Gender Identity and Integration: Second-Generation Somali Immigrants in Canada

• In Event: Immigrant Integration

Abstract

In this study of second-generation Somali immigrants in Canada we explore our participants’ understanding of their gender identities at the intersection of ethnicity, religion, and host society’s cultural context to assess their integration into host society. We aim to contribute to debates on the interplay between immigrants’ cultural backgrounds and immigration models in the West, take the question of gender and migration one step forward from first generation migrants to that of second-generations, and present a focused study of second-generations’ integration through analyzing transformations of gender identities. In this paper we analyze Canadian multiculturalism and the ways it allows limited space in national imaginaries for immigrants’ identities to be expressed and possibly lead to successful integration. Our findings, based on a qualitative analysis of interviews with 118 members of Canada’s largest Somali communities in Toronto and Edmonton, emphasize that the host society’s national context and immigrants’ cultural background are simultaneously influential in successful integration of second-generation migrants. We found that second-generation Somalis have been able to reconciliate Islam, the religion depicted incompatible with Western values, and Canadian egalitarian gender norms. Our findings imply a need to avoid reifying Muslim immigrants as incompatible with Western countries’ cultural values and a need to open up sociocultural space for incorporation of immigrants’ identities.

Authors

• Ahmad (Aryan) Karimi, University of Alberta

• Sara K. Thompson, Ryerson University

• Bucerius, M Sandra, University of Alberta