When Help Hurts: Moral Disengagement and the Myth of the Supportive Migrant Network

This study aimed to uncover how harm is normalised in migrant communities using rationalisations, power imbalances, and emotional distancing. This research counters the dominant discourse that migrant communities are cohesive, altruistic, and protective by critically analysing the psychological and moral mechanisms of intra-community harm. Migration scholarship has long extolled the contribution of migrant networks to settlement, employment, and integration. Using a qualitative ethnographic approach, data were gathered using participant observation and semi-structured interviews with twelve purposively sampled migrants. The aim of applying a primary qualitative study was to capture a detailed, first-hand understanding of participants’ lived experiences and social relations. It permitted the in-depth examination of how people rationalise and navigate intra-community harm in the actual contexts of their lives. Thematic analysis yielded four significant findings: one, injustices in the community are frequently met with silence and inaction due to fear and moral disengagement; two, assistance is extraordinarily situational and gendered, often falling disproportionately on women or being mediated by institutions; three, internal exploitation—like rent gouging and manipulation of aid—is justified through community narratives; and four, people increasingly feel isolation, emotional burnout, and only symbolic unity at communal events. The research suggests that, although migrant networks can offer critical resources, they are not invulnerable to internal hierarchies and moral collapses. To create effectively inclusive and nurturing settings, future interventions must account for more than mere structural barriers, intra-group processes, and psychological rationalisations allowing intra-community injury.