Intimacy, identity and relationship in the accounts of Chinese immigrants to Canada: the contribution of narrative analysis

Abstract

In this paper we use narrative analysis to consider how the discursive resources that come with living 'in between' countries and cultures unfold in personal stories. We do this by presenting a close analysis of two transcripts drawn from a study about the vulnerability to HIV faced by Chinese immigrants to Canada. Our goal is to illustrate the application of narrative analysis and highlight the contributions it can make to conceptualising how transnationalism becomes consequential in accounts of intimate life. In narrative terms, transnationalism lends each life situation dual or multiple interpretive frameworks. Migrants from China to Canada situate their personal stories in relation to social and cultural norms and features of both nations. Yet, as our analysis makes apparent, 'Canada' and 'China' do not carry singular or consistent meanings in migrants' stories. Attention to the role of stories in self-making allows us to better understand why transnational contexts appear as they do in narrative accounts, and responds to calls for more accurate mappings of the interface between transnationalism and the subject. Attention to how stories are 'put together' shows that transnational discursive resources are assembled in ways that bolster, and also undermine, entitlements to safe and equitable intimate relationships.

Gender and Trajectories of Marital Breakdown: Accounts of Chinese Immigrant Women in Canada

“…Based on women's accounts of their passing through the status phases of these trajectories, this analysis makes visible the ways that marital breakdown shapes women's conceptions of themselves and their places in the social worlds; it also shows how other structures of difference (e.g., cultural norms, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, sexuality, geography, and locality) have significance in the context of women's efforts to find ways out. Although marital breakdown suggests a turning point in the life course, women's personal autonomy is also evolving, entwined with other structures of difference (e.g., gender, migrant status, and race) in Canada as the host country, and is simultaneously influenced by their social, cultural, and familial connections with China as the home country ( Mahler & Pessar, 2006 ; Micollier, 2017 ; Nawyn, 2010 ; Sinding & Zhou, 2017 ). We argue that attending to the trajectories of immigrant women's marital breakdown enables us to develop a more nuanced understanding of the relationships among gender, marriage, and migration that go beyond the somewhat polarized “liberation” and “re-domestication” narratives.…”