A Critical Examination of Immigrant Integration: Experiences of Immigrants from Turkey to Canada
My dissertation examines job search and workplace experiences of immigrants from Turkey to Toronto and London, Canada, who comprise an understudied immigrant group. I am interested in how immigrants access and develop social networks, how they convert these networks into social capital in the labour market, and how being an immigrant affects their workplace experiences. To this end, in contrast to many other studies in the migration literature, my research relies theoretically on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, and methodologically on qualitative interviews. The field has little comparative work at present; I address this by examining intra-immigrant group differences and comparing the experiences of immigrants working in different segments of the labour market. My emphasis on the heterogeneous character of the immigrant group enables me to challenge over-generalization of immigrant experiences and to consider issues surrounding the intersection of ethnic, classed and gendered positions of immigrants in both their home country and the host country.
Guliz Akkaymak
Degree: PhD
Status: Completed
Supervisor: Wolfgang Lehmann
Department and University: Department of Sociology, Collaborative Program in Migration & Ethnic Relations, University of Western Ontario
E-mail: gakkayma@uwo.ca
Link to completed thesis: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/3592/