Short overview: This qualitative study examines the manifestation of microaggressions towards foreign-born immigrant women in Portugal. Data were collected via ten semi-structured focus groups with 52 participants in total. Findings are presented considering well-established social psychological theories, aiming to create a bridge between separate – but often overlapping – approaches to subtle discrimination. Background: Over the years, blatant expressions of discrimination have been replaced by more subtle ones, due to the development of anti-prejudice norms. As such, framework of microaggressions was proposed to examine subtle and ambiguous indignities, insults, and invalidations that are experienced by members of socially disadvantaged groups in their everyday lives (Sue, 2010). In the last two decades, the study of microaggressions has received increasing attention in the U.S-American context, where they have been widely examined among different populations, such as ethnic minority groups and women, and where they have been found to have a detrimental effect on minority´s mental health and psychological outcomes. Yet, microaggressions have received much less attention in the European context, where little is known about their manifestation towards intersectional populations, such as immigrant women. Moreover, microaggressions have been mainly studied in counselling and clinical psychology, while they have received some criticisms in other psychological fields, such as social psychology (Lilienfeld, 2017). Methods: The present empirical study sought to adopt an exploratory qualitative design in order to understand how foreign-born immigrant women in Portugal experience microaggressions from an intracategorical intersectional perspective (McCall, 2005). Data were collected via ten semi-structured focus groups between February and March 2021 with a total of 52 immigrant women coming from Brazil, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and Mozambique (Mage = 34.23, SD = 10.25), which represent some of Portugal’s former colonies. Data analysis was conducted using a deductive-inductive thematic analysis approach. Findings: A total of 324 microaggressive incidents were coded into ten overarching themes. Microaggressions related to second-class citizenship, rejection and invisibility were the most experienced by participants (k = 92), followed by those related to erotization, sexual objectification, and assumptions of promiscuity (k = 50). Newly developed themes include microaggressions related to Portugal’s colonial history and beliefs, such as language discrimination (k = 43) as well as the “good colonizer” myth (k = 5). The findings, which provide a target’s perspective on perceived discrimination, are corroborated by well-established social psychological theories on prejudice. Implications: The present study contributes to the state-of-the-art by expanding the framework of microaggressions to a new population and societal context. To the best of our knowledge, no prior studies have examined the manifestation of microaggressions towards immigrant women in the European context, whose colonial history and immigration trends are very different from those of the U.S.-American context. These results can inform the development of culture-specific policies and practices tailored to this underprivileged population. Moreover, we present and discuss the advantages of integrating the microaggressions framework with a social psychological perspective. Future studies are invited to further expand the theoretical links proposed in this study.

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Microaggressions