The continuing bonds of US expatriates living in Egypt Hani M. Henry *, Nayla Hamdi, Gina Shedid The American University in Cairo, Egypt 1. Introduction Permanent departure from home country may be accompanied by experiences of loss and mourning. This study is based on earlier studies (Henry, Stiles, & Biran, 2005; Henry et al., 2009) that used the continuing bonds model of mourning (Klass, 1989; Silverman & Klass, 1996) to describe the acculturation of immigrants to the US and Europe. In this study, we linked data derived from interviews with US expatriates in Egypt to this model of mourning. Specifically, we used the perspective of loss and mourning to describe the acculturation process of these individuals. This study used the clinical perspective of loss and mourning to describe an independent dimension that underlies acculturation as proposed by Sam (2006), namely the degree to which immigrants maintain their cultural heritage and identity. As applied to this study, the continuing bonds model of mourning suggests that expatriates keep inner mental representations of important aspects of their US culture such as cultural identity, families, friends, language, values, and traditions while adapting to their host country. These mental representations are vivid and continue to inspire and provide these individuals with solace (Klass, 1989). The lost culture is not ignored or divested of its emotional attachment; instead, it continues to influence the mourner’s experiences. This study use the multiple case studies approach (Lincoln & Guba, 1990; Stake, 1995), which justifies theories not by separately testing each theoretical derivation against observations of a particular variable in many cases but rather by comparing theoretical accounts with many observed details in particular cases (Brinegar, Salvi, Stiles, & Greenberg, 2006; Campbell, 1979). Our goal was not to confirm or disconfirm the continuing bonds model of mourning. Rather, we used this International Journal of Intercultural Relations 33 (2009) 1–10 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Accepted 27 January 2009 Keywords: Culture US expatriates Loss Mourning Continuing bonds Acculturation Case studies Privilege Immigration ABSTRACT This study used the continuing bonds model, which describes the process of loss and mourning, to build a theory about the acculturation process of US expatriates. We examined six case studies of US expatriates permanently residing and working in Egypt. Participants were interviewed about the loss of their US culture and their cultural experiences in Egypt. All participants acknowledged losing aspects of their US culture, and kept continuing bonds with it, but these bonds took different forms depending on the way they responded to their loss and the way they negotiated the influences of both host and native cultures. We present three of these case studies in this paper due to space limitations. One participant believed that his continuing bonds might be imagined or outdated and used religion to avoid the influences of both US and Egyptian cultures in his life. Another participant used his continuing bonds to inspire marginalized Egyptians and refugees. The third participant used his continuing bonds to isolate himself from the Egyptian culture and lead an exclusive American lifestyle. External factors such as political climate of host country, family members, privilege, circumstances of coming to Egypt, and age influenced the mourning process. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: The American University in Cairo, 113 Kasr El Aini Street, P.O. Box 2511, Cairo 11551, Egypt. Tel.: +20 12 6272615. E-mail address: hhenry@aucegypt.edu (H.M. Henry). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Intercultural Relations journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijintrel 0147-1767/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijintrel.2009.01.003