Formation of Hatred Emotions Toward Afghan Refugees in Iran: A Grounded Theory Study

Most studies on refugee-host relations focus on attitudes toward refugees based on ethnic and religious differences. In the current research, we focus on how negative attitudes toward refugees are formed in a non-Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic context between followers of the same faith. Specifically, we explore the social processes in work to build negative emotions against Afghan refugees in a societal context, Iran, that bears considerable cultural and historical similarities to Afghan society in comparison to the other nations as the host. Adopting the grounded theory approach, 22 in-depth interviews were carried out with Iranians who expressed highly negative emotions toward Afghans in a city, Shiraz, which is home to a large Afghan community. Beyond identifying the process underlying negative emotions, that is, hate, our findings show Afghanophobia as the core reversible social process. Accordingly, despite the counterprocesses, Afghanophobia resists positive changes, particularly during antagonistic intergroup encounters