The political significance of ethno-cultural organizations: The case of Ethiopian immigrants in the city of Edmonton, Canada

• Author / Creator

  Demeke, Berhanu A.

• This qualitative case study research was conducted to contribute to a better understanding and enhancement of immigrant political integration. It focused on Ethiopian immigrant community in a city in Canada and explored an understudied area of how belonging to ethnocultural organizations impacts political integration in African immigrant communities. It sought to answer questions about the political significance of ethnocultural organizations by analyzing and interpreting data generated from interviews with 15 participants, relevant organizational documents and field notes. It used the discourse of communities of practice to understand how endogenous social learning groups affect the organizations’ success and drew on Nancy Fraser’s conception of justice to assess how visible minority immigrants are faring in economic, social and political lives as well as to posit a normative vision of a just society, a social ideal to strive to. Furthermore, it applied insights from critical pedagogy, importantly the idea that learning engagements have inherent political implications, in interpreting the activities that members initiated, organized and participated in under the auspices of ethnocultural community organizations. The broad conception of politics the study adopted, and the emphasis it placed on political agency facilitated discovering unexpected ways in which members of ethnocultural organizations admirably sought and asserted political agency and in so doing improved resources for political integration. The study culminated in proposing to increase ethnocultural organizations’ capacity to support immigrant political integration, further animate political agency and improve social wellbeing. It did so by identifying, critiquing and seeking to redress a) broader discourses of contemporary political understandings of integration, immigrants and democracy as well as b) endogenous factors of division over homeland politics, deficiency in criticality in programming and shortage of administrative acumen.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Politics
  • education
  • immigrant integration
  • political agency
  • ethno-cultural organizations

• Graduation date

  Fall 2018

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3N29PP5H

• License

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