Colonized Subjects Make Better Immigrants? the Case of Iranian Students and Their Integration Strategies in Western Europe

During the past decade, Iranian students have formed a major wave of immigrants to European countries. A systematic study of their immigration situation, however, seems absent in the academic literature. In this paper, based on fieldwork and interviews conducted in 2013, we are examining Iranian students’ emigration decisions and their chosen integration strategies into their new host societies, i.e. Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden by analyzing their historical colonial mentalities through the concept of the ‘colonial mentality’. Our findings suggest that religio-cultural performances and language skills are the main strategies that Iranian students employ to associate themselves with Westerners before and after emigration. We conclude that the processes of immigration and integration begin long before emigration and the specific historico-political background of Iranian students plays an important role in these processes.