Negotiating cultural identity and generational trauma: a narrative analysis of mental health in second-generation British South Asian women

Background: South Asian women in the UK navigate mental health within intersecting contexts of colonial histories, migration, racialisation and gendered expectations, often negotiating dual cultural identities. Existing literature relies on prevalence-based or culturally reductive accounts, offering limited insight into the contexts shaping distress, particularly for second-generation women. Narrative and postcolonial perspectives highlight the importance of examining these layered experiences. Aim: This study aimed to explore how British South Asian women narrate and make sense of their mental health and wellbeing, with attention to the impact of cultural identity and intergenerational narratives. Methodology: A qualitative design was employed through semi-structured interviews with 18 second-generation British South Asian women. Accounts were analysed using narrative analysis to explore how identity, experience and meaning were constructed across personal, familial and sociocultural contexts. A postcolonial feminist lens informed the analysis. Findings: Participants positioned identity as an ongoing negotiation across cultural and generational contexts. Stories were organised around recurring narrative patterns, including inherited silence as survival, women as emotional containers and the negotiation of belonging. Intergenerational histories were present through fragments and implicit expectations rather than explicit accounts. Participants described themselves as both inheritors and re-authors of these narratives, engaging in processes of reinterpretation and change. Distress was understood as embedded within relational and historical contexts rather than individual pathology. Discussion: Findings highlight the limitations of individualised models of mental health. Silence, endurance and emotional restraint are reframed as survival strategies rather than deficits. Participants’ accounts reflect an emerging generational shift towards greater psychological reflexivity, while tensions related to honour, belonging and cultural continuity remain. Implications: The study underscores the need for culturally responsive approaches that recognise intergenerational histories, relational contexts and culturally situated expressions of distress. Centring South Asian women’s narratives is essential for developing more nuanced understandings of mental health and informing clinical practice.