Final Year Project

Project Title

Intergenerational Trauma within South Asian Women

Description

My thesis project explores intergenerational trauma and emotional inheritance within South Asian mother–daughter relationships. While most research on intergenerational trauma focuses on large-scale historical events, this study examines how trauma is transmitted through everyday family dynamics, silence, and emotional expectations. Using qualitative semi-structured interviews with Pakistani daughters, the research investigates how daughters come to carry their mothers’ emotional burdens and how gendered expectations shape emotional labor within families. The findings show that daughters often become emotional caretakers, internalizing patterns of patience, silence, and self-sacrifice. At the same time, many participants demonstrate increasing awareness of these inherited patterns and express a desire to break cycles of silence through self-reflection, therapy, faith, and boundary-setting, highlighting the possibility of healing and generational change.