About the Project

In Canada, citizenship by naturalization has historically been very high. However, in the past five years, the number of people seeking naturalization has declined, prompting concern about the disengagement of immigrants. As two of the largest racialized and immigrant groups in Canada, the study of South Asian- and Chinese-Canadian women’s experiences is important to reduce alienation and marginalization experienced by racialized women.

Engaging with intersectionality theory, this study posits that South Asian and Chinese women in Canada experience multiple oppressions at the individual and systemic levels in intersecting dimensions such as race, gender, and class. Previous studies have shown that, as racialized minorities, South Asian and Chinese women are subject to racial and gender discrimination, and face numerous barriers to their economic integration into Canadian society. However, not much is known about how the intersections of race, class, and gender affect the citizenship experiences of South Asian- or Chinese-Canadian women who have attained citizenship through naturalization.

Recent theories conceptualize citizenship as a category involving legal status and accompanying rights, participation in civic and political institutions, and a sense of belonging to the host country. The most comprehensive model of citizenship is provided by  (PDF file) Gagnon and Pagé (1999) (external link)  who propose four interdependent macro concepts: national identity; social, cultural, and supranational belonging; an effective system of rights; and political and civic participation.  Each of these macro concepts consists of many micro concepts.  A diagram of the model is included below (Figure 1):

Figure 1. Depiction of Gagnon and Pagé’s (1999) model of citizenship
 

Chastenay et al. (2004) (external link)  merged Gagnon and Pagé’s categories into three broad dimensions: identity, equality, and participation. This simplified framework has been demonstrated in terms of usability and is used for this study.

We will be conducting focus groups and individual interviews with naturalized South Asian- and Chinese-Canadian women citizens above the age of 25. The focus groups and individual interviews will be largely unstructured to allow for women to articulate the areas that they consider important in terms of citizenship. Guiding questions will explore themes such as the participants’ sense of identity, sense of belonging, sense of pride in being Canadian and transnational, feelings of allegiance and patriotism, as well as their understanding of their political and cultural rights, sense of being equal under the law, and understanding of programs and measures to counter socio-economic inequalities.

Following the focus groups and individual interviews, an online survey will be conducted. We will recruit a convenience sample of 200 naturalized South Asian-Canadian women citizens and 200 naturalized Chinese-Canadian women citizens above the age of 25 to answer further questions about civic participation and engagement, social capital, and intersectionality. The survey will be informed by major themes and findings from the focus groups and will use the simplified model of citizenship developed by Chastenay et al. (2004), external link (external link) . 

A research advisory committee will be assembled and regularly consulted throughout the life of the project.