MAKING CANADIAN CULTURE VISIBLE ACCULTURATION AS A CO-CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURE by Lisa Michelle Colling B.A., Simon Fraser University, 2000 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2005 A DISSERTATION PRESENTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (Human Development, Learning and Culture) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2012 © Lisa Michelle Colling, 2012 ABSTRACT This dissertation research explored the acculturation phenomenon while considering the reciprocal, interminable, polycontextual, multivoiced and multiscripted nature of this complex process, and the impact that residence in a culture contact zone has upon this culture change process. In exploring the visual and written texts captured by persons living within the culture contact zone of the Vancouver Lower Mainland through a collaborative visual ethnographic approach, the process of acculturation was explored as a co-construction of culture as participants’ collaboratively defined Canadian culture. The Vancouver Lower Mainland’s cultural plurality provided a promising culture contact zone in which to examine the complexities of an acculturation process for all acculturating members, both newcomers to the culture contact zone and old-timers of the culture contact zone (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rudmin, 2003), and to interrogate the complexities that these intensified intercultural contacts present. While critiquing the fourfold approach of assimilation, integration, separation and marginalization, this dissertation drew on a sociocultural theoretical framework in conceptualizing culture contact zones as third space, and the acculturation process as a co- construction of culture within this third space. Third spaces can be disharmonious and hybrid spaces and it is proposed, in this third space, that cultural practices are contested, created and shared — co-constructed by its members. Participants’ captured images, artist statements and interview texts were analyzed (1) thematically; in identifying, analyzing and reporting patterns observed within the data pertaining to participant conceptualizations of Canadian culture and, (2) interpretatively; where data were further analyzed employing Bakhtinian text mapping (Tobin, 2000), a strategy developed to glean a text’s potential deeper and/or multiple meanings in ii exploring the polycontextuality, multivocality and multiscriptedness inherent in a co-constructed acculturation process. Findings suggested that for the participants in this study, both newcomers and old-timers, the culture contact zone of the Vancouver Lower Mainland presented itself as third space as its diverse cultural members were confronted with alternating and competing cultural discourses and positionings within the intercultural contact situations that they were presented with; situations that created new cultural tensions that must be negotiated and managed at some level. Implications to Canada’s multiculturalism policy are discussed. iii PREFACE This dissertation was approved by the Behavioral Research Ethics Board at the University of British Columbia (H10-00036) and the Research Ethics Board at Douglas College. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... ii PREFACE ..................................................................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ xi LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ xiii CHAPTERS 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 Observed Justification for Studying Acculturation ................................................. 2 Part One: Acculturation Processes: Unidirectional, Bidirectional, or Multidirectional? .................................................................. 2 Part Two: Acculturation in a Canadian Context .............................................. 6 Acculturation in a changing times ........................................................... 7 A shift to ‘contact zones’......................................................................... 7 Co-construction: A Definition....................................................................... 10 Acculturation and Identity............................................................................. 11 Acculturation Discussed within a Specific Context .............................................. 12 The Vancouver Lower Mainland as a Culture Contact Zone ........................ 12 Selected Qualitative Research Methodology and Justification for Its Use ............ 14 Research Questions and Implications ................................................................... 16 Structure of the Dissertation ................................................................................. 17 v 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.......................................................................................... 20 Rationale............................................................................................................... 20 Historical Context ................................................................................................. 20 Acculturation in History................................................................................ 20 Acculturation in the Academy....................................................................... 22 Defining acculturation and its parameters .............................................. 22 Key Components of Acculturation ....................................................................... 23 Individual and Group Acculturation.............................................................. 23 Directionality and Dimensionality ................................................................ 23 Current Acculturation Scholarship........................................................................ 25 The Research of John Berry .......................................................................... 25 Berry box 1: Acculturation strategies ..................................................... 26 Berry box 2: A framework for acculturation research ............................ 32 Berry box 3: Types of acculturating groups ........................................... 35 Summary of Berry’s Boxes ........................................................................... 36 Culture: The Missing Link.................................................................................... 37 Methodological Issues in Current Acculturation Research ................................... 39 Psychometrics of the Four-Fold Approach.................................................... 40 Problems Associated with Acculturation Measures ...................................... 41 Alternate Approaches.................................................................................... 44 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................. 45 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................... 47 Reconceptualizing Approaches to Acculturation Research ................................... 47 vi An Introduction to Sociocultural Theory: Key Tenets................................... 49 Mediation .............................................................................................. 49 Internalization or appropriation ............................................................. 51 The zone of proximal development ....................................................... 52 A Summary of Key Tenets in Sociocultural Theory ..................................... 53 Sociocultural Theory Applied to Acculturation .................................................... 53 Acculturation as a Co-construction of Culture .............................................. 54 The search for ‘acCULTURATION’ .................................................... 54 The Individual as ‘Culture-Inclusive’ and Culture as ‘Individual-Inclusive’ ................................................................................... 56 The Acculturative Process ............................................................................ 57 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................. 59 4 DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ......................................................................... 61 Rationale for Selected Qualitative Research Methodology ................................... 61 Research Approach ............................................................................................... 64 Ethnography: An Evolving Research Tradition ............................................ 64 Visual Ethnography ...................................................................................... 66 Why use visual methods? ......................................................................