Making Critical Sense of Immigrant Experience
A Case Study of Hong Kong Chinese in Canada
This book can be opened with
Note on our eBooks and Audiobooks: you can read our eBooks (ePUB or PDF) and listen to audiobooks on the free Emerald Books app on iOS, Android, and desktop. Or read and listen on Emerald's online reader (ePUB eBooks and audiobooks only). To purchase a digital book you will need to create an account if you don’t already have one. After purchasing you will receive instructions on how to get started.
- Description
- Contents
- Reviews
Chapter 1: Introduction and Outline 1.1 An Overview of Contemporary Immigrant Issues 1.2 Introduction to the Study 1.3 The Contribution of This Study 1.4 An Insider’s Voice 1.5 Some Definitions 1.6 Outline of the Chapters
- Chapter 2: Deconstructing Immigrant Identity Work 2.1 Overview of This Chapter 2.2 Theme One: Structural Approaches to Visible Minority Immigrants 2.3 Theme Two: Identity Construction through Social Constructionism 2.4 Theme Three: Poststructuralist Literature on Identity Work
- Chapter 3: Methodological Approach 3.1 Overview of This Chapter 3.2 The Poststructuralist Perspective 3.3 Critical Sensemaking as a Conceptual Framework
- Chapter 4: Research Design 4.1 My Access and the Informants 4.2 Translation and Transcription 4.3 Other Texts 4.4 Ethical Considerations and Reflexivity 4.5 Data Analysis
- Chapter 5: Capturing the Discursive Elements of the Formative Context Retrospectively 5.1 Formative Context 5.2 The History of Chinese Immigrants in Canada and Canadian Immigration Policy 5.3 Immigrant Interview Accounts 5.4 The Political Sense of the Chinese Administration 5.5 The Lifestyle Discourse 5.6 In the Shadow of Whiteness: The Colonial Influence 5.7 Hong Kong’s Workplace Culture and Work Identity
- Chapter 6: Searching for Plausible Cues and Institutional Rules: The Politics of Normality 6.1 The Institutional Field and the Notion of a Deficient Self 6.2 Organizational Rules and Funding Requirements 6.3 The Dominant Discourse of Integration 6.4 A Silent Discourse of Exploitation
- Chapter 7: Agency and Identity Labels: The Micro-Processes of Resistance 7.1 Identity Labels 7.2 The In-Between Self 7.3 The Cost of Immigration 7.4 Ignorance Is Strength: Inside the Boundaries of Acceptance
- Chapter 8: Unpacking Workplace Inequality 8.1 Making Critical Sense of Workplace Inequality 8.2 Critical Implications 8.3 Contributions
- Epilogue
- References
- Appendix A: Unstructured Interview Questions Appendix B: Summary of Informants
This case study analyzes the workplace experiences of skilled worker immigrants from Hong Kong who came to Canada with the purpose of entering the workforce, and what this reveals about why a large number leave in their first year. It focuses on their reflections on the structures and processes they face and the sense they have made of their situations, looking at sensemaking processes in relation to workplace opportunities, the social context, and power relations and inequality in organizations. It draws on documents and interviews with Hong Kong Chinese immigrants to understand how these immigrants make sense of immigration in Canada and their assumptions about having a better quality of life and their ideas about racist and cultural shocks; where and how they search for cues and institutional rules about employment; and how they develop strategies of resistance and identity work. It shows that they have assumptions that the government is providing help for them to get in to the workplace and that ethnic service organizations offer positive guidance to their workplace opportunities, and considers the role of racism and resistance.