest, reevaluate stigmatized characteristics) facing devaluation (e.g. Mummendey, Kessler, Klink & Mielke, [35] ).

Whether from a social identity or stress‐coping perspective, literature demonstrates important cognitive, behavioural and emotional dimensions of coping. However, models theorizing coping with stigma seem to present stigma stressors and devalued social identities as generic, obscuring differences between different stigmas or identities in particular social‐historical contexts. While the social embeddedness of stigma has been acknowledged (Crocker, Major & Steele, [9] ; Goffman, [21] ), most studies seek generalization of results beyond the particularities of the context stigma are studied. This is why researchers still call for qualitative methods to study stigma, which can illuminate subjective meanings and socio‐cultural nuances (Bos, Pryor, Reeder & Stutterheim, [6] ).

This individualistic focus is also reflected on the over‐emphasis placed on individual choice of coping strategies, ignoring the ways that strategies are afforded and constrained by the social context (Aveling, Cornish & Oldmeadow, [3] ; Howarth, [24] ). I address these limitations by focusing on the ways that the social is internalized (i.e. which social meanings in the form of perspectives and representations are evoked as stigmatizing) and how it is dealt with subjectively through social meanings (e.g. social categories employed to deal with stigma).

Thus, the approach presented here moves away from cognitive re‐interpretations of stressors to a socially based, meaning‐making approach to stigma. It refers to processes of semiotic mediation, through which individuals negotiate and confer new meanings to their experiences and regulate thoughts, feelings and actions through meaning complexes (Valsiner, [45] ; Zittoun, [50] ).

I have called these meaning complexes semantic strategies. They can take the form of irony, laughter or metaphors (see ‘implicature’: Meyerhoff, [32] ), social categories, representations or arguments. They enable participants to construct new meanings and to dismiss ideas of others, which in this case are stigmatizing. In this later form, they can act as ‘semantic barriers’ (Gillespie, [19] ; Moscovici, [34] ), inhibiting dialogue with representations of others by stigmatizing others or separating one's ideas from representations of others (e.g. ‘stigma’ and ‘rigid oppositions’, accordingly. For a full review see Gillespie, [19] ). However, semantic strategies reviewed here are not limited to barriers as they can establish different relations with the perspectives of others (e.g. limit their effect).

The particular analytical focus presented departs from the existing understanding of outcomes of coping in terms of low/high self‐esteem or positive or negative self‐evaluations to understanding processes of change. The question asked here is not whether there are positive or negative outcomes, but how people change in encountering stigma. Approaching coping with stigma as a meaning‐making effort thus enables us to study the transformative effects of stigma. Semantic strategies, as I will show, can forge the construction of new self and world representations and plans of action, starting from the micro‐level of conversation (microgenetic changes) and leading to ontogenetic changes (identity changes) and even sociogenetic changes (changes at social patterns of meaning or action: Valsiner, [46] ).

Qualitative methods were used including 32 in‐depth interviews, six focus group discussions and eight months of ethnographic participatory observation in three immigrant communities in Athens (Greek Forum of Migrants, United African Women Organization and ASCLAYE union of Latin‐Americans in Greece). The variety of methods used concurs with the aims of triangulation in research (Denzin, [11] ). The 32 participants of different ages came from various countries, predominantly from the African and the Latin American continent. All of them resided in Athens, their residence spanning between two and 30 years. My intention was to maximize variety (Flick, [15] ) and to gain rich insight on different life‐trajectories of people in terms of their life phase, motivations for coming and their socio‐economic background.

Most participants were found through the three immigrant communities, in which I held a voluntary post between September 2007 and April 2008 and some through a snowballing technique. My participation in these communities (assisting with administrative and organizational issues) enabled increased familiarity with participants and their activities and assisted my understanding of social, legal and economic aspects of immigration in Greece.

The format of the interviews was a combination of narrative and episodic interviewing (Flick, [15] ). Participants were asked to provide a narrative starting from their childhood up to the moment of the interview and passing through the following phases: life prior to immigration, important life events leading to immigration, representations of Greece and experiences following immigration and thoughts about the future. They were also asked to discuss specific episodes: contact with the Greek society and the communities of origin, and their use of cultural elements in dealing with ‘rupturing’ experiences of immigration (Kadianaki, [25] ). Interviews lasted between 60 and 120 min.

Focus group discussions were used to capture both interpersonal dynamics and the negotiation of personal and social meanings (Gaskell, [16] ). They were ‘real groups’: not gathered for the purposes of the research but with ‘a history of shared interactions’ (Flick, [15] , p. 97) because of being members of a community working towards a common goal. They felt comfortable sharing the differences and similarities of their experiences (Howarth, [23] ). I triggered the discussion by providing some quotes based on themes identified from preliminary interviews as important‐‘rupturing’ experiences of immigration: expectations meet reality, feelings and embodied experiences, encounters with Greek society and home community. Group discussions lasted between 60 and 80 min. All names of participants have been changed. The author name appears under the initials IK.

The analysis is based on discursive data. Interviews were held in English, Spanish and Greek by the author. They were recorded, transcribed and analysed in the original language, and parts were translated for presentation purposes.

Coding of the material, assisted by software ATLAS ti., proceeded according to the principles of thematic analysis (Flick, [15] ), based on the issues of interest outlined above. Initially, 95 codes were identified in the data, which were grouped under 14 over‐inclusive categories of codes (families). ‘Families’ were categorized according to the ‘ruptures’, the challenges that participants faced in immigrating. The families that appeared to contain most challenges for participants were ‘encountering the home country’ and ‘encountering the Greek society’, which appeared in 82 excerpts.

Within these two ‘families’ a three‐step dialogical analysis was conducted (see Aveling & Gillespie, [2] ; Kadianaki, Gillespie & O'Sullivan‐Lago, [26] ). First, ‘voices’ Wertsch ([49] ), the perspectives of others that are evoked in participants’ discourse, are identified. Second, the ways (i.e. here ‘semantic strategies’) that participants deal with these perspectives are exemplified (e.g. embrace, resist, challenge etc.). These strategies are ways of presenting and talking about the perspective (e.g. as unwarranted, laughing at it) or ways of presenting those who hold the perspective (e.g. stigmatizing them). Third, the transformative effects of this internal encounter with the perspective of the other are examined (e.g. new self‐positions, suggested plans of action). This type of microgenetic analysis permits us to study the ongoing flow of thought and talk and identify change as it occurs (Valsiner, [46] ).

The particular excerpts presented here were chosen because each of them contains ample and concise information regarding the effect of perspectives, semantic strategies and self‐transformation. Altogether they present a variety of the aforementioned analytical points and thus permit a better theorization of the phenomenon.

In the two following sections, a dialogical analysis is conducted first in excerpts discussing the perspectives of the Greek society and then those of the communities of origin.

Across interviews and focus groups, four broad themes were identified with regards to how participants thought they were perceived by Greeks. First, they thought they were seen as rejected outsiders, who don't belong to the Greek society. Second, as intruders, who came to take advantage of the welfare system. Third, participants of African origin talked specifically about being associated with poverty, disease and war and seen as wild animals, who had supernatural powers and fourth, participants of Latin–American origin discussed being associated with prostitution, drugs, trafficking and underdevelopment. Two examples are discussed, belonging to the first and the third themes accordingly.

The following passage comes from an in‐depth interview with Alberto, a 46 year‐old participant who arrived in 1991 from Chile. During our interview, Alberto presented himself as being in touch with the everyday social and political reality in Greece and talked about discussing with Greeks issues of culture, politics and music. I then asked if he felt different in any way in Greece:

Alberto: Of course,[1] I am not Greek, I am not Greek and I am not saying this so much for me, but for the Greeks. Greeks, as I said in the beginning, they are not violent racists, but the Greek, with just one look he says “you are not from my team[2]” with just one look he says that. It is just an indiscreet look he says “you are not from here, you are from there” so what does the foreigner have to do? Generally, the foreigner has to talk to him in Greek, the new generations maybe are changing, I hope, at least in my generation things were like that, when I arrived, that the foreigner has to talk to the Greek, lick their feet and then at the end, the Greek, or several Greeks they decide in their big court: “You are a nice guy”! {…[3]} So encountering this situation, bollocks, I have never done this. I am proud[4]! (pause) I don't find the reason why (pause) I should talk first or second, I can't see why. I am here, calm, if it happens that we talk, we talk, if not, it is all right, I am not going to ‘lick their feet’. At the end of the day, I have defects and virtues, as Greeks do, as all human beings do. I know I am the foreigner, that I am in your house, I respect the laws and originally I am a foreigner, I am not from here but generally in my country too you have to respect the laws and after all, nobody has anything! Everything has to be bought! Everything is a situation that you have to buy, even where you are sleeping, you have to buy! When the land is for everybody! You have to buy the air that you breathe! You have to buy it! What can we say? What can we say?’

Alberto interprets the Greek's look towards himself as excluding and diminishing and presents Greeks as wanting foreigners to crawl for their appreciation. Using the metaphor of the court, Alberto talks about the power asymmetries and inequalities between the Greeks and the foreigners. His talk is overall characterized by a use of extreme case formulations (Pomerantz, [39] ), where repeated use of words like ‘everybody’, ‘just’ and ‘everything’ is indicative of the tension that this perspective of himself in the eyes of the Greeks has evoked. His raised voice and the use of swearing confirm this tension.

This humiliating perspective of himself as a powerless, begging‐for‐approval foreigner is resisted by Alberto through the use of irony and his argumentation. Irony here aims at subverting the meaning of the perspective and at criticizing sarcastically those who hold it. Irony has the effect of creating a distance between the speaker and his perspective's meaning (Moscovici, [34] ), thus protecting Alberto from the threat of stigma. He then offers a number of arguments, which aim at countering the validity of the perspective coming from the Greek other and help him construct a favourable representation of himself in this encounter.

He brings in the category of human being, according to which both Greeks and foreigners are equal: they all have defects and virtues. By turning to this super‐ordinate category, Alberto stresses the essential similarities between the Greeks and the foreigners and rejects any claims for power superiority of the Greeks. The category of ‘human being’, also used in other contexts of immigration, stresses similarities between self (immigrant) and other (locals) and rejects unwanted and threatening positions for the immigrant self (O'Sullivan‐Lago et al., [36] ). Alberto then describes himself as a lawful citizen: his state in Greece is a legal one, based on the respect of laws. Thus, he has nothing to be accused of and no reason to attend the ‘Greek court’. Finally, Alberto claims equality on the basis of equal access to life resources: all people are equal based on the fact that nobody owns anything and that everybody has to buy everything. Thus, Greeks shouldn't think they are in a position of power.

Alberto engages in meaning‐making efforts that challenge the stigmatizing perspective by presenting it as unwarranted and invalid. In countering these perspectives, Alberto constructs a self‐presentation that helps him face stigma: he is a proud and equal human being and a lawful human citizen who deserves to be treated with respect.

The content of stigma was not uniform for all participants. For participants of African origin, it was directed towards the colour of their skin. The example comes from a focus group discussion among three women, members of the African Women Organization in Athens: Lysette, a 43‐year‐old Sierra Leonean, Saida, 39 years old from Sudan, and Aisha, 44 years old from Seychelles. The women were talking about the lack of job opportunities for black people in Greece. Then, Saida said:

Saida: It's (pause), if you go to a restaurant and you walk in

Aisha: all they will look at you! {Lysette laughs}

IK: Why do you think they look at you?

Aisha: they are looking because you are not white!

Saida: Because ‘how can you come here?’

IK: because you are black?

Saida: because you are black, maybe because black people are just (pause) when you see a black person (pause) yeah, he is a foreigner, maybe if he is white you cannot recognize them

Lysette: Sometimes, let me tell you another story, because of the work that I am doing, they used to invite me, like a white man, a Greek man to go to a restaurant to eat, or go somewhere. When you go there [Aisha laughs] they would look at the Greek man like that “What is this?”

Saida: yes, they look surprised, I don't know why!

Aisha: yes, crazy people, crazy people

IK: Are they not used to seeing black people?

Saida: maybe!

Lysette: but it is a long time now, I am here for more than 20 years and people have been looking at blacks since the 70's, it is enough! It is time for them to wake up, you understand what I mean?

Saida: maybe they have this idea about black people that they are not civilized, they are not, (Lysette laughs) something like this, it is very strange!

The conversation is disrupted by a visitor but restarts when Lysette describes another representation she thinks Greeks have of Africans.

Lysette: and one funny thing I have to tell you (laughingly). These Greek people they believe we are possessed by the devil [IK: what are you talking about? (laughing)]. Many of them ask me read their palms or their coffee cups[5]

IK: oh, that's interesting. So what do you think they think of you?

Lysette: They think we are possessed by the devil. We have supernatural powers (everybody laughing)

Laughter continues while Aisha describes an incident of offering her seat in the bus to an old Greek lady, who takes a tissue to clean the seat where Aisha was sitting. Aisha describes laughingly how she tells the lady off and the rest of the group participates with feelings of vindication. In the above passages, the perspective of Greeks is first presented through the reaction of the turning heads in the restaurant. Women quote Greeks saying: ‘How can you come here?’ and ‘What is this?’ indicating that the colour of their skin is the cause for attracting excessive negative distinctiveness (Timotijevic & Breakwell, [44] ), which is both inevitable and signifies that they are not allowed to enter the restaurant. Lysette is recognized as non‐human (‘this’), an unfamiliar being evoking surprise. This de‐humanizing perspective of Africans leads women to characterize Greeks as crazy. My question attempts to give an explanation of Greeks’ reaction, but is met with uncertainty (‘maybe’) and evokes a further reaction of Lysette who describes Greeks as hypnotized and retrograde (‘it is time for them to wake up’). So far, the women are stigmatizing those who hold the perspective. Stigma is a semantic barrier that inhibits elaboration of the view of the other (Gillespie, [19] ) by presenting the other is some discredited way (e.g. as crazy, hypnotized).

Saida's explanation that Greeks perceive Africans as uncivilized evokes Lysette's laughter. Lysette adds that Greeks think Africans have supernatural powers and are possessed by the devil. The incident in the bus evokes perspectives of Africans as polluted, a perspective of Africans noted by other researchers (e.g. Howarth, [24] ).

Interestingly, these stigmatizing perspectives are described as ‘funny’ and make the group burst into laughter. I suggest that laughter is a way of talking about the perspective that subverts its meaning. Women suggest by laughing that these representations are not to be taken seriously.

Researchers have identified that laughter in painful narratives (Matsumoto, [29] ) can be a strategy of the speaker to cope with the difficult event by alleviating their power and seriousness (Keltner & Bonanno [27] ). Billig ([5] ) identified incidents he called ‘laugh about it later’. A speaker brings in a discussion of embarrassing and painful memories in a story, as a way to deal with them: ‘The stories transform the pain of the past into the pleasure of the present, recruiting an audience to give laughing validity to the transformation’ (Billig, [5] , p. 233). Laughter seems to also have a subversive function (Billig, [5] ), used to reverse a powerful social asymmetry (i.e. between a dominant Greek and a minority African immigrant) or to defy a particular social image of being powerless and weak (Matsumoto, [29] ). Laughter also seems to present itself when there is incongruity, namely when the events breach a socially expected behaviour (as in the bus incident). Retrospectively, laughter assists the restoration of normative behaviour (Billig, [5] ).

Following the discussion above, Lysette added:

‘And one thing that we are trying to do for our own part as Africans, we want to integrate ourselves into the society. That's why we are organizing, little by little, we will be showing them our culture, we will be showing them who we are’.

Lysette's negotiation of stigma leads her to talk about their plan of action. Her meaning‐making is enacting: it provides hope for the future by showing ways for restoring justice: correct their representation in the Greek society and become recognized for their culture.

Thus, Alberto discusses perspectives linked to his status as a foreigner, presenting him as an inferior, discredited citizen and Lysette, Saida and Aisha discuss dehumanizing racial perspectives linked to their ethnic membership. The analysis shows that the meaning of stigma is socially situated and the meaning efforts to deal with it are defined by social representations linked to different aspects of the identity of participants. In striving to protect themselves from stigma, participants construct self‐positions and meanings on which to support their identities in the Greek context (e.g. being equal or deserving respect), and they also plan ways of restoring justice and challenging stigma with the collaboration others.

I will now turn to the analysis of dealing with the perspective of their communities of origin.

Participants’ encounters with their home countries happened through visits to their home countries, telephone calls, letters or internet communication and receiving visitors. In their talk about the ways they were perceived by their home communities, I identified five themes. First, they thought they were perceived as unsuccessful and stagnant and their immigration as worthless. Second, they thought they were seen as strangers, who lost familiarity with routines and practices and third, they were thought to live a painless, better quality life in a world of opportunities. Fourth, they were seen as courageous for living abroad and fifth, they were expected to have achieved wealth and education abroad. One example is discussed referring to the first theme.

The following quotation comes from a focus group discussion with Elvira, 52 years old from Santo Domingo, Celia, 54 years old and Maria, 52 years old, both from Colombia. They all came to Greece to live with their Greek husbands. I used quotes from other participants talking about the way they thought they were seen by their home communities to trigger the conversation. Elvira said that her family thinks she is ‘stuck’ and haven't achieved anything in Greece. Maria contrasted those views by saying that her family thinks she is a better state in Greece than she would be in Colombia. Celia then added:

Celia: also, they [her family] ask me ‘why do you want to stay there? Why? Here [in Colombia] you have your house, you have your circle of friends, and it is different’ {IK: hmm} and my response was, because what I have has been my own effort

Elvira: hmm, exactly

Celia: this is what counts for me (pause) ‘ah, you always with your things’ {IK: yes} always with your things’

The conversation continued with Elvira discussing how her mother thought Elvira lost her willpower and didn't take care of herself in Greece. I asked Celia what she meant when saying that things were her own effort. She mentioned feeling proud for having achieved things by working hard with her husband and contrasted her life to her brother's carefree luxurious life. Elvira disagreed saying she felt lonely in Greece and not so proud comparing her life to her sister's. Celia then added:

Celia: my brother also said, if you have stayed you would be able to finish your degree, you would be a professional like us.

Maria: but this was your fate at the end

Celia: and I said, that (pause) {M: you have your family} and that also I wrote poetry and (inaudible) I did these things.

Elvira: now, what I want to know is why don’t we decide to do a revolution? {…} why are we tied up like this, and we stay like this?

In the passage above, three perspectives of Celia in the eyes of her family appear: as vainly living in Greece, being socially isolated and not having succeeded in life. Celia responds by compensating: she presents the perspectives as incomplete; they need to be supplemented by further information. While it might be true that she is socially isolated, she emphasizes her ability to stand in her own feet, without the help of others. Emphasizing independence and responsibility has been regarded as a strategy of immigrants aiming at increasing self‐worth when facing identity threat (Timotijevic & Breakwell, [44] ). Celia may not have succeeded according to their criteria but she wrote poetry, a hobby of hers that, as she said, she wouldn't have taken up had she stayed in Colombia (Kadianaki, [25] ). Thus, Celia positions herself as a mother and a poet, and by this, she emphasizes roles that are more positively evaluated (Aveling et al., [3] ) in the face of stigma. Maria facilitates Celia's effort to deal with the unfavourable representation by mentioning Celia's achievement of making a family and she also brings in fate: the way Celia's life progressed is out of her control, it is a matter of fate. The implication of this is that any negative perceptions about her life shouldn't be taken personally: it wasn't her fault that things transpired as they did.

This phrase works by denying accountability. While women accept that the perspective holds some truth, they also present themselves as not responsible for its existence, attributing the locus of control to fate. Attributing responsibility to external factors (i.e. war) or denying responsibility for one's status (i.e. by blaming society) is a strategy of the stigmatized noted also elsewhere (Aveling et al., [3] ; Timotijevic & Breakwell, [44] ). Other essentialized categories, such as genetics or nature, can be used for the same purpose (Wagner, Holtz & Kashima, [48] ).

Elvira's rhetorical question seems to also work towards denying accountability. In expressing her need for changing their situation, she directs the question to others and thus she possibly prevents the question from being directed at her. The discussion then moved on to organizations that help migrants in Greece.

Celia talked about stigma being related to her social life and her professional identity. From interviews and group discussions, it appeared that these perspectives were linked to a representation of the world abroad as a world of opportunities held by participants themselves prior to immigration and by their communities of origin. For some participants, this led to an unfavourable reconstruction of their identity: Elvira, during our interview described herself as ‘failed’ and ‘ridiculous’ in the eyes of her family. Celia's meaning‐making efforts led her construct a particular representation of herself as being an independent, hardworking woman, a self‐achiever. This struggle has also led her to write poetry, which strongly positioned her as a poet as it appeared in our private discussions (Kadianaki, [25] ).

In her study of race as a stigma, Howarth ([24] , p. 449) argued that: ‘there has been an over‐emphasis on the perceptions of the stigmatizing or on the psychological damage of stigma and not enough attention given to the social psychological conditions for challenging stigma from insiders’ perspectives’. Although the focus of this article remains at an individual level and does not address specifically the socio‐structural conditions of stigma (Parker & Aggleton, [38] ), the particular analytical angle taken here, I suggest, provides a way to study the social‐psychological conditions from an insider's perspective, or what I would call ‘the social within’. By viewing identity as constituted in dialogue with others and analyzing the discourse dialogically, I have studied social meanings that set the conditions for both experiencing and challenging stigma.

First, the analysis highlighted the ways that social meanings, in the form of perspectives of social others and social representations, permeate the intra‐subjective realm of the individual. These are the social‐psychological conditions that stigmatize in the Greek context. The dialogical analysis presented thus allows for a socially contextualized way of understanding the experience of stigma, from an insider's perspective: what participants interpret as stigmatizing in their encounters with Greek and origin communities and in relation to which identity they feel stigmatized. Participants mentioned being considered inferior and powerless on the basis of a foreign identity, unsuccessful and isolated on the basis of an emigrant identity, uncivilized and polluted in relation to a racial identity. Responding thus to limitations of existing literature, a meaning‐making approach allows for examination of the subjective, contextualized aspects of stigma.

Second, analysis demonstrated those meanings that enable individuals to challenge stigma. I exemplified the creativity and agency of participants in using social meanings as semantic tools to protect self and challenge stigma. Arguments regarding ‘lawfulness’ and ‘equality’ were put forward to challenge the stigma of inferiority and powerlessness, the category of the ‘human being’ was used to denote inclusion of Greeks and foreigners into a common superordinate category, and that of a ‘crazy’ person allowed African women to discredit the dehumanizing view of Greeks. ‘Fate’ was another concept that allowed Latin–American women to locate control of their perceived unsuccessful lives outside their responsibility.

These are social meanings that afford individuals with the possibilities for challenging stigma. I suggest that research focuses on further understanding of what is it in these semantic contents and the ways that they are used that enable people to challenge stigmatization. It seems for example that a representation of an essentially similar human nature beyond national divisions is a way to de‐essentialize representations of national belonging (Wagner et al., [48] ) that pose a strong division between Greeks and immigrants. Categorizing somebody as ‘crazy’ functions by dismissing their dehumanizing perspective on the basis of being a mentally instable, absurd idea. I argue that in today's multi‐cultural societies, it is essential to study the content and the function of social representation related to those of nationality, ethnicity, foreigness, immigration that both immigrants and locals use. These are not simply representations; they are social regulators (Raudsepp & Wagner, [40] ) with implications on how people see themselves, as I have shown here, but also to the ways they relate to each other and to the ways they sustain or challenge the structural conditions related to stigmatization.

Finally, I have argued that a meaning‐making approach enables understanding of the transformative effects of stigma. It opens up questions of how individuals come to see themselves and the world following their encounter with stigma and regarding social changes: what kinds of semantic tools do they use to promote alternative ways of being and acting in the world and enabling social change. The strategies participants employed were used at the microgenetic level of conversation but they evoked changes in other levels of their experience: They helped them to forge new self‐representations (ontogenetic changes): Alberto saw himself as a proud and equal human being and Celia as an independent, self‐achiever hardworking woman. Lysette, in discussing stigma, was mobilized to design pathways of action that would restore justice and challenge deep‐seated, old‐fashioned perceptions of Africans in Greece (sociogenetic changes). Thus, research that studies coping with stigma should move beyond understandings of cognitive, behavioural or affective stress regulation, estimating positive or negative outcomes for self‐evaluation. It should study active process of change and how these are enabled and constrained by social meanings.

I am thankful to Alex Gillespie, Kesi Mahendran, Flora Cornish and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper.