Re-envisioning Resilience from African Immigrants’ Perspectives

Abstract

Investigations into immigrant resilience are now being called for in scholarly reviews of literature, policy, and practice related to immigrants, following decades in which the challenges they face in or pose to Western host societies took centre stage. Focusing on resilience not only recognizes immigrants’ strengths and contributions to their new homelands, but also creates a fertile landscape to explore possible pathways to optimize migration outcomes. The findings of focus group discussions with African immigrant stakeholders (service providers, community/religious leaders, and staff of policy-making bodies) in three Canadian cities align with this new emphasis. However, these findings also raise crucial questions about current conceptualizations of resilience applied to immigrants. Our thematic analysis indicates that African immigrants attach meanings, processes, and values to resilience that differ from conceptions of resilience in the scholarly literature. Their viewpoints and lived experiences presented below offer new understandings that prompt a re-evaluation of currently held assumptions about resilience rooted in Western individualistic notions about mental health. These assumptions, our study show, do not capture African immigrants’ settlement experiences and long-term adaptation to life in Western nations—as collectivist cultures.

Authors: Philomina Okeke-Ihejirika,Gillian Creese,Michael Frishkopf,Njoki Wane Publication Date: 1/1/2020

Publication Type: Journal Article

URL:https://muse.jhu.edu/article/781096

Notes

Gaps identified

Not enough focus on resilience of newcomers

Key recommendations

More funding to community associations that help with integration processes.

Enhancing informal support channels, particularly community networks that serve newcomers.

Key findings

To study participants, success constitutes a multi-dimensional and complex array of migration outcomes that are dependent on many factors, rather than being about achieving a particular state of being. They distinguished their own varied definitions of success, which they distinguished from their understanding of the Western perspective, which prioritizes material possessions and personal growth over non-economic outcomes. For example, spiritual growth is a quest for self-actualization, according to the participants, which is tied to both material and other desired outcomes that are collectively shared with family and community members.

Personal characteristics of immigrants boost resilience are developed through connections with community.

Social support is crucial for newcomers, particularly in the early years of transition.

Community organizations

Key populations

services providers, policy-makers, and community leaders from African communities

Location

Edmonton, Alberta, Vancouver, British Columbia, and Toronto, Ontario

Integration timeline

At what point during the integration process the study was conducted?

Open-access – No

Publisher: Canadian Ethnic Studies Association

Research Library

Re-envisioning Resilience from African Immigrants’ Perspectives

Abstract