Suzanne Huot

Examining the role of minority community spaces for enabling migrants’ performance of intersectional identities through occupation

ABSTRACT It is well established in the occupation-based literature that people’s engagement in meaningful occupations is reciprocally connected both to their identities and to the environments within which such occupations occur. However, less is known about how access to or exclusion from certain environments may shape the performance of identities by enabling or constraining opportunities for occupational engagement. We examined the role of minority community spaces (e.g. schools, places of worship, community centres) for supporting participation in occupations among French-speaking immigrants and refugees in Canada who settled in two Anglophone dominant cities. Fifty six people from diverse countries participated in eight focus groups (four in each city) conducted as part of a larger, four stage comparative case study. An intersectional lens was adopted for the theoretical analysis of verbatim transcripts. We present findings according to three themes. First we discuss the implications for occupation of living in an Anglophone dominant context as an official linguistic minority. Second, we attend to the paradoxical role of the Francophone minority community in the integration experiences of French-speaking immigrants and refugees. Third we explore the role of minority community spaces for supporting their occupational engagement and performance of intersecting identities. We contend that community spaces can provide important opportunities for linguistic minority community members to engage in meaningful occupations, but these must attend to the heterogeneity of the populations they serve.

Toward Understanding Person–Place Transactions in Neighborhoods: A Qualitative-Participatory Geospatial Approach

Background and ObjectivesnEmerging research regarding aging in neighborhoods emphasizes the importance of this context for well-being; however, in-depth information about the nature of person-place relationships is lacking. The interwoven and complex nature of person and place points to methods that can examine these relationships in situ and explore meanings attached to places. Participatory geospatial methods can capture situated details about place that are not verbalized during interviews or otherwise discerned, and qualitative methods can explore interpretations, both helping to generate deep understandings of the relationships between person and place. This article describes a combined qualitative-geospatial approach for studying of older adults in neighborhoods and investigates the qualitative-geospatial approach developed, including its utility and feasibility in exploring person-place transactions in neighborhoods.nnnResearch Design and MethodsnWe developed and implemented a qualitative-geospatial approach to explore how neighborhood and person transact to shape sense of social connectedness in older adults. Methods included narrative interviews, go-along interviews, and global positioning system tracking with activity/travel diary completion followed by map-based interviews. We used a variety of data analysis methods with attention to fully utilizing diverse forms of data and integrating data during analysis. We reflected on and examined the utility and feasibility of the approach through a variety of methods.nnnResultsnFindings indicate the unique understandings that each method contributes, the strengths of the overall approach, and the feasibility of implementing the approach.nnnDiscussion and ImplicationsnThe developed approach has strong potential to generate knowledge about person-place transactions that can inform practice, planning, policy, and research to promote older adults well-being.

Co-constructing the field for a critical ethnography of immigrants’ experiences in a Canadian Francophone minority community

When conducting ethnographic research, immersion into the field and participant observation are essential characteristics of the methodology. As more traditional forms of ethnography have evolved over time to include contemporary approaches (institutional ethnography, feminist ethnography), so too have the fields where such research is undertaken. Indeed, the field itself is now recognized as a construction rather than a naturally occurring space. This article discusses the approach taken to co-construct the field for a critical ethnographic study of immigrants’ experiences within a Canadian Francophone minority community. It addresses how the researcher made key decisions shaping who the study population would be, and in collaboration with the participants then decided how and where data generation would occur.

The power of language: Exploring the relationship between linguistic capital and occupation for immigrants to Canada

ABSTRACT Our study examines the power of language in shaping immigrants’ engagement in occupations during their integration into a host society. Beyond serving as a means of communication, language is understood as a form of capital that is mediated through social power relations. We used a qualitative secondary analysis methodology that adopted an occupation-focused perspective to study 20 transcripts generated through narrative and semi-structured interviews with 10 immigrants in a mid-sized Canadian city. ‘Learning English’ was identified as the overarching theme that connected to the sub-themes of accessing resources during settlement, economic integration, social and cultural integration and isolation, and family. Findings illustrate specific ways that the mediation of engagement in occupations through the host society’s dominant language creates challenges for immigrants’ integration experiences. Ultimately, the dominance of English in Canada poses barriers to engagement in needed and wanted occupations for immigrants who do not possess this valued linguistic capital.

Integrating occupational and public health sciences through a cross-national educational partnership

ABSTRACT Complex social issues, sometimes referred to as ‘wicked problems’, influence the conditions of everyday life and the occupations these conditions afford, which are key determinants of health and well-being. Education is an important arena through which social transformation of oppressive conditions can be promoted and enacted. At the same time, interdisciplinary approaches have been recognized as being essential for addressing ‘wicked problems’. We argue that linking occupational science and public health in education is a fruitful way forward for understanding complex issues and enacting social change. Our purpose is to describe a partnership between universities in Norway and Canada in order to address how the integration of occupational and public health perspectives on diverse health determinants contributed to the interdisciplinary education and mentorship of future researchers and health care practitioners. Three specific examples are addressed; the participation of students from each country in courses at the institutions abroad; the development of integrated public health and occupation-based curriculum materials; and the undertaking of interdisciplinary research conducted by graduate students that was co-supervised by occupational science and public health scholars from both countries. The cross-national educational partnership has contributed to the enhancement of participating students’ education, as well as the expansion of the partnership itself. Authors’ reflections regarding factors contributing to the success of the partnership, and challenges associated with sustaining it over time, are also briefly addressed. The description of the partnership articulates how international and interdisciplinary collaboration in education can expand the reach and potential impacts of occupation-based knowledge.