Cette recherche est le fruit de deux observations: la première est liée au fait qu'un bon nombre d'ouvrages portent sur les immigrants et leurs transferts de fonds. Il n'existe aucune étude sur les transferts de revenus des immigrants haïtiens, qui pourtant constituent l'un des plus importants groupes ethniques dans certaines grandes villes nord-américaines. La deuxième constatation relève du fait que la plupart des études qui portent sur la migration et le développement parviennent à la conclusion que les transferts de fonds des émigrés peuvent contribuer au développement de leur pays d'origine. C'est ce qui nous a poussé à aller interroger les Haïtiens à Montréal pour voir s'ils croient que leurs transferts de fonds vers Haïti peuvent être une aide importante pouvant déclencher le processus de développement en Haïti. Nous avons obtenu des réponses plutôt mitigées à cette question. En effet, 15 répondants sur 35 estiment que leurs transferts peuvent aider au développement d'Haïti. Par contre, 20 participants sur 35 déclarent formellement que leurs transferts ne peuvent pas contribuer au développement de leur pays d'origine puisque ces envois de fonds ne sont pas effectués dans un tel but, ils ne sont pas investis dans des activités rentables. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

A survey of perceptions of health risk was conducted on 297 randomly selected residents of Akwesasne, a Mohawk community of approximately 13,000 citizens, straddling the border between Canada and the United States. The survey was conducted to understand how residents of Akwesasne perceive different types of health risks, and how attitudes about such risks are formed. Survey questions focused on association to the words risk and health, ranking of health hazards present in the community, sources of information on health risks, confidence in organizations and agencies responsible for health risk management, and a series of questions on risk related attitudes and behaviours. The survey demonstrated higher perceptions of risk among older as compared to younger respondents, and among women as compared to men. The media represented the primary source of information on risk, followed by traditional healers, although traditional healers were perceived as being more credible than the media.

Stereotypes emphasizing passivity, docility, and uncleanliness all contribute to cultural (mis)understandings of Canadian women of South Asian background. Such understandings feed dominant racist discourses, including "bodily" discourses related to fitness and health. In turn, such discourses have "effects" in terms of how women approach bodily practices. This study focuses on the constructions of health and fitness among ten 20--25 year old second generation South-Asian Canadian women who now reside in Ottawa or Toronto. Based on conversations with these women, the study focuses on how they construct health and fitness as well as the types of institutional and cultural discourses they draw from. Results show how these women struggle to construct an identity that speaks to their experience of being South Asian Canadian in that they often unsettle, contest, negotiate and resist normative constructions of both "South Asian" and "Canadian" identities. Results also highlight the impact of these negotiations on the young women's constructions of health, and on their position as un/fit and un/healthy subjects within cultural discourses. Insights from this study fill an important gap in the Canadian literature on health and fitness as well as inform contemporary debates regarding health policy and health education programs for South-Asian Canadian women.

This study examined intergenerational value similarity in Polish immigrant families in Canada in comparison to value similarity in non-immigrant families, that is, Polish families in Poland and Canadian families in Canada. The 460 volunteers---members of 155 families living in Poland and Canada---participated by filling out the parent's or young adult's version of the questionnaire. In order to determine an impact of immigration on the value transmission process, the four scales of the Emic Questionnaire of Cultural Values and Scripts (EQCVS) were employed to measure similarity of value priorities and value congruence between parents and their grownup children in the three cultural groups. Comparisons of the groups' mean value scores revealed a generational effect, which depending on the value type, has shown to be culture-specific. However, both the group and family level of analyses showed no effect of immigration on the parent-child value similarity. The five scales of the Personal Authority in the Family System Questionnaire - College Version (PAFS-QCV), the four scales of Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (OEMEIS) questionnaire and some demographic data were employed to test a possible association of contextual variables with parent-child value similarity. The study identified intergenerational relational styles, value similarity within the family and young-adult's identity status as culture specific predictors of parent-child value similarity. Even though the study applied different methods and levels of data analysis, it did not detect a difference in the levels of parent-child value similarity among immigrant and non-immigrant families. The lack of statistically significant difference as well as observed trends in differences in intergenerational similarity of values among the groups tested, and possible explanations for these results are discussed.

Abstract not available.

This thesis examines how Shia Muslims react to sudden, unexplained, and prolonged pain. In doing so, the thesis frames physical pain not only as physiological phenomenon but also as a phenomenon that is defined by historical, cultural and social context. Sudden, unexplained and prolonged pain not only produces physical hurt, it also has the capacity to interrupt individuals' social activities and as a consequence their identities and the meanings with which they are associated. For this reason, it is argued that biomedicine and psychology are not always capable of giving satisfactory accounts of the experience of pain. This failure frequently leads individuals who succumb to sudden, unexplained and prolonged pain to look for meaning in religious or quasi-religious experience. The thesis first explores historically divergent conceptions of pain. It then gives an overview of biomedical, psychological and sociological and anthropological conceptions of pain. A theoretical framework is developed that connects the experience of pain with broader social meanings, identity and the body. This framework is used to analyse qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews with Shia Muslim scholars and Shia Muslim respondents who have experienced or are experiencing sudden unexplored pain. It is shown that the religious worldview provides believers with cultural resources that allow them to negotiate the crisis of meaning and identity provoked by the experience of sudden, unexplained, prolonged pain.

This thesis examines the educational adaptation of children of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. The influence of common shared values on the educational attainment of a segment of the new second generation---Black children of immigrants---is explored. The data are drawn from the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey. The findings illustrate that the educational experience of black children of immigrants is heterogeneous. Depending on both socioeconomic and ethnic attachment factors, different educational outcomes for black children of immigrants were observed.

This thesis is an ethnographic explorative case study of Filipina caregivers and domestic workers in Taiwan, based on seven months of field research. It combines participant observation, interviews with Filipina household workers and migrant worker NGO representatives and church workers, and a review of written materials from these NGOs. Using Arjun Appadurai's (1996) theoretical framework on landscapes and the production of locality, it explores how Filipina household workers create locality in the production of transnational ethnoscapes, as well as how they demand the recognition of their rights within the transnational ideoscapes of human rights. I found that Filipinas create locality through the creation and use of Filipino spaces, including the Catholic Church, Filipino restaurants and shops, and public spaces likes parks. With respect to human rights, I found that Filipina household workers demand the recognition of their human rights through the assistance of the Church and migrant workers NGOs, but with limited success.

Les technologies informatiques font partie du mode organisationnel de notre société. Les individus sont supposés en avoir la maîtrise et des l'école leur utilisation est encouragée. Cette utilisation est présentée dans certaines études sociologiques et dans les politiques d'informatisation comme susceptible de développer des compétences en rapport avec ledit mode organisationnel. On dispose même en sociologie d'un idéaltype de l'individu parfaitement adapté à cette société informatisée, le travailleur auto programmable selon Castells (2000;2006). À partir de l'utilisation secondaire et partielle des données de l'enquête (In)equalily, Identity and Internet Use by Minorities in a Globalizing World. Young People 's Internet Use in Barbados and Francophone Ontario réalisée par une équipe de chercheurs universitaires et dirigée par Ann Denis, notre recherche s'intéresse à certains aspects de ce travailleur auto programmable. Si ses compétences ont émergé grâce à l'utilisation de l'informatique, alors les élèves franco ontariens ayant participé à l'enquête devraient commencer à manifester certaines d'entre elles car ils ont utilisé dès l'âge scolaire les équipements informatiques mis à leur disposition à l'école. Les données permettaient d'étudier trois facettes de l'individu idéaltype en émergence chez les élèves ayant participé à l'enquête, soit les compétences suivantes : la littéracie informatique, capacité à utiliser une variété d'outils et logiciels informatiques et intérêt pour une variété de thèmes accessible via le Web ; une ouverture à la diversité, capacité à sortir du cadre habituel et à avoir des contacts avec des cultures autres ; et la sociabilité via Internet, capacité à utiliser les outils informatiques pour créer son réseau. Cependant, des " fractures numériques ", inégalités dans l'accès ou l'utilisation, étaient encore sensibles au moment de l'enquête. Aussi, nous recherchons les rôles respectifs des facteurs sociodémographiques et des facteurs d'utilisation des outils informatiques qui sont associés à ces compétences. Pour cela, nous effectuons une analyse de variance des scores obtenus par les élèves pour ces compétences selon les deux types de facteurs : sociodémographiques, reliés à l'utilisation de l'informatique. Le contexte franco ontarien linguistiquement minoritaire, et le multiculturalisme canadien, bien représenté dans notre échantillon, permettent de regarder sous des angles différents ce qui pour le travailleur auto programmable est considéré comme un atout, alors que subsistent les débats sur les effets de l'utilisation d'Internet, outil qui présente un contenu majoritairement anglophone. Notre étude montre que l'utilisation de l'informatique ne peut expliquer à elle seule l'émergence des compétences attendues, mesurée par des scores dans les trois aspects considérés, et qu'elle n'y est associée que pour une part minime. Le genre, le nombre de langues parlées, l'expérience d'utilisation d'Internet et son utilisation hors cours jouent pour la littéracie informatique. Les scores d'ouverture à la diversité sont reliés à ces trois derniers facteurs, et au niveau socioéconomique. La sociabilité via Internet n'est associée qu'à l'expérience d'utilisation d'Internet, et pour une part très minime. En conclusion, les caractéristiques étudiées du travailleur auto programmable ne se développent pas chez les élèves de la même façon quand on considère les résultats globaux dans l'échantillon : le score moyen est de 57,75% en littéracie informatique mais seulement 43,6% pour l'ouverture à la diversité et la sociabilité via Internet. Et, comme l'analyse de variance montre 20, 7% de variation des scores expliquée par la combinaison des facteurs significatifs pour la littéracie informatique, 19, 7% pour l'ouverture à la diversité et 4, 8% pour la sociabilité via Internet, on voit que le développement des compétences se fait majoritairement sur d'autres bases que les facteurs étudiés.

Somali refugees arriving in Canada in the early 1990s experienced various levels of exclusion as blacks, as Muslims, and as refugees, including immigration and settlement policies that continued to structure race and gender inequality in Canada. In addition to the disadvantage of new legislation that limited their settlement as recognised Convention refugees (and legitimate residents) and placed them in a marginal position in the Canadian society, Somali women were racially targeted as members of a culture perceived as "incompatible with the Canadian". However, Somali women did not passively accept their "fate" in Canada. At the individual level, women have engaged in creative adaptive strategies to deal with the social and economic exclusion they faced daily. Collectively, they employed various methods of activism to help the Somali refugees make sense of their fragmented lives in a new cultural, linguistic, and structural environment and to deal with the physical, social and economic displacements the community suffered from its collective refugee experiences. These women have engaged in multiple struggles to work for the " danta guud" (common good). Drawing mainly upon oral interviews with Somali women, this dissertation traces women's agency and subjectivity since early 20th century Somalia and argues that women's personal and professional history have shaped their engagement in activities beyond their personal and daily survival. Unlike those with no formal education, educated women came with transferable skills that have helped them cope with some of the difficult experiences of dislocation and uprootedness. Hence, the formal educational and professional skills combined with the spirit of agency, resourcefulness and survival inculcated by the Somali culture enabled the participants to take leadership roles in community affairs. Unfortunately, however, because women activists have themselves been dealing with being socially and economically excluded, their efforts were often limited to "making the margins liveable".