Immigrant-background young adults giving accounts of themselves: agentic and dialogic reframing of parental cultural heritage

Abstract

Increasing research attention has been dedicated to the transfer of cultural resources and practices in immigrant families and the different impacts parental cultural heritage can have on children and young adults who navigate their identities and expectations originating from different cultural influences. This research, however, tends to focus on either specific communities or specific aspects of culture, failing to paint a broader picture of how cultural heritage and identities are constituted, experienced, and narrated by young immigrant-background individuals as they enter adulthood. This thesis draws on a qualitative design that involved reflective journaling, interviewing, and collaborative data analysis conducted with 15 participants from a range of ethnic and economic backgrounds—all 18-29 years old and born in the UK to immigrant parents. On the theoretical level, this research problematises and destabilises the link between cultural heritage, collective identity, and self-identification. Drawing on Judith Butler’s Giving an Account of Oneself, the thesis conceptualises parental cultural heritage as a responsibility and considers the role of agency in negotiating the relationship between the self and culture. It then further explores—aided by Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism—immigrant-background individuals’ agentic approaches to reframing cultural heritage and cultural identity through dialogic relations and intersubjectivity. Finally, in critical engagement with Homi Bhabha’s notions of hybridity and agency, immigrant-background individuals’ experiences are contextualised within the workings of society to argue that the agentic and dialogic reframing of cultural heritage has its limits and that experiencing, and giving an account of, cultural hybridity will continue to be difficult unless the prevailing discourse shifts. Beyond its theoretical contribution, this thesis emphasises how discussing the sense of responsibility, agency, and cultural heritage with those experiencing hybrid and migrant-background realities requires innovative methodological approaches to elicit the often unarticulated and tacit narratives and understandings. To address this challenge, the thesis introduces the ‘narrative grounded theory’ approach which marries grounded theory and narrative inquiry to produce methodological tools that encourage participants’ reflectiveness, analytical engagement, and revisiting of their stories on multiple occasions.