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Título: Social identity and commitment : migration and settlement of new northern towns
Autores: Stewart, Donald Alexander.
Fecha: 1980
Publicador: McGill University - MCGILL
Fuente:
Tipo: Electronic Thesis or Dissertation
Tema: Social participation -- Québec (Province) -- Chibougamou.
Community development -- Québec (Province) -- Psychological aspects.
Identity (Psychology)
Chibougamau (Quebec) -- Social conditions.
Descripción: Labour stability and strong community organization can be achieved in Northern towns only by fostering among recent arrivals a commitment to permanent settlement in town. Migrational processes associated with the development of commitment are therefore central to the industrialization and urbanization of the North. Exploratory field research in a Northern Quebec mining town was carried out over a 3 1/2 year period, in which commitment was studied through an ethnoscientific study of migrants' social identities. Conceptualization emphasized two theoretical perspectives that have been employed in psychological anthropology, interactionist social psychology and ethnoscience (or cognition). Conceptual relationships between these fields have been noted by many authors, but unfortunately interconnections have not been exploited in most applications of either theoretical base. Research focused on one small sector of the area of overlap, concerned with what Wallerstein has called 'social definition'. The project centers around a concept of 'social identity' which denotes one social psychological factor that (along with others) influences social interaction in a given society. At the same time, 'conceptual systems' of social categories (which are, Stone informs us, social identities) are examined through 'ethnosociology'--the ethnoscientific study of social knowledge as a cultural phenomenon. Migrants and their commitment are scrutinized in migrants' self-definitions and in their social understandings that signal the possession of certain social identities associated with commitment to their new home. The development of commitment, then, is viewed as a change in social identity--a change that is accompanied by changes in 'perspective' bearing on the social make-up of one's social universe.
Formal and conventional anthropological methods were employed in the collection and analysis of data. Formal ethnoscientific eliciting was carried out in interviews with a primary sample of six French-Canadian residents and two Cree Indian residents. Conventional interviewing and ethnography rounded out the final analysis and provided cross-checks by which the use of formal methods could be evaluated. Social terminologies were analyzed in order to discover foci and structuring principles central to informants' constructions of their social worlds. Qualitative analysis of self-attitudes, images of their town, migration experiences, and background factors provided insight into recurrent patterns in migration to this Northern town. A cross-tabulation of various factors permitted an exploration into the operation of migrational and assimilative processes associated with the development of commitment.
Both factors connected with the migrant's background and factors related to his reception in town must be taken into account to make sense of observed patterns of migration. Native townsmen not permitted to assimilate fully into the new community are unlikely to develop commitment because to do so would place them in a position of 'marginality'. French-Canadians who do not feel called upon to assimilate to a new order also do not develop commitment to the town. Other observed patterns may be explained by reference to the same cognitive and social-psychological processes, though the importance of symbolic anchors for identity in such processes must also be recognized. Observations and findings add to our knowledge of Cree Indian culture, French Canada, and Northern towns and also to our understanding of migration and related phenomena.
Idioma: en