HOW DO AFRICAN WOMEN OF THE DIASPORA ANDREA …dtpr.lib.athabascau.ca/action/download.php?filename=mais/... · 2020. 8. 13. · Digital Storytelling Episode co-created by the women

HOWDOAFRICANWOMENOFTHEDIASPORAINEDMONTON,CANADADEFINEHOME?

By

ANDREAMONTGOMERYDIMARCO

IntegratedStudiesProject

submittedtoDr.PatriciaHughes‐Fullerinpartialfulfillmentoftherequirementsforthedegreeof

MasterofArts–IntegratedStudies

Athabasca,Alberta

October2012

AFRICANWOMENOFTHEDIASPORA 2

Abstract

The twenty-first century reflects increasing globalization, where territorial boundaries have become fluid and porous, and millions of people no longer live in their place of birth or ancestral homeland. While the implications of immigration may differ when the departure from homeland is the result of intentionally seeking employment, for example, as opposed to seeking refugee status, the reality of diaspora remains the same. The objective of this qualitative ethnographical study is to discover how African women of the diaspora in Edmonton, Canada, build, define, and understand home. The key element of home was left intentionally undefined, and I relied on the focus group to define, clarify, interpret, and operationalize this core concept (Seale, 2004). The results reveal thatnone of the focus group was eager to lose their cultural identity and characteristics, but neither did they reject maintaining relationships with other groups. All of the women longed for belonging in their new host country and wanted to be identified as Canadian, but were equally aware of the tension between becoming invisible citizens at the price of both cultural and personal identity. AfricanwomenintheEdmontondiasporaare“constantlyrenegotiatingtheirliminalspace–betweengenerations,betweencultures,betweengeographiclocations”(Agnew,2006,p.28) In many ways it has been revealed that diaspora is precarity: can it ever be defined as home?


TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………….2

TABLE OF CONTENT..………………………………………………………….3

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION..…………………………………………………4

PART TWO: CORE CONCEPTS & RELEVANT LITERATURE REVIEW…11

PART III: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ……………………………….32

REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………..39


African Diaspora

In the diaspora he sat down;

And there he wept;

Remembering Africa;

Mouth open, unable to a song.

Eyes full of the ocean;

Mouth imploded with praises;

Thought stacked full of memories,

Memories of Motherland Africa.

In bits he uttered;

Africa, my cherished home;

In the diaspora unable to a song;

I want to come to thee.

Chief Charles O. Okereke (2002)

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION The twenty-first century reflects increasing globalization, where territorial

boundaries have become fluid and porous, and millions of people no longer live in their

place of birth or ancestral homeland (2009 estimates of 1 billion worldwide according to

The United Nations Human Development Report). While the implications of

immigration may differ when the departure from homeland is the result of intentionally

seeking employment, for example, as opposed to seeking refugee status, the reality of

diaspora remains the same.

The objective of this qualitative ethnographical study is to discover how African

women of the diaspora in Edmonton, Canada build, define, and understand home. For

the purposes of the research, I rely on the Merriam-Webster definition of diaspora as the


settling of a people “away from an established or ancestral homeland”. The key element

of home was left intentionally undefined, and I relied on the focus group to define,

clarify, interpret, and operationalize this core concept (Seale, 2004). This project

explores the cultural implications of the immigrant diaspora experience specifically

through the eyes of the women who are traditionally entrusted with management of the

domestic sphere and with maintaining the cultural traditions related thereto. It explores

how identity is related to home, how home is defined both in territorial and emotional

terms, and what parts of one’s cultural tradition are mandatory for the recreation and

potential redefinition of home.

This paper is organized in three parts. Section I includes the Introduction to the

project. In Section II key concepts, as identified by the women’s narratives, will be

discussed, together with a review of the relevant literature. Section III contains analysis

and discussion, followed by the conclusion and reflection. In addition to this paper is a

Digital Storytelling Episode co-created by the women of the focus group. The episodes

are narrated by the writer, but contain only the words of the women whose stories they

express.

The focus group is composed of women who have a pre-existing relationship with

one another, either in sharing a homeland or in the shared experience of immigration.

These women know homeland as Nigeria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. In my own

travels to Africa, I have witnessed the reality of homeland for some of the women. In

Canada, I have heard their stories of immigration and the reality of diaspora. This group

of women cannot be the voice for all immigrant women of the diaspora, but their stories

are profoundly similar and yet diverse, exceptional and yet often clichéd, personal and


yet deeply meaningful on an international level. In many ways it has been revealed that

diaspora is precarity: can it ever be defined as home?

My research is interdisciplinary in approach in the combining of the

methodologies of: anthropology (study of the behaviour, and the physical, social, and

cultural development of humans); sociology (study of social groups, human social

behavior, organization, and institutions); psychology (as theory specifically relating to

mourning and melancholy); and visual art and media studies (filmmaking / digital

storytelling). The advantages of an interdisciplinary approach include the potential to

explore this research question through a multiple lens of meaning, relying on the belief

that the final project design will speak with a broader vocabulary and be accessible to a

larger audience.

As ethnography, by definition, involves grounded theory, it is important to

mention the challenges of analyses from specific viewpoints (i.e. feminist, Marxist,

structuralist) versus the desire for neutral research. Seaman (2008) suggests that

constructing grounded theory be a “process more of careful interpretation than of

discovery” (Seaman, 2008, 3).

Grounded theory inquiry is both controversial and evolving, and the continuing

desire is for a final product that emerges without forcing (Seaman, 2008). It is also

important to note that while grounded theory may have been formerly aligned with

objectivism, it has shifted from objectivism to constructivism (Seaman, 2008). The

constructivist stance is both mindful and therefore “more reflective of the context in

which participants are situated” than the traditional stance (Seaman, 2008, p. 4). In

relating participants’ stories and reflections, the constructivist stance strives to reflect the


world “in which the participants live” to a greater degree (Seaman, 2008, p. 4). This has

served to be a guiding methodological principle in this paper.

The main disadvantage of the interdisciplinary approach is the potential for a

diluted, generic product that attempts to address every discipline, rather than effectively

addressing the research project from a specialized disciplinary expertise. The additional

disadvantages include the potential for misunderstanding in discipline language or jargon,

and misunderstandings or conflicts in thought or opinion relating to research methods. I

believe this project benefits from an interdisciplinary approach, and that an

interdisciplinary vehicle will allow these women’s voices to be expressed in their

fullness. As the participants are all women born into patriarchal culture, it is important to

highlight the feminist undercurrent reflecting themes of empowerment, resiliency, and

independence.

By way of prelude, during a particularly meaningful personal trip to Western

Africa, I was first introduced to the baobab tree. I rode in a crowded hired vehicle for

miles to visit a hollowed-out tree reported to be eight centuries in age. I was deeply

moved by the image of this silent witness and captured by the metaphor of the tree as a

wizened woman. During a research interview one of the participants shared an earlier

conversation with her young son. The five year-old had asked if all old ladies were really

smart, and the mother nodded and responded with a simple, but emphatic “Yes”. “In our

culture”, she told me, “the older a woman is, the wiser she has become. Period”. The

image of the wise woman has been long with me and my friend’s anecdote reminded me

of the connection I made with the tree. Following my second trip to Africa, I wrote about

the ancient “Grandmother” baobab tree.


Grandmother Baobab

From the branches of the ancient baobab Monkey fruit hangs like pendulums Keeping time among the gnarled branches Eight hundred years of standing watch, counting moments A sentinel to the artisan village That has grown from her roots Keeping safe the bark That will make tea to cure her cough Hollowed trunk, organs long removed A life lived as a shell She will dress in leaves and fruit and provide Shade for travellers who embrace her body for rest They will enter her sacred court Finding safety in her hollow They will lift hands in reverence to her lady wisdom And fill her insides with holy fire She will stand the mark of time She will bear the stain of proof She will record the seasons of life Until the last sour gourd swings its final measure.


The focus group for this project began with eight women. One woman reluctantly

withdrew, leaving a final group of seven. I have known some of the women for a number

of years, some for a few months, and some as a result of this project. I have seen

multiple pregnancies and joined in celebrating the birth of many children. I have

provided the music for a wedding, multiple baptisms and confirmations, and sadly, one

memorial service. I have enjoyed these women’s cooking, their generosity, their

devotion to their families, and their wisdom. But above all, I am deeply aware of and

have thoroughly enjoyed watching their connections to one another and their connections

to “home”. This project honours these women’s experiences, their wisdom, their

strength, and their courage. They are an inspiration.

For the purposes of this research, informal conversations occurred over a number

of months, with formal recorded interviews taking place over a two-month period. Only

information shared during the recorded interviews has been used in the writing of this

paper and in the digital storytelling episode. Because some of the women have ongoing

immigration applications for extended family, all names have been changed at their

request to protect privacy.

Author Byron Katie asks the question: “Who would I be without my story?” Her

question may be understood philosophically as the search for a true self that is separate

from the trappings of life circumstance. Perhaps this question may be understood as the

necessity of knowing and accepting the experiences that have shaped one’s understanding

of self. Ethnography offers an opportunity for the story to be told. Ethnography is a

description of another’s lived experience or reality as interpreted by its writer.


I am aware that I cannot remove myself from the research, regardless of how I try

to listen “neutrally” and interpret “accurately”, while simultaneously aware that all

conversations and interviews are imbedded within the dictates of hegemonic culture. I

chose to record all interviews rather than taking field notes in order to avoid making

editing decisions prematurely by necessity. During the transcribing of the interviews, I

was additionally aware of the continual potential for misunderstanding of meaning. What

follows is my perception, always limited by and based upon my worldview and life

experience.

Author and educator Joseph Pivato (1998) speaks of having tried to be “conscious of

the position of the speaker” in determining “his/her authority to speak about the minority

experience” (p. 153). Amidst the poststructuralist discussion of social and historical

construction, debate over authentic voice has continued. Pivato (1998) asks the critical

question of “who decides that someone speaks for a particular group?” (p. 153). There

cannot be only one authentic voice, but the danger of “a person from outside the minority

group [ ] presum[ing] to speak about the experience of (and for) persons from the

marginalized group”, lies in the imminent power relations (Pivato, 1998, p. 155). Pivato

(1998) reminds us that regardless of best intentions, “appropriation of voice… is not a

dialogue among equals”, but a power exercise in which the minority subject is made an

object (p. 155). There is an important and necessary tension between capturing and

describing respondents’ views, opinions, understandings, and meanings, and seeking

patterns for analysis.

In the following section, the issues as identified and discussed by the focus group

are presented.


PART TWO: CORE CONCEPTS & RELEVANT LITERATURE REVIEW

Identity, belonging, education, loss, and loneliness are core concepts identified by

the focus group. Defining “home” proved to be difficult in trying to separate the term

from “homeland”, and in many cases was used interchangeably. There was a notable

difference between the use of the terms “house” and “home”.

Identity

Of the focus group’s seven women, six learned English as a second language in

their homelands. One woman, Mara, learned English upon her arrival in Canada ten

years ago. Not surprisingly, Mara’s language experience as a South Sudanese woman

and Ethiopian refugee differed significantly from the women who immigrated to join

spouses or for education/economic purposes. The concept of mother tongue is most

significant to identity.

The term mother tongue is understood to be one’s first language and is related to a

person’s homeland, heritage, culture, family, and identity (Tannenbaum & Haim, 2007).

It has been suggested that the mother tongue may include beliefs and feelings

(Tannenbaum & Haim, 2007). The mother tongue therefore, functions as an important

“mediating mechanism in socialization and in the social construction of identity”

(Tannenbaum & Haim, 2007, p. 274). In a poem entitled “Discourse on the Logic of

Language”, Caribbean-Canadian poet NourbeSe Philip describes a mother delivering the

mother tongue into her waiting newborn. The mother:

touches her tongue to the child’s tongue, and holding the tiny mouth open,

she blows into it - hard. She was blowing words - her words, her mother’s


words, those of her mother’s mother, and all their mothers before – into her

daughter’s mouth. (p. 168)

In the fullness of her poignant text, NourbeSe Philip describes the profound loss of one’s

mother tongue and the inevitable loss of identity that entails. There is a greater split in

identity than merely language. Tannenbaum & Haim (2007) claim immigrants

“experience feelings about two lands/cultures/identities”, producing two, often

conflicting, self-representations (p. 274).

For six of the seven women whose children were born in Canada, their children

have been schooled solely in English, with the mothers (and extended family and

community) teaching the children the dialects from “home” so that the children may be

included in the extended identity of the parent generation. One participant, Evia,

comments:

I try to teach my son my language because it is very important for him to know.

We speak our language to him. It is very important for him to know that we are

all Canadian but we came from somewhere here. (Interview Transcript)

Evia continues:

The culture, the Nigerian culture, is part of me because it is where I come from.

You cannot ever say everything about me without saying this person was born

sometime in Africa…. It is something that we carry with us forever. (Interview

Transcript)

When Mara arrived in Canada in 2002 she spoke only her Sudanese mother

tongue and relied entirely on her husband’s limited exposure to the English language.


Mara was pregnant with her first child when she arrived and medical complications and

important decisions were hindered by inaccurate translation (the translator did not speak

her dialect). Mara describes that time as frightening, overwhelming, and confusing. At

home in South Sudan, marrying by fifteen and becoming a mother is the expectation and

dream of every girl. It is the only acceptable identity for females. Mara explains:

Where I came from in South Sudan, especially the younger, the only dream

they have is that growing up, just when you reach fifteen, you will just get

married and have kids. More than that there is no future, there’s no

education, there is nothing that you can hold on to, just family, you know.

(Interview Transcripts)

Helen grew up in the British Colony of Zimbabwe, and as such, spoke British

English from birth. She does not share in the experience of loss of language, but

resonates with loss of identity. Helen comments:

If I had grown up in a stable country like this, I know I would have done well,

because there is no interruption… But, I don’t think I can ever take back the

last eleven years. … you redefine yourself over and over again. You fall you

have to get up. Life was planned… and it took a lot of effort and discipline to

achieve what I achieved in Zimbabwe before I came here. And then,

complete stop. I have to reinvent my dream… I have to set new standards. I

have to set new goals. (Interview Transcripts).

For some, moving from homeland to “no man’s land” or “the land of opportunity”

provides an occasion to examine what comprises one’s identity (Interview Transcripts).


For all of the women of the focus group, identity is directly tied to homeland culture,

including mother-tongue, and community.

Belonging

When individuals leave homeland and diasporic communities are created, what

does homeland become? Will it be possible to create a new locality in which one may

belong or in which one’s social and cultural identity may be reproduced? Globalization,

transnationalism, and the production of locality have become critical discussions in

modernity. Appadurai (1996) coined the term ethnoscape in his discussion on the

increasingly fluid landscape of group identity (p. 48). Olyvia comments on how

nostalgia and denial factor in belonging:

This is not home for me; the cutting off. Part of me is still there. Even my

husband and his siblings still miss home. Even though they are all here, they

feel that part of them is still missing. Even for some who have been here for

more than thirty years, they want to retire home. This is not “home” for us.

Home is belonging. Home is where they understand my dialect. … No matter

how long you live here you still do not belong. (Interview Transcripts)

When asked what would have to change for belonging to be possible, Olyvia

responds: “I pay taxes. I have a home. I work. I support charities. I volunteer. Why

can’t they [Immigration Canada] let someone come. I am a full citizen but I have to ask

permission for my family to visit me.” (Interview Transcripts)

For Evia:

Wherever you are, you just have to try, for you to be able to stay there, you have

to call it home. You have to try and implement or introduce those things that you


are missing back home in Africa. When it comes here we feel good. We have an

Igbo association, you understand, it is a huge community thing. Everybody wants

to come out. We go to Christenings, we speak the same language. You talk about

Africa. These things are really, really good. It is good to involve yourself in the

community, you know….We cannot bring everything from home. We cook the

soup sometimes and we are reminded of home. [It] reminds you of what your

mother made for you…. At the celebration, the ladies will be dancing just like

they dance in Africa. When you go for such things you feel refreshed, regardless

of how far away you are in Canada, you still have a taste of Africa (Interview

Transcript).

When Mara is asked whether there will ever be a time that Canada will feel like

where she belongs, she responds:

You know, actually, yes. When I went back home in 2008, the thing that I

know is this is home for my kids. I took my kids there. When I took them

there, they were uncomfortable, they were not happy…. I told my mom, “this is

not my children’s home. Their home is Canada. That is where they are. It is

where they belong. It is where I belong too.” Yeah. I can say that. (Interview

Transcript)

Similar to Mara, Helen is aware that returning to homeland is not an option. In

discussion with Helen, the topic of belonging reveals multiple issues including the

concept of homelessness. Helen longs to be in a place where she feels she belongs

(Interview Transcript). For Helen, Zimbabwe has its obstacles, but there is a “whole

other set of obstacles here” (Interview Transcript). Helen considers:


Intellectually, I may not have made it back there. But I wonder if I could have

reinvented myself in an environment I am familiar with. The people I went

to school with are there, the people I went to college with are there, so I have

my connections. And then again, there are a lot of family members who have

not been able to reinvent themselves in that environment. And its sad

because, for my husband, we came from a culture in which education was

probably the only hope we had because we are the generation after independence.

So education was what we had. We went to school and we worked really hard. It

wasn’t just like ‘going through school’. [We are] living in a space of liminality.

What I know is I can’t take my kids back there. This is what they know. Canada

was the land of opportunity. That’s what I thought it looked like. And to some

extent for me, I don’t know. But, maybe for my kids. I don’t know.

There is a struggle. It is a constant battle to find out where exactly you belong.

But one thing for sure, I know I am here for life. The question is “Where is

home?” But I know I can’t go back. I have always known I can’t go back. The

question is about “when am I going to start feeling like I belong here?”

(Interview Transcript)

Liminality, third space, “inbetweenness, and unhomeliness” offer descriptive

labels for the newly created diasporic space (Bhabha 2004). Okuyu (2008) borrows

Bhabha’s term “unhomely” and describes unhomeliness as “the postcolonial condition of

displacement, invasion, and estrangement of ‘home’” (p. 78). Helen’s description of her

experience echoes Okuyu’s description of displaced subjects as they seek “identification


against the drifting (dis)locations of home in two spaces: the natal homeland and the host

nation” (p. 78).

Bhatia (2008) defines diasporas as “distinctly attempt[ing] to maintain (real

and/or imagined) connections and commitments to their homeland and recognise

themselves and act as a collective community” (p. 23). This distinction is important in its

differentiation between diasporic communities and those individuals or families who

simply choose to live beyond their ancestral homeland (Bhatia, 2008). Diasporic

communities encounter acculturation, adaptation, assimilation, socialization,

enculturation and racialised identities. Bhatia (2008) describes the diasporic experience

as a constant negotiation “between here and there, past and present, homeland and

hostland, self and other” (p. 23).

Africans in the diaspora must struggle to determine how much they are willing to

commit to diaspora and how much Africa they are willing to leave. Nnaemeka (2007)

identifies the pressing questions: “What is remembered? What is forgotten? Who

remembers? Who forgets? Who is made to forget and for what reason? What are the

consequences of forgetting?” (p. 131-2).

Separation strategies, assimilation strategies, and the value placed on holding onto

original culture, have profound roles in determining the individual measures of success in

belonging. Each of the women expressed different feelings about how much or little they

wished to belong to this host country. Some of the women felt settled, comfortable, even

grateful for the freedom they experience in Canada. Originally from South Sudan, Mara

explains:


It is different. It is a huge difference. But sometimes they have taken this the

wrong way. In our community there is a lot of divorce. There is a lot of

separation. Because the way the men are here, they kind of bring the culture from

back home to here. But women tell them that, “You need to know that THIS IS

CANADA.” And this Canada is kind of like a multicultural place for the older

people. You need to make it different. You need to take the bad side of you out

and keep the good side inside of you, you know. Because here is our future.

This place. And our future for the kids. We only need to focus on what the men

are. They just want to be the head of the family. They just want to control

everything. (Interview Transcript)

Having lived in multiple countries, Miriam speaks with a wisdom borne of

experience:

… we say Canada is an immigrant country, a mixed culture, but I find that

everybody seeks their culture. White, Indian, Arab, everybody sticks to their

culture. Everybody came from somewhere. The Canadian government

recognizes that. That is why we have Heritage Days. Teach children their

language, their culture. That is why there is peace in Canada, more than the U.S.

because Canada allows immigrants to be themselves. They don’t force them to

adopt another way. You can keep your own way. That’s why Canada is like it is.

That’s why Canada is good. That’s why Canada is peaceful. We are not forced to

be who we are not. What you brought from wherever, keep it. Don’t throw it

away. That’s why there is peace. (Interview Transcript)

Evia echoes Miriam’s statement in claiming:


Canadaissuchaniceplace.Itisaculturethatacceptspeoplefromwhatever

cultureyouarefrom.Itwelcomesyouandmakesyoufeelathome.

Adjustingisnotahugeproblem,butintroducingthosethingsforyounotto

feelsolonely[isimportant].(InterviewTranscript)

Olyvia expresses some frustration and speaks of the levels of stress that have been

introduced in immigrating to Canada. She notes “the bills, the childcare stress, the work

stress, the aspect of not belonging.” She volunteers that she is aware of racism that is

“under the table” and is somewhat reticent in naming the ignorance she and others are

required to endure:

Once they see your colour they say, “Where are you from?” You do not need to

ask where I am from. That is not how to start with somebody. “You are from

Africa? Do you know so and so from Ghana?” I say this is not the same thing.

Once they see that colour they think we are all one. In Nigeria, we learn

geography. You can ask any student and they could name all the provinces and

cities [in Canada]. (Interview Transcript)

Three of the women make a point in stressing the importance of bringing only the

positive aspects from their previous experiences, while acknowledging the opportunity

that is provided to improve their situations. Mara comments:

The important thing that I have is, where I came from we like to live in a

decoration place. We like to decorate our house. It is like my mom always say

that as long as your house is clean, no one will know that you’re hungry.

If you clean your house and you make it really clean and you don’t even have

food in the house, people will know, “How did that person live? And why is that


house clean? And why is she happy?” It is different. It is kind of weird

sometimes the way I think about it. In my culture people like to have a clean

house. The more your house is clean, the more you will be happy even if you

do not have anything in your stomach. (Interview Transcript)

Miriam speaks of an appreciation for and a striving toward Canadian values:

Canada’s values are better than most. So even if I am living my culture, I must

adopt Canadian values. Canadian values are excellent; they do not destroy my

culture. Canada does not ask me to throw away what I am and become something

else. This is why I came to this country. ….Even if you come from another

culture, bring the best of that culture. Drop the bad. Because there are very bad

things in some of the cultures we left behind. Especially for women. Women

come here and they feel protected. They can now earn their own income. They

can now take care of their own people back home. … But for some women in

Africa it is bad. In Nigeria, women are empowered. … We go to school, but we

still… we do all the things men do, but we still do the women things. We come

back and we still have to do the house chores, we still have to do everything. You

come back from work and you are doing housework, but he is sitting to rest his

feet. (Interview Transcript)

Adoama considers whether the sacrifice of leaving homeland is worth the

opportunities Canada offers:

I think it is the way you look at home. For us, it is different. Home and here is

different. I grew up at home, so I know the difference between home and here.

It’s not that I don’t like here. I love living in Canada. It’s just that home is home.


… I mean you can manage to stay here, you can manage to do anything here. But

whenever you think about family, you think about friends that are there, it’s not

that I don’t have friends here. But you think about back when you grew up….

My people from our country, nobody likes to stay here. When they finish

everything they want to do here, they are going back. Eventually people are going

back. (Interview Transcript)

The experience of emigrating appears to lead to a unique maturity and acceptance.

Or perhaps it simply brings to bear the strength and resiliency that is part of being human.

Adoama was a young bride in her late teens when she immigrated to Canada to join her

husband. She describes “leavingbehindeverythingyouhave.Andyouarewhatyou

have.Youarecomingtothisplace.Thisnewplacethatyoudon’tknowabout.You

don’tknowanythingaboutit,soyouhavetodowhatyouhavetodo.”(Interview

Transcript)Adoamaagreesthatbetweentheleavingandthearriving,itislike

growingupinaboutaminute.

Education

The role of social support is vital in immigrant women’s desire for improved self-

worth, for economic stability and freedom, and to fulfill the desire to be contributing

members of society (Ojo, 2009). African-Diasporan women build networking and

supporting systems in the midst of negotiating the social space hinged between the

“insider and outsider status of the immigrant adult learner” (p. 73). Ojo (2009)

emphasizes the challenges experienced by African women of the diaspora including

adjustments to “new academic cultures, limited social support, discrimination and racial


prejudice, alienation and isolation, financial constraint, invisibility and loneliness, and

cultural fragmentation”, culminating in the need for a “construction and reconstruction of

self” (as cited in Ali, 2001; Fournillier, 2004; Kamya, 2005). For the women of the focus

group, education is the key to a woman’s future. Mara notes:

… back where I come from the girl get married in cows. Like, my husband

going to marry me, going to marry me with 25 or 30 cows. Those cows will help

my brothers and sisters to survive, have milk, have food, have anything they want.

And then she [my mom] tell me that “You know what? You need to get

married, there is no question about that. If you want to go back to school, you

know, you never know what the future is going to bring. Maybe you will be

lucky, you can go somewhere else and you will pursue education”.

(Interview Transcript).

Evia discusses the importance of education in her homeland culture:

Let’s say, [the] majority of people from my country would love to go back to

school regardless of their first degrees in Africa. Is I think probably 2% of

them in Canada here, or in Edmonton, I can’t speak for this town, the people who

have a high school diploma, but maybe didn’t go forward. But the rest, the

minimum would be a degree or a Masters. They love to go back to school. It is

something that we are proud of. We are Nigerians. We love to go forth. …We

are mentally stable. Because no matter what, even if we are suffering or

struggling, that is why we are able to maneuver or get through the environment.



As an older woman in her community, Aba is highly respected and often

consulted for her opinion. She holds a Ph.D. and is a published author. She has taught in

colleges and universities both in Africa and Canada. Aba shares her opinion about

education:

It was only when I came to Canada, we found that young people turn eighteen

then they move out. That is not in my culture. To me, it was a little bit strange.

An eighteen year old trying to get on her feet, or his feet, suddenly leaves home.

How does he pay his rent, school, food? It makes them to become independent.;

they can last on their own I am told. My parents paid my university tuition and

we have done that for our kids. That is why my husband is there [University of

Kuwait]. To make enough money to pay their tuition. If I do that for my children

they will do that for their own children. (Interview Transcript)

Aba discusses her encouragement to the other Nigerian women who are living in

Edmonton. She is very outspoken about the need for women to empower themselves, get

education, and become independent. She says:

So if your man doesn’t pay the rent, the rent does not get paid. If anything

happens tomorrow and you are kicked out, that is the end. Where do you start?

Okay, you depend on welfare and welfare in Canada is being cut. Things are not

as easy as they used to be…. I have talked to so many of these young women in

this city. I have called them and said come on, go back to school. I say go back

to school. You can still work and do the schooling… Don’t let him ask you to

stay at home. Never. Never. (Interview Transcript)


Loss

Every woman in the focus group identified loss as a consequence of immigration:

loss of homeland, loss of family, and for many, a very real and continuing sense of loss of

identity. Vijay (2006), among others, claims: “Identity is socially constructed and

changes with time, place, and context” (p. 28). Who will one be when one’s identity is

built on loss? Anne Anlin Cheng (1997) posits that a melancholic identity is informed by

an insurmountable source of grief, relying on Freud’s description of the melancholic as

one who “cannot get over loss; rather, loss is denied as loss and incorporated as part of

the ego” (Cheng, 1997, p. 50). The use of the term melancholia reflects Freud’s theory

on loss and the two distinctive and mutually exclusive patterns of response he described

as mourning and melancholia. Melancholia creates a “condition of identity disorder” and

presents racial ego-formation in terms of the traumatically wounded, or melancholically

detained subjects (Cheng, 1997, p. 51). If identity is a melancholic act, it may only be

informed by rejection, by further loss, and by retention of that which both defines and

wounds. Melancholia designates a condition of identity disorder where subject and

object become indistinguishable from one another.

In the discussion of racial identity, the pivotal question of melancholics becomes:

who and what are they forgetting in order to remember? Cheng suggests “minority

identity reveals an inscription marking the remembrance of absence” (italics mine, p. 51-

2). What is forgotten or renounced is self: a self that no longer lives but in melancholic

memory (Cheng, 1997).

Cheng’s (1997) model of racial melancholy is summed up in her borrowed phrase

(from The Invisible Man) that “you carry part of your sickness with you. You carry the


foreigner inside” (p. 60). The identity of the racial other is synonymous with racial

injury. What is minority (other) without the injury, if not a prerequisite condition?

Cheng’s insights into melancholic identity mirror the sentiments reflected by the

women of the diaspora. It is important to note that despite the label of pathology, there is

an understanding that some kinds of losses are ungrievable. Helen emigrated from

Zimbabwe following the end to formal colonialism, the beginning of recognized

independence, and the promises of prosperity. When civil unrest led to government

coups and personal safety became a serious issue, emigration became a reluctant but

viable option. Canada offered peace, safety, and an opportunity to rebuild lives. It did

not promise that education would be recognized, or that employers would support equal-

opportunity policy. Those disappointments would be revealed in the years that followed.

For Helen, the loss of status, income, economic viability, opportunity for advancement,

and recognition of prior achievements has been profound. The loss of affordable

domestic help, nannies, extended family and community has been immeasurable.

Ironically, of those who were accepted by Canada Immigration as skilled workers,

the incongruence between expectation and the reality of the Canadian experience is

startling. While it is considered common knowledge that immigrants are “essential to

Canadian prosperity on the one hand”, , [ ] there is also a growing recognition that

immigrants are faring poorly in the Canadian labour market on the other” (Hiebert, 2006,

p. 39). To varying degrees, six of the seven focus group participants echoed Hiebert’s

statement on the disparity between the immigration ideal and the reality of the Canadian

experience. Two of the seven women expressed ongoing struggling with melancholy and

self-identity.


Loneliness and Isolation

Loneliness, isolation, invisibility, and marginalization are words used in describing

diaspora and in particular, in describing the immigrant woman’s pursuit of education in

Canada. One of the women embarrassedly “confessed” to not ever speaking out in her

university classes because she felt self-conscious of her accent. She believed that as a

black woman, she could not be “invisible”, and the moment she allowed her voice to be

heard, she was instantly labeled “foreigner”. Ojo (2009) speaks directly of this common

experience among immigrant women, noting that the discomfort immigrants feel from

other students’ drawing attention to their accents, discourages the immigrant students

from speaking in class, which exacerbates the problem of silent students being

misunderstood as less intelligent. The silencing of immigrant women students effectively

marginalizes them, rendering them both mute and invisible.

Contrary to the women’s experience of marginalization, Hiebert (2006) claims

Canada’s perspective on immigration is exceptional within the global environment as a

result of “three important contextual elements: the rise of neoliberalism; the performance

of the Canadian economy, and the character of recent immigration policy” (p. 39).

Despite the relationship between immigration and Canada’s economic performance, there

exists an incongruous economic situation faced by Canada’s immigrants. Hiebert (2006)

posits that immigration is viewed as politically favourable in part because citizens view

immigration as personally beneficial. The current economic recession has forced

substantial cutbacks to social support programs and employment insurance, which has

been particularly important for immigrants who rely on special services such as

“language training, [and] post-trauma programmes for refugees” (Hiebert, 2006, p. 40).


Hiebert notes that recent immigrants are typically employed in low-income jobs, which

are particularly vulnerable to economic slumps, resulting in increased need for social

services.

The isolation, disillusionment, and loss of work marketability, were expressed by a

number of women. Helen reveals a loneliness that is echoed by some of the other

women, most notably, the women who do not have a large diasporic community. A

number of the women discussed the difference between coming to Canada as “skilled

workers” and the ability to find work that reflected their levels of education. Too many

of the women have university education and are working in low paying care or support

positions. These women expressed feelings of isolation and an awareness that they were

experiencing both racialized and gendered segregation.

Adenike Yesufu (2005) claims similar findings in her research, noting that neither

higher education nor experience appeared to be assets in the experience of African-

Canadian women immigrants. Positions in childcare, nursing, home care services and

housecleaning, almost all part-time and therefore without benefits, appeared to be

alarmingly common employment descriptions.

There is another kind of loneliness and isolation that was mentioned by every one

of the women. After seventeen years in Canada, Miriam sums it up:

Really, at home, all my neighbours are relations…. so you are not alone. Like

at home, we can sit and chat and eat. (Pointing to neighbouring houses). But,

I don’t even know any of them. I have never been to any of their homes.



All of the women spoke longingly for the home in which friends and relatives drop by

unannounced for visits, to share a meal, or to sip a cup of tea. Aba commented on the

topic:

Back home, we live in the city but we try to come to the village to spend

Christmas. First thing in the morning someone will be shouting, “Are you

guys still in bed?” They’ll be banging at the door, or banging at the window.

Back home in the town we live in, on Sundays, when I am preparing lunch it

is not just for my family. It is extended, because we must have a family

visiting unannounced and they will join us for lunch. I tell you that has been

a routine for every Sunday. There was a time when we have two or three

families visiting at the same time. No one tells you they are coming. That is

the culture. That is the tradition. (Interview Transcript)

Mara speaks of the value of keeping a clean house at all times, as one never

knows when a visitor will be stopping by. The cultural message, as relayed by the

women, is that there is nothing that they are doing that is so important that a guest would

be unwelcome. It speaks of the cultural value of relationship.

At the reminder of the Canadian social rules of never dropping in unannounced,

Aba laughs and feigns a shocked expression: “So if they phone I would say, why are you

calling me? If you want to come, come. You don’t need my permission.” (Interview

Transcript)


The women each discuss the phenomenon of living in a cold city in which

residents burrow in their homes for months at a time. Minus 30 celsius is not favourable

for meeting neighbours. The isolation experienced by Canadians has been normalized.

For this group of African immigrant women it is unnatural and painful.

For these women, the cultural association becomes a lifeline. Miriam says the

association provides an opportunity to “chat in my language with others who do things

like we do … I know how they are feeling.” (Interview Transcript)

The Government of Canada recognizes the relationship between “people’s sense

of identity and the extent to which they participate in society” in tracking ‘belonging’ in

their national census (HRSDC). Their literature reflects the awareness that in general,

there is a positive correlation between an individual’s sense of belonging and her mental

and physical health (HRSDC). This correlation is extrapolated to the community and

national levels, understanding that healthy citizens contribute better to the well-being of

the greater social whole. According to the 2003 census results, a strong majority of

Canadians reported having a “somewhat or very strong sense of belonging to Canada

[88%], to their Province [81%], and to their community [70%]” (HRSDC). It is

interesting to note that on a regional level, 80% of Albertans reported a strong sense of

belonging to their Province, but only 63% felt connected to their community (HRSDC).

Home

The concept of home becomes confused by the state of diaspora. Where one

lives, works, and builds family may be here, but home is not: home or homeland may

always be there. Home has become displaced or unspaced; it has become a nomadic


condition (Okoye, 2008, p. 80). Olyvia maintains:

My house reflects Africa. When people come into my home they know exactly

which country I am from. But it is more than where I am from. I am Nigerian. It

doesn’t matter wherever I have a house, who I am does not change. Where I call

home cannot change.” (Interview Transcript).

Evia explains that the social requirement for community and belonging is

different from ‘knowing’ who we are. “Home is tied to that knowing. Home is our

families, our siblings, our parents, our culture, the traditional things you do and the way

you live your life.” (Interview Transcript) She eloquently adds: “Home is in our hearts,

in our minds, in our blood. We try to never forget where we come from. It is yesterday

that made you today.” (Interview Transcript)

For Mara, home is where her children are. She explains:

Let me tell you something important. Let me tell you. Back where I come

from the ladies are treated like, not a bad way, they are kind of like a slave in

the home. Just work. Because the way they been married is like selling. So

the man can go and do whatever they wanted. But when we come to this

country, the women are free. They are free. They can work outside of home.

They can raise their family the way they really want to. Like the way they

were meant to depend on the man giving them the money. Thinking about

that, inside of you, you are free of anything, you know. You are independent

of anything you wanted to. You know. You can raise your kids the way you

really do want. (Interview Transcript)


Helen states:

I would define home around something that supports … a place that supports my

dreams. It is hard to find friends that will be really meaningful. Home would be

having meaningful friends. And home would be having people come by my house

unannounced. When I wake up in the morning I want to feel like I need to clean

my house because anybody can just pass by. (Interview Transcript)

Miriam emphasizes the use of different terms:

Wehavethehousehere.LikeIsaid,thisismyhouse.Idon’tsaythisismy

home.Evenifyoudon’thaveanythingthere.Yousay‘Iamgoinghome.I

wanttovisithome’.That’swhatalotofimmigrantssay.”(Interview

Transcript)

Abaspeaksofapersonalempowermentandindependence.Forher,“Home

iswhatyoumakeit.HomeiswhatIdecidetomakeit.That’sthepower,andhome

ispower.”(InterviewTranscript)

Adaomarecognizesthedifficultyindefininghomeandsimplydeclares,

“Homeishome.Thereisnoplacelikehome.”Sheexplains:“Homeispeace,loving,

security,confidence,andrelaxing.”Asanafterthoughtsheadds:“Aftermypeople

finishwhattheyaredoinghere,theyaregoinghome.Eventually,whentheyget

old.”(InterviewTranscript)


PART III: Discussion and Conclusion

The focus group is comprised of women of intelligence and strength. These are

women who do not isolate, but discuss their experiences and seek support from one

another. These are women who offer support to others.

Within the safety of anonymity, the women shared that they tolerate, but have

grown to abhor the ubiquitous question: “Where are you from?” They dislike having a

hyphenated identity (African-Canadian), and the assumption that although their children

were born in Canada they may not be ‘real’ Canadians, as though such a state of being

exists. These are citizens who have strong opinions about Canada’s values, strengths,

and need for change. Canada is not utopia, despite the Canadian self-deprecating pride.

Miriam, the most senior member of the group at 67, has lived in many countries

in Africa. Her husband works for the United Nations and she has experienced the

disparity and witnessed the suffering. Like the other women, Miriam is also deeply

spiritual. She is able to see value brought by the missionaries in establishing formal

education and health care. She claims that colonialism was not all bad in that when left

to our own devices, humans can behave worse than animals.

One of the women cannot ever return home, and one would not consider the

option. The remaining five long to return to homeland. If any of the five won a lottery,

they would be on a plane “home” the next day.

Helen claims:

It is hard to feel you are at home in a place where you are constantly asked where

you are from. I don’t know how many times I get asked where I am from. So I

keep thinking of the old country in my answer and then it translates into my


thinking and into my actions and they translate into everything else. I am

constantly being pushed back there. (Interview Transcript)

John Berry defines acculturation as being “the process by which individuals

change both by being influenced by contact with another culture and by being

participants in the general acculturative changes underway in their own culture” (as

quoted by Mana et al., 2009, p. 452). It is proposed that individuals determine which is

of greater value: (a) maintaining one’s cultural identity and characteristics or (b)

maintaining relationships with other groups? (Mana et al., 2009, p. 452).

Depending on the choices, the resulting social space will be defined by four

different acculturation types: integration [yes to both questions], separation [yes to the

former, no to the latter], assimilation [no to the former, yes to the latter], and

marginalization [objection to both”] (Mana et al, 2009, p. 452). Contributing individual

and social factors may include the relationship between the ideology of the host country

and its immigrant population, including cultural pluralism, as well as individual “motives

for both social inclusion and distinctiveness” (Mana et al., 2009, p. 452).

None of the focus group was eager to lose their cultural identity and

characteristics, but neither did they reject maintaining relationships with other groups.

All of the women longed for belonging in their new host country and wanted to be

identified as Canadian, but were equally aware of the tension between becoming invisible

citizens at the price of both cultural and personal identity. This increasingly normalized

ability to move between two cultures or countries is so named “transcilience” by Tettey

and Puplampu (2005). When asked their opinion on whether adjustment differed if there


was no homeland to which one could return, Miriam replied, “It is very painful. It is as if

you have no past. It is like being erased.” (Interview Transcript)

Bennett & Morris (2005) define diaspora as literally meaning “the scattering of

seeds” and claim that “a longing for a return to the homeland is classically assumed to be

integral to diasporic consciousness” (p. 82) The women of this focus group challenge

that assumption.

When considering definitions of home, space meaning is a critical topic. Place

attachment, sense of place, place identity, and place dependence reference the

complicated relationship people have with geographical space (Smaldone, 2008). There

are emotional bonds, a sense of meaning, and a sense of identity drawn with and from

places. Geographical space becomes place “when it is endowed with personal meanings”

(Casey 1997 as cited by Smaldone, 2008, p. 480). From a constructivist perspective,

people create places, and place meanings have a “temporal dimension that is central to

this process of place construction” (Smaldone, 2008, p. 480).

The creation of immigrant diasporic space engages the relationship people have

with place. The concept of unhomeliness is very real to those who cannot return to

homeland. Helen comments:

You end up feeling like you have no home. At this point in my life I feel like I

have no home… When you talk to people back home, we are different… But to

think about a friend back home that I went to school with, forget about it.

Because their environment changed them. We got changed too. So you lose

family, you lose friends. I don’t know if I can define back there as “home” either.

I can’t define here as “home” either because literally everything I need for day-to-


day care I do not know where to find it. (Interview Transcript)

This absence of place in the world, the sense of invisibility expressed by some of

the women, the mandatory inferiority of being cast as other or object has much greater

significance than individual self-esteem.

The immigrant identity is the marker or boundary between our ordinary world and

others. Increasingly, the immigrant embodies the concepts of outsider and foreigner

(Carter, 2010). The foreigner in our midst is read like a “kind of symptom”, exposing the

“difficulty we have living as an other and with others” (Madan Sarup 1996, as quoted in

Carter, 2010, p. 106). The immigrant has become the sign of change, the disruption of

social order, the decline of the myth of former golden days, and the end to “our way of

life” (Carter, 2010, p.106). Arguably, the prevalence of racism has become normalized,

insidiously woven “into the very fabric of the contemporary world” (Carter, 2010, p.

106).

With respect to immigration policy, these women have directly experienced

Canada’s population management, and know that admission policies reflect a

“strategic social ordering” (Walsh, 2008, 791). Walsh (2008) makes the claim that both

Canada’s and Australia’s policies are not intended to “obstruct human movement but,

rather, to regulate it and define the conditions under which it may legitimately occur” (p.

791). He does, however, conclude that the existing policies have created a situation in

which “instead of entryways that are either open or closed, borders are better conceived

of as filters that welcome those deemed culturally or economically desirable, while

excluding those classed as undesirable” (Walsh, 2008, p. 791-2).


Because this project includes a Digital Storytelling Episode, it is important to

include discussion on research involving persons, and in particular through the genre of

photography or filmmaking.

The question of representation is briefly discussed in the introduction, but

the challenge of reducing measurements of otherness, superiority, and dominance, is

critical in documentary filmmaking or storytelling.

While digital filmmaking and storytelling have become significantly more

popular in the last twenty years, documentary and ethnographic films are still subject to

scrutiny and challenges to authenticity. In the deconstructionist view, ethnographers as

“story-tellers and, like all such, creat[ors of] narratives of tragedy, irony and humour

which make[s] their writing a literary activity” (Walsh, 2004, p. 227). Walsh (2004),

among others, raises the important concerns of ethnographic research and the challenges

of external validity, contextual sensitivity, impression management, the necessary degree

of marginality, and theoretical saturation (p. 230-246).

The roles of documentary filmmaker and ethnographer are complementary, but

not necessarily interchangeable. The power position of the former is more visible, but the

reflexivity of both filmmaker and ethnographer is inevitable. The desire to portray

subject matter in its most natural state is shared in both methodologies, but representation

is always unavoidably shaped by the filmmaker and/or ethnographer. Representation

issues are equally apparent in using still photographs, rather than edited film, for the

purpose of storytelling. As Carter notes, there is still an “allure of meanings distanced

through time, locked in a glance, [or] a posture”, or in the symbolic representation

characterized by the choice of still objects (Carter, 2010, p. 118).


There is an inherent difference between fiction, which “harbours echoes of

dreams and daydreams” and documentary, which “attends to social issues of which we

are consciously aware” (Nichols, 1991, p. 4). Interestingly, Nichols (1991) posits that the

documentary “does not have equal footing with the written essay or book, the scientific

survey or report” (p. 4). Instead, he proposes that documentary, like fiction, may suggest

that “its perceptions and values belong to its characters, or adhere to the historical world

itself”; the film, or in this case digital storytelling episode, merely reveals to us what is

available for us to see if we choose to look (Nichols, 1991, p. 6).

Our contemporary global condition includes the persistent dispersal of people,

creating increasing diasporic consciousness and identity. The literature and its debate are

both prolific and engaging, as new theory and strategy continue to develop. The concept

of displaced subjects and citizens is challenging old assumptions and inviting new

discussion on implications and social policy. AfricanwomenintheEdmonton

diasporaare“constantlyrenegotiatingtheirliminalspace–betweengenerations,

betweencultures,betweengeographiclocations”(Agnew,2006,p.28).Their

willingnesstoengageindiscussioniscommendable.Theirwillingnesstoshare

theirexperiencesisriskyandcourageous.Theyexpressedalltoowellthatthereis

littlehopeotherwiseforchangetobeaccomplished.

ItisinterestingtonotethatdespitetheGovernmentofCanada’spublished

conclusionsontheimportanceofbelongingtothewellbeingofsociety,immigration

policyisslowtofollow.Cuttingoffimmigrantsfromtheirfamilialcommunitydoes

notlendtobetteradjustmentorabsorptionintothedominantCanadianculture.If

boundariesareevertobetrulyporous,andbordersmerelyfiltersformovement,


thewomenofdiasporahavemuchtoteachabouthowhomewillbedefined.Being

displacedisnotbeingwithoutspace;itisbeingliminality,anditisunnecessary.

“Home is… my village because my childhood home is my home. Maybe you

didn’t grow up in one place, but I tell you it is so vivid. When I dream, that is

where I fly.” Miriam


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<http://0-lib.myilibrary.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca?ID=31489>

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