Migration and meaning: an exploration of elite refugee athletes’ transitions into the Canadian sports system

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to explore 14 elite refugee athletes’ experiences of transitioning to the Canadian sports system and to examine the social contexts that enabled and constrained meaning, a psychological mechanism that facilitates adaptive cultural transitions. Framed within critical realism, arts-based conversational interviews were undertaken with the elite refugee athletes. Through a reflexive thematic analysis and Viktor Frankl’s theory of meaning, four themes (feelings of hope and empowerment, environmental challenges and adaptations, despair, and social support) were created to trace the fluctuations of meaning throughout the refugee athletes’ transitions into their new sports systems. The results are presented through a single polyphonic vignette to highlight and contrast the how interacting contextual factors of time within a new sport system, support, and structure of the receiving sport system, enabled athletes to find meaning within their experiences. The manuscript provides an initial immersion into elite refugee athletes’ experiences which may be used by sports psychology practitioners (SPPs) to inform meaning-based interventions that encourages such athletes to connect with values present in their lives.