Cultural identity thus plays a major role in settling down in a new setting. Berry (2007) defines cultural identity as a sense of attachment or commitment to a cultural group which has both cultural and psychological components. Berry (2007) observes that thus it is crucial that, in a cultural group, negative and positive experiences, attachment patterns, gender roles, nutrition and genetic vulnerability will play a role. Perception of the trauma, quality of life and appraisal of the stress will be some of the factors that are likely to influence the traumascape. At collective level, political factors, governance and power, economic factors including social inequalities and group support will affect responses to trauma. Furthermore, schemes held up by the community on trauma, suffering and religious and political fanaticism and conviction and access to care and reconciliation will also play a role in managing and dealing with stress.

Berry and Anniss (1974) put forward a model suggesting that cultural groups and individuals who have high psychological differentiation are less likely to show acculturative stress. They describe high psychological differentiation as behaviour in the perceptual, cognitive, social and affective domains (as based on Witkin et al. 1962 and Witkin 1967). The ecological links are related to primary needs in specific physical environments including economic possibilities (Berry and Annis 1974). Thus, it is inevitable that pre-migration experiences may well affect post-migration adjustment and acculturative stress (see below), especially if these are affected by trauma. Smith (1985) proposes that individuals from ethnic minorities may feel victimised and may thus be exposed to stress. Another possibility is that they may feel vulnerable or see the process of discrimination and stress as additive burden – both acute and chronic. These hypotheses also provide a suitable framework for intervention (see below).

De Jong (2007) highlights that cultural factors influence both problem-focused and emotion-focused coping. In trauma, grief is an important response, but cultural variations will play a major role in managing grief and trauma. The presentation, help-seeking and health care systems themselves are strongly influenced by cultural factors. Internal conflict within the individuals and communities and external conflict have to be taken into account while planning interventions dealing with trauma and grief. Depending upon the individual resilience, social support, material resources and other factors may need to be explored.

Traumascape, as what De Jong (2007) argues, means the systemic dynamics of local and international representations and actions around extreme stress. It is based on the notions of a framework used for examining the ‘new’ cultural economy as a complex model. Traumascape, according to Tumarkin (2005), is a location of tragedies and trauma. De Jong (2007) emphasises that in a post-war or post-disaster setting, stakeholders will have divergent perceptions of the traumascape, which may lead to identifying the needs and concerns of the local population. However, it is quite possible that many local models may need to be taken into account.

De Jong (2007) proposes an ecological-cultural-historical model for extreme stress. When looking at the ecology and history, De Jong (2007) suggests that these are at individual and collectivist levels. These at individual level indicate that the life history of an individual is embedded in the traumascape of a collective history in a specific era. Both the individual and the collective histories play a role in understanding the experience related to trauma. These histories have a reciprocal role to play. At individual level, coping strategies, family support and previous experiences exist, and the individual has a sense of belonging. Dealing across cultures or with cultures which may not be well known to the individual, other strategies may need to be employed. These include the processes of assimilation, acculturation or deculturation. A major part of assimilation process is to take into account how individuals see their inner ‘self’. In egocentric individuals, it may be easier to settle down in new cultures which are egocentric. They tend to move more easily between cultures and form friends easily. Sociocentric individuals, on migrating to egocentric cultures, may find it difficult to settle down if they are not surrounded by individuals from their own culture – a model described as cultural congruity (see Bhugra 2005).

Thus, a very complex picture starts to emerge about the individual, their migration experience and their post-migration experience, especially in the context of acculturation or assimilation in the face of their own stressors and social support.

Berry (1992, 2007) suggests that there are three ways of conceptualising outcomes of acculturation. The first conception is that of behavioural shifts – changes which are generally not difficult and which include dress, food and language. This has what Berry (2007) describes as culture shedding, culture learning and culture conflict. However, in these days of social media and internationalisation of the media, some culture learning and culture shedding may already take place before the individual has migrated. Adjustment to the newer culture and its values may or may not be straightforward. Berry (1970, 2007) and Berry et al. (1987) describe acculturative stress, when the individual faces change events in their lives that challenge their cultural understanding and values on how to live (in this case, survive). Acculturative stress put simply is the stress faced by the individual in a different culture in managing adjustment and is akin to stress reaction. In a previous paper, Berry and Annis (1974) had suggested that acculturative stress that cultural groups undergoing social and cultural change experienced will experience a certain amount of psychological discomfort. They argue that acculturative stress is related to various psychological variables. Furthermore, it can be argued that an unaware feeling of the new culture (which may be called cultural deficiency) may well contribute both to culture shock and acculturative stress. Berry (2007) prefers the term ‘acculturative stress’ rather than ‘culture shock’, though it can be argued that the latter may reflect a sudden, acute and perhaps more disruptive response. Each of these stress experiences can be managed by strategies which individuals may adapt to in other circumstances. Taking cognisance of what they are experiencing and what they are feeling is an important way of managing what is going on.