‘Enculturation’, not ‘acculturation’: Conceptualising and assessing identity processes in migrant communities
Section snippets
Berry's model of acculturation choices: assumptions reflecting a benign implicit ideology
The purposes of this paper are to: critique aspects of Berry's model of acculturation strategies (a dominant model used in cross-cultural research); going beyond critique, suggest that attention be paid to the intricacies of identity processes in multi-cultural contexts in order to better comprehend processes of continuing enculturation in such contexts; outline aspects of the Identity Structure Analysis conceptual framework used in practice to assess such identity processes; and provide
Beyond critique: ethnic identity and cultural reformulation
In place of a model that ideologically posits that all cultures are benign, deserving of equal respect and having no antagonistic or incompatible cultural aspirations between them, this paper presents conceptual and methodological tools for ascertaining the complexities of identity processes of migrants and their offspring vis à vis those of people who constitute the receiving community whatever the prevailing socio-historical contexts. Such contexts may be various, such as, privileged
A conceptual framework for elucidating the identity processes of migrants: enculturation
Identity Structure Analysis (ISA) (Weinreich & Saunderson, 2003) provides such a set of analytic concepts, together with methodological tools for the empirical investigation of fundamental identity processes that occur on migration and in multi-cultural contexts. It consists of explicit definitions of psychological concepts and theoretical postulates about identity processes (Weinreich, 1980, Weinreich, 1989, Weinreich, 2003a), which are operationalised for empirical studies using dedicated
Primordialist sentiments and situationalist perspectives on ethnicity: modulations in situated identities
Many social anthropologists and sociologists (Glazer & Moynihan, 1975) have commented upon a seeming paradox. On the one hand, many people adhere to an ethnicity as an unquestioned given that continues down the generations (termed ‘primordialism’: Connor, 1978, Geertz, 1963, Greely, 1974, Isaacs, 1975, Shils, 1957, Smith, 1981). On the other hand, people often change their ethnic allegiances and behaviour to suit historical and biographical exigencies (termed ‘situationalism’: Epstein, 1978,
Examples of ISA in practice: ethnicity and migration
The empirical assessment of these parameters of identity requires the development of identity instruments whereby individuals appraise entities (situated self in various contexts, individuals, groups, institutions, icons, etc.) by way of discourses about values, beliefs and characteristics that are of relevance to the individuals concerned, expressed as bipolar constructs (Weinreich, 1980, Weinreich, 2003b). Bipolarity of constructs enables assessment of people's favoured and disfavoured
Conclusion
The assumption that people in intercultural contexts ‘choose’ to accept or reject one or other or both cultures does not accord with the intricate identity processes associated with cultural heritages, which generally proceed without holistic awareness of cultures, but instead with processes of identification with elements of cultures when forming a sense of ethnic identity. Migrants and the offspring of migrants continue to enculturate elements of the various cultural manifestations available
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for comments by Valery Chirkov and Pawel Boski on an earlier draft of this paper, and editorial assistance by Mehroo Northover.
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