عنوان

A Comparative Study of the Highly Educated Muslim Uyghur Immigrants' Identity Reconstruction Experiences in Quebec and English Canada

Number

TLpq2516171719

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

A Comparative Study of the Highly Educated Muslim Uyghur Immigrants' Identity Reconstruction Experiences in Quebec and English Canada

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Dilimulati, Maihemuti (Dilmurat Mahmut)

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Ghosh, Ratna

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

McGill University (Canada)

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2020

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

323

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

McGill University (Canada)

Text preceding or following the note

2020

Text of Note

Among the Muslim immigrants who have been arriving in Canada in recent years, Uyghur immigrants from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China reveal many special features. Their religious identity, language, education, and other forms of human rights have been facing serious threats under the current Chinese government. While immigrating to the Western liberal democracies may be conducive to protecting and strengthening their cultural identities, this may also create various new challenges to their collective identity. With such a background, this comparative study intends to explore the identity reconstruction experiences of the highly educated Muslim Uyghur immigrants in French Quebec and English Canada. This study looks into the Uyghur identity experiences through the intersection of multiple theoretical lenses, namely identity politics, post-colonialism, critical race theory and "Lost in Translation". Methodologically, critical narrative analysis (CNA), which is an organic combination of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and narrative analysis (NA), is used to investigate the discursive formation and reconstruction of Uyghur identity within various Canadian contexts. More specifically, the narratives of 12 participants are studied through thematic analysis, as well as constant comparison method. Generally speaking, the findings of this comparative study show both similar and different perspectives and experiences of the Uyghur immigrants living in Quebec and English Canada. In terms of their educational experiences and perspectives, they expressed very common voices over the positive as well as negative influences of the Canadian educational institutions on the Uyghur identity and cultural values. They all began to more deeply value and appreciate their own community cultural wealth, while starting to question the Eurocentric cultural capital produced and reproduced in the Canadian education systems which they once highly admired. When they all showed dramatically increased consciousness of being Uyghur and Muslim in all Canadian contexts, they felt a significantly deeper sense of being excluded and discriminated in Quebec than in the English provinces. Moreover, there is a possibility that most of them may have internalized or developed an us/Muslim immigrants vs. them/local, White Canadians dichotomy, reflecting the long-existing discourse of Orientalism. But the extent of such a gap may again vary in different provinces, with Quebec exposing a wider and deeper division. At the same time, in English Canada, such a dichotomy seems to be largely cultural rather than political, while in Quebec it appears to be equally political and cultural. In other words, while they unanimously expressed their resistance to the dominant cultures in Canada through highlighting the values and importance of their own cultural wealth, in English provinces their resistance appears to have been unfolding more in the form of "oppositional culture" which could be quite apolitical. Yet in Quebec, it may have been manifesting itself at the level of "oppositional consciousness", which can be significantly political. Meanwhile, their increased opportunity for resistance and freedom in Canada has also been accompanied by dilemmas, tensions and new forms of displacement, which have rendered them outsiders again after having lived as "strangers in their own land"-Xinjiang for about three decades. Such form of double displacement or twofold experience of alienation/estrangement has, to a great extent, shaped the process of the reconstitution of Uyghur identity in Canada.

Bilingual education

Minority & ethnic groups

Minority & ethnic violence

Muslims

Religion

Terrorism

Dilimulati, Maihemuti (Dilmurat Mahmut)

Ghosh, Ratna

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y