Rethinking Mistrust: Elements Toward a Situated Theory on Immigrant Workers

ABSTRACT

This article explores mistrust as a socially situated phenomenon by using the care trajectories of injured immigrant workers in Québec as a conceptual entry point. Rather than focusing on the individual characteristics of trusters, it examines how mistrust emerges from a subjective evaluation of environments perceived as threatening. Drawing on a body of work on mistrust and trust, the article proposes a two‐tiered model distinguishing between underlying mistrust, rooted in generalized social vulnerability, and directed distrust, focused on specific actors. The study identifies four key factors shaping perceptions of environmental threat: precariousness, lack of support, diminished recognition, and limited agency. Ethnographic cases highlight how these factors interact to produce mistrust, and how their presence or absence modulates its expression. The article also incorporates a distinction between mistrust and distrust to refine conceptual clarity. Though grounded in a specific empirical context—immigrant workers navigating Quebec's work injury rehabilitation system—the model is offered as a more generalizable analytical tool. By treating mistrust not as a deficit or pathology but as a rational, context‐responsive orientation, this article contributes to the development of a situated theory of mistrust applicable across diverse social fields.

1. Introduction

Mistrust occupies a central place in social life, yet it has not been theorized to the same extent as trust (D'Cruz ²⁰²⁰; Schehr ²⁰¹⁶). While trust has been extensively studied as a key component of social cohesion (Marja et al. 2020; Uslaner ²⁰¹⁰), institutional performance (Letki 2006), and social capital (Cook 2005; Li et al. ²⁰⁰⁵), mistrust is often treated in a derivative manner, as a mere absence or deficit of trust (Hawley 2014). However, a growing body of work argues that mistrust should be understood as a phenomenon in its own right, structured by distinct cognitive and practical logics (Cook and Santana 2020; Desjeux et al. ¹⁹⁹⁸; Hermesh et al. ²⁰²⁰; Reimann et al. ²⁰¹⁷). Although the prevailing literature commonly perceives trust as a broad attitude or a conscious assessment of an individual, it views mistrust more as a rational response rooted in suspicion and concern (Harrison McKnight and Chervany ²⁰⁰¹). Rather than simply reflecting a lack of positive expectations, mistrust involves an anticipation of potential harm and the possibility that others may be ill‐intentioned (Cook and Santana 2020; Frederiksen ²⁰¹²; Schehr ²⁰¹⁶).

Drawing on an extensive body of work on mistrust among immigrants in health‐care settings (Jaiswal 2019; Ní Raghallaigh ²⁰¹⁴; Renzaho et al. ²⁰¹³), as well as research on mistrust among immigrant workers (Arsenault 2026), we propose a definition of mistrust comprising three core components (Arsenault and Côté 2025): it shapes the interpretation of events, involves expectations of others’ potentially ill intentions, and is rooted in past experiences. Thus, mistrust can be understood as a filter of variable intensity, shaped by past experiences—whether personally lived, collectively shared, or transmitted through narratives—that influences how individuals interpret events and predisposes them to anticipate the intentions of others.

Even if mistrust should be examined in its own right, the broader literature on trust provides important conceptual tools for exploring its dynamics. Within this body of work, the perspective of Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu 1984; Bourdieu et al. ¹⁹⁹¹; Frederiksen ²⁰¹²) is particularly instructive. Trust can be understood as an embodied disposition shaped by social trajectories and the distribution of capital. Experiences of inclusion and exclusion, material conditions of existence, and interactions with institutions all contribute to structuring individuals’ expectations toward the social world. In this sense, orientations toward trust or mistrust are not only individually held attitudes but are also grounded in the structural conditions that shape perceived risks and interests.

The importance of social positioning is reflected in the various forms of trust that have been studied. Distinctions between particularized and generalized trust (Schilke et al. 2021), between trust in “people in general” and trust in specific populations such as Canadians (Bilodeau and White 2016), as well as other forms such as institutional trust (Cook and Santana 2020), all point to the fact that trust and mistrust operate at different analytical scales and are highly context‐dependent. These variations highlight the diversity and fluidity of social configurations, in which individuals do not engage on equal footing across actors and contexts, but instead navigate relationships shaped by shifting asymmetries of power and resources.

Despite these advances, empirical research on mistrust remains largely dominated by quantitative approaches aimed at identifying its social determinants, often through survey‐based measures of generalized attitudes. While these approaches reveal important correlations—for example, between socioeconomic status, education, and levels of trust or mistrust—they provide limited insight into the processes through which specific experiences are transformed into mistrust.

Qualitative approaches offer a valuable complement in this regard. Schehr's work (2016) provides a nuanced account of the cognitive and emotional processes underlying the construction of mistrust, emphasizing the role of ordinary experiences and their accumulation. Similarly, Le Courant's research (2016) highlights how, in contexts of uncertainty and extreme vulnerability, individuals develop heightened attention to detail, continuously interpret ambiguous signals, and struggle to distinguish between the mundane and the alarming. These studies underscore the processual and situated nature of mistrust, yet they leave unresolved a central question: why do certain events, and not others, lead to the emergence of mistrust?

This question is particularly relevant in the context of migration, which often entails profound changes in individuals’ environments (institutional, social, economic, and political), reshaping the power relations in which they are embedded and exposing them to new forms of uncertainty and vulnerability. These transformations may substantially shape how migrants evaluate their surroundings and develop trust or mistrust toward others and institutions, making trust a key dimension of their social inclusion. Research has examined, for example, the relationship between immigrants’ trust and their expectations of the host society (Röder and Mühlau 2012), the impact of discrimination and social support on mistrust, immigrant trust and belonging (Tyrberg 2024), and the role of migrants’ economic conditions in shaping their trust (Ziller and Heizmann 2020). Generalized trust, in particular, has been shown to facilitate social interactions, civic participation, and institutional engagement, thereby playing a structuring role in trajectories of inclusion (Bilodeau and White 2016). More broadly, trust appears to be a crucial lens through which to understand contemporary globalized societies.

Yet, levels of trust among immigrants are neither homogeneous nor stable. Depending on the object and scale of trust, they vary according to pre‐ and post‐migration factors, including prior experiences, socioeconomic conditions, and interactions with host‐country institutions. For instance, first‐generation immigrants often display higher levels of institutional trust than native‐born individuals, a pattern that tends to decline over time with increased exposure to institutional practices (Röder and Mühlau 2011). Schilke et al. (2021) reinforce the idea of the role of lived experiences in shaping orientations toward distrust, particularly in contexts marked by uncertainty or limited access to reliable information. In such situations, individuals tend to draw on accumulated experiences in comparable contexts to interpret their environment and guide their expectations and behaviors. Although these findings are not specific to immigrants, they offer important analytical insights for understanding how, over time, repeated interactions with host‐country institutions may contribute to reshaping initial dispositions, as individuals progressively reassess institutional reliability and potential risk based on their lived experiences.

In the context of migrant work in Canada, and particularly in Quebec, these questions are especially salient. Migrant workers do not constitute a homogeneous group, and a first important distinction concerns immigration status. Broadly, migrants may hold permanent or temporary status, while others, such as refugee claimants or undocumented migrants, occupy different legal positions. These statuses are governed primarily through federal immigration law, but intersect with areas of provincial jurisdiction, including healthcare, employment standards, and occupational health and safety. They therefore confer different sets of rights and forms of security, while also shaping migrants’ capacity to exercise those rights in practice (Bélanger et al. 2023; Goldring and Landolt ²⁰¹³).

In Quebec, for example, permanent residents are generally eligible for provincial health insurance, whereas eligibility among temporary residents varies according to their situation and the conditions and duration of their authorization to stay or work. Temporary foreign workers admitted through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program may generally become eligible for Quebec health insurance when their work permit exceeds 6 months, while specific provisions apply to seasonal agricultural workers (Gouvernement du Québec ²⁰²⁵). At the same time, employment standards and occupational health and safety protections are not simply determined by immigration status: temporary foreign workers are subject to Quebec labor protections and may file complaints with the CNESST (Gouvernement du Québec ²⁰²⁶). Formal entitlement, however, does not necessarily translate into effective access. Migrants who are legally entitled to healthcare, compensation, or labor protections may still encounter linguistic barriers, limited knowledge of institutional systems, administrative complexity, or fear of adverse consequences that constrain their ability to exercise these rights (Hanley et al. 2014; Premji ²⁰¹⁴).

These broad legal categories also encompass markedly different migratory trajectories. Among permanent residents, for example, admission may occur through economic immigration, family reunification, refugee or humanitarian pathways, or following a period of temporary residence. These pathways are associated with different socioeconomic profiles, expectations, resources, and prior experiences with Canadian institutions (Bélanger et al. 2023; IRCC ²⁰²⁴). Temporary residents are similarly heterogeneous, including international students, asylum claimants, and workers holding different types of work authorization. Of particular relevance are workers whose permits are employer‐specific. Unlike holders of open work permits, they are authorized to work under the conditions specified on their permit, including for a designated employer (Gouvernement du Canada ²⁰²⁶). This institutional arrangement can heighten workers’ dependence on their employer and may discourage the reporting of unsafe working conditions, occupational injuries, or labor rights violations (Faraday 2012; Fleury et al. ²⁰¹⁸). Immigration status and the conditions attached to it thus constitute one dimension of the unequal distribution of resources and room for maneuver through which migrants encounter healthcare, employment, and occupational health institutions.

This article examines mistrust through a qualitative approach aimed at understanding how concrete experiences come to be interpreted as grounds for mistrust. Its primary objective is to propose a theoretical framework for understanding how mistrust is constructed. Drawing on a study of immigrant workers who had experienced occupational injuries (Arsenault 2026; Arsenault et al. ²⁰²⁴), the framework is developed from patterns identified across the full dataset. Three illustrative cases are then presented to show how the framework can be used to interpret different configurations of mistrust and distrust. They show how social position, prior experiences, available resources, and institutional dependence shape the interpretation of events and the emergence of mistrust. By grounding this broader theoretical reflection in a specific empirical context, the article also sheds light on the particular experiences of immigrant workers in settings marked by structural asymmetries and institutional dependence.

2. Theoretical Inspirations for a Processual Model of Mistrust

The analytical framework developed in this article draws on three main strands of literature that, taken together, offer complementary yet incomplete perspectives on mistrust: (1) Schehr's (2016) and Desjeux et al. (1998) processual analysis of its emergence and situated nature; (2) Griffith et al.’s (2021) distinctions between generalized mistrust and more focused distrust; and (3) Frederiksen (2012), drawing on Bourdieu's (1984, 1991) dispositional approach, linking (mis)trust to social position.

First, Schehr's (2016) work offers a processual understanding of mistrust by emphasizing how it emerges through the accumulation of lived experiences and the gradual learning to anticipate potential harm. In this perspective, mistrust develops as individuals interpret partial and often ambiguous information, drawing on past encounters to construct expectations about future interactions, particularly in contexts marked by uncertainty and vulnerability. Desjeux et al. (1998), in turn, conceptualizes the social construction of mistrust through the articulation of structural, situational, and actor‐level effects. This framework highlights how mistrust is shaped not only by broader systems of constraints that define objective risks, but also by the variability of situations and by the cognitive and interpretive processes through which individuals make sense of others and their environment. A key insight of these approaches lies in the central role of the environment. Mistrust emerges when individuals come to perceive their surroundings as threatening, a perception that is itself shaped by the interplay between known and unknown elements, direct experiences and uncertainty.

Second, this article draws on the distinction proposed by Griffith et al. (2021) between mistrust and distrust. The former can be understood as a generalized sense of suspicion or unease that does not necessarily identify a specific target, often rooted in historical or collective experiences. The latter, by contrast, involves a more focused and explicit questioning of the intentions of identifiable actors. Operationally, this distinction can be captured through three dimensions: whether mistrust is generalized or targeted, whether intentionality or malice is attributed, and whether behaviors are diffuse or focused. This differentiation allows for a more precise analysis of how mistrust shifts from a generalized orientation toward the world to a more specific and relational form, and vice versa.

Finally, this study engages with the work of Frederiksen (2012), which draws on a Bourdieusian framework (Bourdieu 1984; Bourdieu et al. ¹⁹⁹¹), offering dispositional approaches that link trust and mistrust to social position. In this perspective, trust is conceptualized as an embodied disposition, homologous to an individual's position within the social space, structured by the volume and composition of different forms of capital. Individuals with lower levels of economic, social, and cultural capital—often positioned at the margins of social relations—are more likely to develop orientations characterized by mistrust, reflecting both their experiences of exclusion and their limited control over their environment. Conversely, individuals with greater resources and more stable positions are more likely to develop dispositions associated with trust.

This approach offers important insights into the social distribution of mistrust, highlighting how it is patterned by structural inequalities and trajectories of inclusion and exclusion. However, it offers limited analytical tools for understanding how mistrust is concretely produced and transformed within situated interactions, especially in contexts marked by institutional complexity and power asymmetries. In particular, the mechanisms through which individuals come to interpret their environments as threatening—and how such evaluations shape their relationships with specific actors—remain underexplored. Addressing these limitations requires a more processual and context‐sensitive approach to mistrust, one that takes seriously the lived experiences through which it emerges.

To further address this limitation, Pierre Bourdieu offers a useful conceptual bridge by deepening the relationship between social position and lived experience through the notion of cognitive embodiment. For Bourdieu (1986), the cognitive structures through which individuals perceive and engage with the social world are themselves socially produced and internalized. Social divisions thus become principles of perception, whereby objective constraints are incorporated as a “sense of limits” that shapes expectations. From this perspective, mistrust is not simply a reflection of one's position in the social space, but the embodied outcome of repeated experiences of constraint and exclusion. This insight helps reconnect Frederiksen's focus on dispositions of individuals with Schehr's processual account by showing how differential exposure to structural conditions becomes translated into learned orientations toward others as potentially harmful. It is from this perspective that the present study examines how certain individuals come to perceive their environment as threatening, in this case, injured immigrant workers.

3. Materials and Methods

Our analysis of mistrust focuses on work rehabilitation for immigrants in Quebec, a complex process involving medical, psychological, social, and occupational dimensions. It includes multiple stakeholders: the injured worker, their family, colleagues, employer, union representatives (if applicable), and various healthcare providers. Quebec's state plays a crucial role in occupational health and safety, with the Loi sur la santé et la sécurité au travail (LSST) et la Loi sur les accidents du travail et les maladies professionnelles (LATMP)¹ outlining workers' rights to medical care, wage replacement, rehabilitation, and pre‐injury job return‐to‐work.

According to the Québec Workers’ Compensation administrative database, most workplace injuries resolve quickly (91%); the remaining 9% may require up to 588 days of rehabilitation, influenced by various factors. The Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CNESST) manages workplace accidents, coordinating workers, employers, physicians, health professionals, and staff to support a successful return to work. The process begins with reporting the accident, consulting a physician, and assessing eligibility for benefits. A rehabilitation plan, developed with a rehabilitation consultant, may include care, training, workstation adaptations, or job repositioning, with support from the employer. Legal and administrative procedures exist for contesting medical assessments or CNESST decisions.

The concept of mistrust was analyzed using data from two research projects on immigrant workers with occupational injuries. The first project focused on the construction of the therapeutic alliance in rehabilitation, while the second explored the life course of injured immigrant workers. A total of 21 participants met the inclusion criteria: they had immigrated to Canada, suffered an occupational injury compensated by the CNESST and required an interdisciplinary approach for their return to work. The first study involved participant observation and semi‐structured interviews with seven participants. The researchers observed the rehabilitation process over an 8‐week period (cumulating more than 400 h of observation), documenting clinical interventions, decision‐making and interpersonal dynamics in a logbook. In addition, semi‐structured interviews were conducted at the beginning and end of the rehabilitation program to understand workers’ experiences. For the second study, 14 participants underwent an individual interview lasting around 150 min, using a hybrid approach between a life story and a semi‐structured interview. Topics covered included work history, accident circumstances, social and professional integration, and migration experiences.

This study was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical approval was obtained from the Comité d’éthique de la recherche en arts et sciences (CÉRAS) under protocol number CÉRAS‐2018‐19‐041‐D and the Comité d’éthique de la recherche—Société et culture (CERSC) under protocol number 2022–3787 – CERSC‐2022‐052‐D. All participants provided informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.

The conceptual framework offered in this article was therefore developed using an inductive approach involving iterative coding, categorization, and constant comparison between data and emerging theory (Charmaz 2015; Glaser and Strauss ¹⁹⁹⁵; Paillé ¹⁹⁹⁴). It was by combining a refined knowledge of the data and a process of analytical back‐and‐forth between observations, their interpretation and theory, followed by several stages of data coding and categorization that this conceptual framework emerged.

Crucially, these questions strongly guided the final stage of the analysis and the development of the conceptual framework proposed in this article: Why is a particular event significantly associated with mistrust for this participant? What meaning does this event hold for them? Why does another participant, despite having experienced similarly adverse events, not exhibit mistrust? Finally, what accounts for our own (the authors') sense of safety, as individuals embedded in the same society?

The conceptual framework presented in this article emerged from an iterative analysis of the full dataset through successive stages of coding, categorization, and constant comparison between the empirical material and emerging theoretical interpretations. The four dimensions of mistrust and the three dimensions of distrust therefore synthesize patterns observed across the broader sample. Once the framework had been developed, three cases were purposively selected because they provided particularly clear and contrasting illustrations of its different configurations. These cases are used to demonstrate the framework's analytical relevance in practice rather than as the sole empirical basis from which it was derived.

4. Results

The conceptual framework developed below builds on the body of literature reviewed above, which offers complementary insights into the nature and formation of mistrust. Schehr's (2016) and Desjeux et al. (1998) observation that mistrust emerges from an evaluation of a multiscalar environment perceived as threatening provides a central starting point for our analysis. At the same time, drawing on Frederiksen (2012) and Bourdieu (1986, 1991), mistrust can be understood as related to one's position within the social space, shaped by processes of inclusion and exclusion linked to the volume and composition of different forms of capital. Finally, Griffith et al.'s (2021) distinction between mistrust as a diffuse, generalized orientation and distrust as a more targeted and intentional stance toward specific actors allows for greater conceptual and analytical precision.

Bringing these perspectives together, we adopt a synthetic approach in which mistrust is conceptualized as emerging from a situated and subjective evaluation of one's environment. From this synthesis, three core assumptions guided the construction of our framework: (1) mistrust emerges when individuals perceive their environment as threatening; (2) this perception is shaped by their position within the social space and by the volume and composition of the capital available to them; and (3) diffuse mistrust toward the broader environment may give rise to distrust directed toward specific actors. This evaluative process is largely intuitive, often implicit, and varies significantly across individuals.

4.1. Mistrust

Based on our empirical analysis (Arsenault et al. 2024, 2026), four key factors were identified as central to how individuals’ social position and access to different forms of capital shape their assessment of threat in their environment: precariousness, support, perception of value in society, and sense of agency (Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

Figure 1.

Factors influencing the evaluation of the environment (which could lead to mistrust). [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 2.

Factors that may lead to distrust. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 3.

Adelina's evaluation of the environment (leading to mistrust).⁵ [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 4.

Adelina's evaluation of her doctor (not leading to distrust).⁶ [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 5.

Adelina's evaluation of her occupational therapist (leading to distrust). [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 6.

Abdel’s evaluation of his doctor (leading to distrust). [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 7.

Abdel’s evaluation of the environment (leading to mistrust). [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 8.

Diagram of Andres' evaluation of the environment (not leading to mistrust). [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 9.

Diagram of Andres’ evaluation of his doctor (leading to some distrust). [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 1 should be read from the four central dimensions toward the two possible outcomes. Each arrow indicates whether a given condition tends to orient the individual's evaluation toward threat (top of the figure) or security (bottom of the figure). The figure does not imply that any single dimension is sufficient to determine the outcome; rather, it illustrates the cumulative and interactive process through which individuals assess whether their environment is fundamentally secure or threatening.

4.1.1. Precariousness

First, the presence of precariousness refers to situations characterized by instability, insecurity, or vulnerability in key dimensions of life, particularly in social, financial, or material domains. It reflects a condition in which individuals or groups lack stable and reliable access to resources, rights, or opportunities, thereby increasing their exposure to risk and uncertainty (Allen and Ainley 2011; Butler ²⁰⁰⁴). In our study, all participants were living with some form of precariousness, particularly in terms of their financial situation or status. Many of the workers we met had subsistence jobs that paid very little, providing them with no safety net in the event of wage shortfalls or health concerns. Those with better jobs were at the beginning of their careers and paid accordingly. Some men had full financial responsibility for their families, while their wives worked little or not at all. Job insecurity was also observed, notably in the case of one participant who continued to work for several weeks after injuring herself to obtain tenure. Other participants also experienced status insecurity: as temporary workers or refugees, their presence in Canada could be threatened and revoked at any time.

4.1.2. Support

Secondly, there is the issue of access (or not) to support. Drawing on House (1983), support refers to the provision of emotional concern, instrumental assistance, information, and appraisal aimed at enabling an individual or group to overcome challenges, enhance well‐being, and successfully achieve personal or collective goals. In the cases that showed the least mistrust, the presence of support was notable. This support could take different forms, but it was generally a person who had a better knowledge of Quebec society and who enjoyed more agency within it, putting this knowledge to good use for one of the participants (with or without compensation). It could be a lawyer who protected a worker's rights against his employer's schemes, a friend who helped a worker who did not speak the language to navigate the Quebec injured workers’ compensation system and fill in the various forms, a union or employer who intervened on behalf of a worker with the CNESST, or even a government employee who took the time to explain her rights to a worker threatened by her employer.

4.1.3. Perception of Value in Society

Thirdly, although certain experiences may not be directly linked to the mistrust of participants—for example, a participant wearing a headscarf who was spat on in the street—they can nevertheless have a very powerful effect on the way a person assesses their own value within society. Some workers come to see themselves as second‐class citizens after experiencing multiple forms of discrimination, as well as through various strategies that undermine their experiences and accomplishments—such as the non‐recognition of their skills, being deemed overqualified, or even having their human worth diminished through exploitation and the dehumanization inherent in migratory processes. We observed that bad experiences with significant individuals (e.g., doctors), or with many individuals, can have a direct influence on someone's perceived value in society. It is easy to imagine how an individual who believes they hold little value in the eyes of society—whether by institutions or fellow citizens—might feel threatened and experience mistrust. In adversarial contexts, such as workplace injury claims where responsibility is often examined, these individuals are likely to perceive themselves as inherently disadvantaged. Importantly, such dynamics are not limited to work‐related incidents but are generalizable to a range of situations in which individuals must assert their rights or legitimacy in the face of institutional or interpersonal scrutiny.

4.1.4. Sense of Agency

Finally, some factors give workers a sense of agency over their own lives (vs. powerlessness). In the context of our study, these factors include knowledge of rights and systems, fluency in the language or good experience with decision‐making bodies. For example, one participant, having been subjected to discrimination and delegitimization throughout the process, did not feel threatened because she knew her rights very well and could defend herself. On the contrary, other workers with no command of the language clearly expressed how threatening this situation was, as they could neither make informed decisions nor defend themselves well, as they did not fully understand what was going on. Finally, good experiences with decision‐making bodies, such as a verdict in favor of the worker when challenged by the employer, can give the perception of a system in favor of vulnerable and honest people, giving a certain sense of security to those who find themselves in this situation.

These four elements can be understood as buffering factors, as the absence of precarity and the presence of support, a sense of personal worth, and agency offer protection to workers. Mistrust tends to arise when these buffering factors are lacking. Although mistrust often develops through multiple reinforcing anchor points, our observations suggest that it can be countered by the presence of a single strong buffering factor (Arsenault et al. 2024). Indeed, in the context of our study, all participants who did not display mistrust had access to one significant buffering factor, mostly support. For this reason, we chose to place ‘security’ at the bottom of our diagram—to create a visual effect of a safety net,² a term used by the health professionals who took part in our study.

4.2. Distrust

When it comes to analyzing distrust (directed at an individual), in this case a healthcare professional, the assessment of the level of threat posed by this individual is based on three main factors: their ability to cause harm (strongly linked to the underlying mistrust), their intentions and their allegiance.

The capacity to cause harm represents the degree to which an individual can have harmful effects on others. For example, in our study, doctors were more a source of distrust, since their decisions had a major impact on workers' rehabilitation trajectories, in some cases leading to the loss of compensation benefits. Physiotherapists, on the other hand, could only make recommendations to the doctor, and were therefore very rarely the subject of distrust. The underlying sense of threat or security from which mistrust emerges will have a direct impact on this capacity to cause harm, since the more an individual feels threatened in a society, the more easily other actors can harm them. Once the capacity to cause harm has been perceived, workers need to know the intentions and allegiance of the interlocutor. For example, in our study, doctors were a source of distrust when workers felt that their interests lay elsewhere than their patients’ well‐being (e.g., finishing the day's work quickly, closing a file, making money), or when they seemed to be biased in favor of other players in the case (e.g., the CNESST or the employer). Distrust of significant individuals or many individuals can have a direct effect on the underlying mistrust seen above.

In the following section, we apply this analytical model to our research context to illustrate certain key elements about how workers evaluate their own risk and how these evaluations of risk may lead to mistrust and/or distrust.

4.3. Case 1: Adelina

Adelina was a 59‐year‐old woman originally from Bulgaria who immigrated to Quebec as a permanent resident through the skilled worker program and later became a Canadian citizen. Prior to migration, she had worked as an engineer in the hydroelectric sector, but her qualifications were not recognized in Quebec. At the time of her injury, she had been working for approximately 9 years in the agri‐food sector, earning approximately CAD 46,000 (after taxes)³ annually. Her proficiency in French was limited.

At the time of the interview, Adelina displayed generalized mistrust toward the institutions involved in her rehabilitation. She expressed fear and suspicion, repeatedly verified the information she received, and attributed harmful intentions to several institutional actors. Rather than emerging from the work injury alone, this orientation appeared to result from the accumulation of experiences that progressively transformed her understanding of her social environment.

The first turning point occurred upon her arrival in Quebec. Having been selected as a skilled worker, Adelina expected her qualifications to facilitate her integration into the labor market. Instead, the non‐recognition of her engineering credentials⁴ forced her into repetitive factory work.

I knew I wasn't going to be an engineer, but no one ever said to me, “Madam, you can't even work as technician…”

This experience, together with repeated experiences of discrimination, progressively altered how she perceived her place in Quebec society.

We [immigrants] don't feel right, we don't walk right, we don't talk right. There's always something wrong.

Rather than isolated events, these experiences contributed to a broader perception that she occupied a socially devalued position and therefore could not expect to be treated fairly or protected by institutions.

The work injury occurred within this context. Throughout her rehabilitation, several experiences reinforced this perception of threat by affecting the four dimensions identified in our framework. First, her employment was essential to her financial survival, and she did not believe she could obtain another job offering a comparable income. Consequently, any disagreement regarding her work capacity became a potential threat to her livelihood.

[The employer] couldn't push me physically. So he started pressing me psychologically.

Second, her limited French proficiency and unfamiliarity with Quebec's compensation system greatly reduced her sense of agency.

We don't know our rights, and if we don't know them, we can't demand them.

Finally, apart from her family physician, she described receiving little meaningful support throughout the rehabilitation process. Instead, she progressively came to believe that the employer, the CNESST, and several professionals were acting against her interests.

Except for my doctor, everyone was against me.

Taken together, these experiences progressively eroded the buffering factors identified in our framework. Financial precariousness amplified the consequences of institutional decisions; limited agency prevented her from defending her interests; the absence of trusted support left her isolated; and repeated experiences of devaluation reinforced the perception that she occupied a vulnerable position within Quebec society. Rather than resulting from any single interaction, Adelina's mistrust emerged through the cumulative interpretation of these experiences, leading her to perceive her broader environment as fundamentally threatening.

In my country, I'll be protected… That's not the case here.

Despite this generalized mistrust, Adelina trusted her physician. She consistently described him as attentive, supportive, and entirely committed to her well‐being. Although he possessed considerable power within the rehabilitation process, she perceived his intentions and allegiance as aligned with her interests, neutralizing his potential to cause harm.

The doctor… listens to me. He tries to help me. He gives me advice.

By contrast, she remained on her guard with the occupational therapist. Sent by the CNESST to assess her home, the therapist was perceived as acting primarily in the interests of the compensation board rather than her own. Because she was unfamiliar with the system, she could not assess the extent of his power or the possible consequences of his report. Combined with her underlying mistrust, this uncertainty led her to interpret the therapist as both potentially harmful and misaligned with her interests.

Everything… the CNESST, the agents… they're not for me. They're going to use me to make money.

4.4. Case 2: Abdel

Abdel was a Tunisian man in his late thirties who had immigrated to Quebec as a permanent resident through the skilled worker program ten years before the interview. Trained in refrigeration and air conditioning in Tunisia, he had worked as a refrigeration technician for five years in a large international company at the time of his injury. He held a permanent full‐time position and reported an individual annual income of approximately CAD 46,000 after taxes (household income: CAD 59,000).

At the time of the interview, Abdel displayed generalized mistrust, particularly toward physicians. He carefully reread medical reports before leaving appointments, questioned clinical decisions, and frequently sought independent information to verify what he had been told.

At first I read the reports quickly, but then I saw that they didn't mention back pain… Afterwards, I read the reports before leaving the doctor's room.

Unlike Adelina, Abdel's migration trajectory had initially reinforced a sense of security rather than threat. Although surprised that his qualifications were not immediately recognized,⁷ he gradually established himself professionally. After beginning as an apprentice electrician, he demonstrated his skills, secured a permanent position, and described his employer as supportive.

I saved them a lot of money. And that's how I got hired permanently. Everything was great… even with my workplace accident, they were understanding.

The work injury marked a turning point. Rather than the accident itself, it was the rehabilitation trajectory that progressively transformed Abdel's perception of his environment.

The first point of friction concerned his physician who initially managed his injury‐related care. Abdel felt that his concerns were not taken seriously. He described a superficial examination, changing diagnoses, and medical reports that failed to reflect the symptoms he reported. Most importantly, he felt that treatment decisions prioritized closing his file rather than helping him recover.

The other doctor, for more than a year, was satisfied with the X‐rays done on the day of the accident… despite the fact that I was complaining of pain throughout this period.

Medication became a second turning point. Abdel experienced persistent drowsiness that interfered with daily life and nearly caused another workplace accident. His unsuccessful return to work reinforced his belief that his treatment was not serving his interests.

With the medication, there was less pain but a lot of drowsiness. I almost had an accident… My problem is my foot, it's not my head.

As his rehabilitation progressed, distrust toward one physician gradually extended to other institutional actors. Unable to find a physiatrist willing to see a patient with an active CNESST file, Abdel repeatedly encountered refusals. When he turned to the CNESST for assistance, he felt abandoned rather than supported.

I called everywhere, but no doctor would see me. So I called the CNESST, and they told me I had to find one myself.

These repeated encounters progressively reshaped the four dimensions identified in our framework. First, Abdel's position as the sole financial provider for his family meant that prolonged disability and the possible loss of compensation represented a growing source of precariousness. Second, although he spoke French and was generally able to navigate the compensation system, his limited understanding of its internal functioning reduced his sense of agency, particularly when attempting to access specialized care. Most importantly, repeated interactions with physicians and institutions progressively undermined both his perception of receiving meaningful support and his sense that he was recognized and valued within the system. Rather than interpreting these encounters as isolated disappointments, Abdel came to see them as evidence that injured workers—and particularly immigrants with unvalued qualifications—were not treated as important.

This cumulative reinterpretation gradually transformed his broader relationship with Quebec institutions. Distrust that initially concerned a single physician evolved into a more generalized expectation that institutions were unwilling to help him recover.

You could contest the CNESST's decision. But they just wanted to close the file, that's all.

4.5. Case 3: Andres

Andres was a 45‐year‐old Mexican man who had arrived in Canada as a refugee claimant approximately 20 years before the interview, subsequently obtained permanent residence, and eventually became a Canadian citizen. Trained in mechanics, he was employed as a welder in the metal fabrication industry in a permanent full‐time position. At the time of the interview, he earned approximately CAD 37,000 annually and had maintained stable employment.

Unlike Adelina and Abdel, Andres did not develop generalized mistrust toward the institutions involved in his rehabilitation. Although he openly questioned the intentions of several actors, his distrust remained directed toward specific individuals and situations rather than extending to his broader social environment.

The rehabilitation process nevertheless involved numerous points of friction. Andres believed that his employer had attempted to avoid responsibility for the accident by failing to provide appropriate protective equipment and by misrepresenting the circumstances surrounding the injury. He also described several troubling encounters with healthcare professionals, including being sent back to work with a fractured ankle and receiving contradictory medical decisions.

It was [the orthopedist] who gave me the extension and then… she backed off! Imagine the corruption, eh?

Despite these experiences, Andres' interpretation of his environment differed markedly from that of the previous two participants. Throughout the rehabilitation process, one factor consistently buffered the potential development of generalized mistrust: the presence of effective support. Early in the process, Andres sought legal representation from a lawyer who spoke Spanish and whom he felt he could trust.

After that, I started looking for different lawyers… In the end I chose someone who speaks very good Spanish.

It's well invested money that I have to give him.

This support fundamentally altered how he interpreted subsequent events. Rather than facing institutions alone, Andres felt that someone understood both the system and his interests and could intervene on his behalf. As a result, conflicts with physicians, the employer, or the compensation board were interpreted as problems to be challenged rather than as evidence that the broader environment was fundamentally hostile.

Other elements also contributed to this sense of security. Although he acknowledged limited knowledge of Quebec's institutions, he maintained stable employment and had sufficient financial resources to obtain legal assistance. His refugee trajectory also appeared to shape how he interpreted institutional shortcomings. Having experienced far greater insecurity before arriving in Canada, he continued to view Canada as a society that ultimately offered protection and legal rights.

Interviewer: Why did you decide to stay in Canada rather than return to the United States?

Andres: Absolutely because of the advantages… the security… and because you're legal.

Taken together, these experiences illustrate how strong buffering factors can prevent the emergence of generalized mistrust even when individuals encounter repeated institutional failures. Andres certainly experienced distrust toward particular physicians and toward his employer, whose intentions and allegiance he openly questioned. However, unlike Adelina and Abdel, these experiences did not fundamentally alter his perception of the broader social environment. The combination of stable employment, legal protection associated with refugee status and subsequent citizenship, and, above all, trusted legal support prevented distrust from expanding into a generalized expectation that institutions were inherently threatening.

Consistent with our distinction between mistrust and distrust, Andres directed his distrust toward actors whose actions he interpreted as harmful or self‐serving, while maintaining confidence that these actions could be challenged through existing institutional mechanisms. His case therefore illustrates that distrust toward specific actors does not necessarily imply a generalized orientation of mistrust when individuals continue to perceive their broader environment as fundamentally protective.

5. Discussion

This study proposes an analysis of the concept of mistrust based on the specific context of immigrant workers who have suffered a work injury in Quebec. Cross‐analyses of the workers' narratives in this study, of which the cases of Adelina, Abdel, and Andres form only part of the total sample, highlight the dynamics through which mistrust takes shape and develops in social experiences. It reaffirms the idea that mistrust stems from a more or less tacit evaluation of an environment perceived as threatening (Schehr 2016) while also shedding light on the nature of this perception.

Our study shows that mistrust stems from how individuals—in this case, immigrant workers—come to perceive and evaluate their environment as secure or threatening, an assessment shaped by four main factors. (1) Precariousness—whether linked to migratory status, employment or income—weakens protective capacities in the face of threat, as the divergent situations of Abdel and Andres show. While Andres' stability reinforces his sense of security, Abdel's instability makes him feel very vulnerable; (2) Access to support, particularly legal or family support, also modulates mistrust. Supported by a lawyer, Andres confronts institutions with confidence, unlike the isolated Abdel and Adelina, who develop a generalized mistrust; (3) Recognition—or the lack of it—through experiences of discrimination or exploitation, influences the perception of one's own value within society and fuels mistrust, as in the case of Adelina and Abdel, but also, to a lesser extent, Andres; (4) Finally, agency or the ability to navigate systems and assert one's rights serves as a key lever for fostering a sense of agency and psychological security—resources that were notably absent in all of our cases.

Although this framework was developed from the experiences of immigrant workers injured at work in Quebec, we argue that its analytical contribution extends beyond this empirical setting. The four dimensions identified in this study are not specific to occupational rehabilitation or migration. Rather, they capture more general mechanisms through which individuals come to evaluate their relative vulnerability within institutional environments. Similar processes may therefore be observed in a wide range of settings characterized by dependence on institutions, power asymmetries, or uncertainty, including healthcare, social assistance, education, immigration, and the justice system. From this perspective, the Quebec rehabilitation context serves less as the object of generalization than as an analytically rich setting through which broader processes of mistrust become visible.

Beyond the specific experiences of injured immigrant workers, our findings suggest that mistrust is rooted in processes through which individuals come to learn that they are not fully protected or valued within their social environment. This learning often becomes particularly visible following a work‐related injury, when a first shift occurs: workers who were previously valued for their productivity may come to be treated as economic burdens or risks to be managed. Workers may have been exposed to stigmatizing discourses and practices suggesting that people who rely on social protection are “taking advantage of the system,” whether before migration or through subsequent experiences in Canada. Such discourses may be reinforced during the rehabilitation process, contributing to a sense of illegitimacy or undesirability (Côté et al. 2020). However, for some individuals, this shift does not begin with the injury itself. Rather, it may have already begun through the experience of migration, as individuals move from being recognized and valued in their country of origin to occupying more precarious or stigmatized positions in the host society, like in Adelina's case. In such cases, the work injury does not initiate but rather intensifies an existing process of devaluation.

This perspective resonates with Schehr's (2016) understanding of mistrust as socially learned, while extending it to broader experiences of stigmatization and asymmetrical power relations. In this sense, stigma can become internalized as “embodied” social structures that orient how individuals perceive and engage with the social world (Bourdieu 1986).

Following this conceptualization of mistrust, distrust can be understood as its more directed expression toward specific actors or institutions. Distrust is closely linked to the perceived threat of the environment: while an individual may, in theory, cause harm in any context, this capacity becomes more salient in environments experienced as threatening. By framing mistrust as an evaluative process through which individuals assess their environment in terms of security or threat, this approach responds to Schilke et al.'s (2021) call to move beyond the fragmented distinction between generalized and particularized trust, offering instead a more integrated understanding of how mistrust operates across levels of interaction. In this sense, distrust emerges at the intersection of diffuse perceptions of risk and more targeted evaluations of actors.

Building on Schehr (2016), distrust can be understood as an evaluation of an actor's potential and intention to cause harm, grounded in the assessment of their allegiance and motivations. This is particularly salient in contexts where multiple actors intervene and where their roles and loyalties may appear ambiguous or contested. In the case of healthcare professionals, for instance, physicians generally benefit from a public image of moral integrity and reliability, nurturing expectations of compassion and dedication (Clark 2018; Sioutis et al. ²⁰²¹). However, when their actions are perceived as aligned with institutional or economic interests—such as those of insurers or employers—rather than with the well‐being of the worker, this may lead to mistrust. Such interpretations may be further shaped by intercultural dynamics, as differing expectations regarding professional roles and institutional functioning can amplify perceptions that something is wrong, echoing Hermesh et al.’s (2020) argument that distrust may arise from perceived incongruence of cultural values.

Another case scenario is distrust extending beyond its initial object. Once established, it may “spill over” to adjacent actors or institutions, especially when they are perceived as interconnected or part of the same system (Jones 2013). In this sense, distrust can move from a targeted evaluation of specific actors to a more diffuse orientation toward the broader environment.

At its most extreme—though not systematically—mistrust can profoundly reshape individuals’ perception of reality. In contexts marked by heightened vulnerability, uncertainty, and repeated experiences of perceived threat, it may evolve into more radical forms, including generalized suspicion or conspiratorial interpretations of events. This is illustrated in Adelina's case, where the accumulation of negative experiences, combined with a perceived lack of recognition and support, led to a mistrust extending to all actors she encountered, including researchers. In such situations, mistrust no longer functions solely as a protective mechanism but may begin to undermine individuals’ capacity to engage with the social world in a stable and meaningful way, echoing concerns that, in its most extreme forms, distrust can distort one's sense of reality (Hardin 2002).

These dynamics are further reinforced by institutional processes that may actively or passively contribute to harm. The concept of institutional betrayal is particularly relevant here, as it captures situations in which institutions fail to protect—or even harm—those who depend on them (Christl et al. 2024), whether through omission or commission (Smith and Freyd 2014). For example, healthcare systems shaped by economic pressures such as privatization, which may disproportionately serve more advantaged populations, can erode their own trustworthiness (Gilson 2006). In the context of occupational injury, this may include failures to recognize injuries, delays in care, lack of transparency, or perceived alignment with economic interests over workers’ well‐being. Such experiences not only undermine trust but also actively produce mistrust, reinforcing perceptions of injustice and vulnerability. More broadly, institutional mistrust can be understood as a questioning of the fairness, integrity, and capacity of institutions to provide adequate and unbiased care (LaVeist et al. ²⁰⁰⁹).

At the same time, it is important to recognize that mistrust is not inherently dysfunctional. A growing body of literature highlights its potential positive functions, including fostering vigilance, encouraging constructive skepticism, and enabling individuals to monitor vulnerabilities within social and institutional environments (Reimann et al. 2017). In this sense, distrust may also play a role in moderating power relations: as Cook and Santana (2020) argue, it can serve as a mechanism for checking authority, promoting transparency, and potentially empowering less advantaged actors by limiting abuses and reducing asymmetries.

This perspective resonates with our findings, particularly in the case of Andres, whose targeted distrust toward specific actors allowed him to maintain a degree of agency. By carefully documenting interactions and mobilizing legal support, he was able to navigate a complex institutional environment while protecting his interests. In this sense, distrust can function as a strategic resource, not only as a defensive response to perceived threat, but also as a means of engaging critically with power structures and navigating potentially harmful situations. All of these dynamics can be understood within a broader continuum, as Schehr (2016) suggests that mistrust varies in both intensity and form, ranging from attitudinal dispositions to more strategic and situational deployment—dimensions that remain insufficiently explored and call for further research.

Finally, rather than proposing an explanation specific to immigrant workers, the present framework identifies mechanisms through which mistrust may be socially produced across institutional settings. Its central hypothesis is that mistrust arises not from personality traits or cultural variables per se, but from a situated sense of exposure or insufficient protection within a relational or institutional context. The framework therefore shifts the analytical focus from individual characteristics to individuals’ positions within structured environments and to their perceived capacity to understand, navigate, or resist potential harm. In doing so, it highlights the interplay of structural conditions, social recognition, support, and agency in the production of mistrust. Further research should examine the relevance of these mechanisms among other populations and in other sectors, including healthcare, education, social services, immigration, and the justice system, while exploring how their configuration and relative importance vary across contexts.

5.1. Conclusion

This study proposes an attempt at a situated model of mistrust, grounded in a situated ethnographic context, and subject to revision and refinement in other social fields. While distinguishing between underlying mistrust and directed distrust, we have sought to account for the complexity of the processes that structure this posture, which is at once emotional, cognitive, and practical.

Our analysis suggests that mistrust is neither the result of an individual deficit in trust, nor of a pathological psychological trait, but rather of a situated learning process, rooted in concrete, often repeated social experiences marked by precariousness, discrimination, lack of recognition and exposure to systems perceived as opaque and malevolent. Far from being irrational, mistrust appears as a logical and strategic response in contexts where vigilance and skepticism are necessary for self‐protection.

These results open new avenues for exploration. On the one hand, the proposed model could be transposed to other contexts—education, health, justice, public services—where similar tensions around legitimacy and vulnerability are replayed. On the other hand, it offers an analytical grid for better understanding contemporary forms of mistrust, often wrongly interpreted as irrational or excessive, but which appear here as situated responses to cumulative experiences of non‐recognition or betrayal.

This ambition calls for caution, however. The model is based on subjective narratives, shot through with reconstructions, emotions and interpretations. These narratives provide access to certain logics of action, but do not account for the full range of power relationships or sometimes discrete forms of agency. Moreover, our own analytical posture is not free from bias: wanting to understand mistrust means not making it a symptom to be corrected, nor a posture to be systematically valorized. This proposal seeks not to settle the debate, but to deepen it by illuminating the social mechanisms that give rise to mistrust. By considering it as a situated response to environments perceived as unfair and threatening, it invites us to rethink our knowledge of trust, and to envisage intervention strategies that recognize mistrust as an issue in itself, and not as a simple absence of trust that simply needs to be restored.

Policy on Using ChatGPT and Similar AI Tools

This article was prepared with the assistance of ChatGPT‐4 (GPT‐4‐turbo, OpenAI, June 2025). The tool was used for translation from French to English and for editing the manuscript to enhance clarity, coherence, and academic style.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.