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published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

This study explores the self-representations of cross-border migrant, female sex workers in Johannesburg and compares these representations to those created by public discourses around cross-border migration, sex work, and gender. With a focus on issues of agency, vulnerability, and power, the study questions the impact of prevalent representations of these women by others on their individual self-representations. The participatory approach of this study builds on previous participatory research projects with migrant sex workers in Johannesburg and employs creative writing as a methodology to generate narratives and thus adds to literature about alternative methodologies for reaching currently marginalised and under-researched groups. Organisations such as Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and Sisonke Sex Worker Movement have worked with sex workers to generate digital stories for advocacy; however, academic research employing storytelling as a methodology has not been done with migrant sex workers in South Africa. While existing evidence indicates that cross-border migrant, female sex workers are often marginalised by state and non-state actors professing to assist them, this study emphasizes the voices of the women themselves. Over the course of three months, I conducted creative writing workshops with five female Zimbabwean sex workers in Hillbrow, Johannesburg; the women generated stories in these workshops that became the basis for one-on-one unstructured interviews. I compared the self-representations that emerged from this process with the representations of migrant sex workers that I determined from a desk review of the websites of organisations that contribute to trafficking and sex work discourses in South Africa. With the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Bill close to becoming law in South Africa and the prevalent assumption that systemic trafficking problems are related to the sex industry and irregular migration, developing a better understanding of migrants involved in sex work in South Africa is particularly important. Furthermore, a national focus on reducing and even preventing immigration—and the stigma attached to migrants—adds urgency to the elucidation of the lives of migrants. This study investigates how female Zimbabwean sex workers in Johannesburg—often positioned as vulnerable and sometimes misidentified as trafficked—see themselves in a country increasingly concerned with issues of (anti-)immigration and (anti-)trafficking. Furthermore, sex work is criminalized in South Africa and social mores attach stigma to prostitution. Contrary to assumptions that all sex workers are forced into the industry or foreign sex workers trafficked into the country, the participants in this study spoke of active choices in their lives—including choices about their livelihood and their movement—and describe their vulnerabilities and strengths. Perhaps the most striking similarity between participants was the women’s acknowledgement of the dangers they face and the decisions they make, weighing risks and gains. This recognition of agency ran through the six key themes that I generated through thematic analysis: Conflicting Representations of Sex Work, Stigma and Double Existence, Health and Safety, Importance of Independence, Morality of Remittances, and Mobility. Throughout the analysis, I argue that the participants in the study present themselves as aware of the dangers they face and calculating the risks. The participants responded enthusiastically to the creative writing methodology—through their stories, discussions, and interviews, they portrayed a complex, at times ambiguous, portrait of migrant sex workers in South Africa. While recognizing their double vulnerability—as illegally engaging in sex work and, often, illegally residing in South Africa, they also emphasized their strength and agency.

In 1929 the old Hastings Mill Store building was towed by scow from Vancouver's inner harbour to its present location near Spanish Banks in Point Grey. In the following two years, the Native Daughters of British Columbia transformed the old building in to a museum to preserve historical relics of the early days of Vancouver. Their museum recounted pioneer histories of journey to, and settlement in, British Columbia in order to celebrate European development of the region, promote Vancouver's connection with the British Empire, and encourage future economic growth in the city. Today, the Native Daughters continue to operate this quirky and curious museum. Their exclusive tale of European pioneer history has been preserved in its original form, untouched by decades of museological change and post-colonial critique of cultural representation. The thesis uses the Hastings Mill Museum as a case study in heritage preservation in British Columbia. It claims that the museum itself is an artifact. It is a material remnant of an important movement in local history when such groups as the Native Daughters used the preservation of the past to address contemporary political and social concerns. Representing an idealized pioneer past provided an important source of political and social power for the Native Daughters. Through the Hastings Mill Museum, the Native Daughters helped its members - and the province's community of native-born, Anglo-European - affirm their status as a genealogical and historical elite. The Native Daughters used a variant of the North American "pioneer myth," a nostalgic interpretation of local history that distilled the city's history into a simple narrative of anglo-European settlement, sacrifice and development, to document their claim to the region's political, institutional, and economic power. Their use of heritage preservation as a source of power was shaped by gender. The Daughters used their position as "guardians" and "nurturers" of the region's heritage in order to promote and strengthen the position of their community of white, native-born British Columbians.

This study examines how in the context of international migration, ethnic (cultural) assimilation may influence fertility and attitudes towards fertility. The relationships between ethnic assimilation (measured by the extent to which immigrants will have subscribed to the core values of Canadian society through life style or behaviourial characteristics and social networks), socioeconomic status (that is, level of education and income), and six variables used to measure fertility and attitudes towards fertility of Black African immigrant women in Canada are examined. These include: ideal number of children; ideal number of Sons; currently preventing pregnancy; currently pregnant or trying to get pregnant; children ever born still living and more sons than daughters. The African women who participated in the study were all immigrants in Canada, selected from the different African communities. Only women in their child bearing years were selected. An attempt was made to include women from all the different categories of immigrants. Africans that were not black and blacks from North America and the Caribbean were excluded from the sample. Data collection for the study was at the micro-level. In total, 165 questionnaires, consisting of structured questions were handed out. Results revealed statistically significant relationships between ethnic assimilation and fertility and attitudes towards fertility. For example, a significant relationship existed between attending African dances, parties and informal social affairs, and currently preventing pregnancy, and pregnant or trying to get pregnant. A significant negative correlation was found between income and children ever born that were still living. Age too was found to be related to fertility, with women in the older age—group (35-44) reporting higher averages for ideal number of children and sons, as opposed to those in the younger age—groups and the entire population. Surprisingly enough, no significant relationships were recorded between level of education, feeling of ethnicity, maintenance of contact with homeland, years spent in Canada, residence in Africa, the category immigrants belonged to, and fertility as originally anticipated.

This two-part study evaluates a government sponsored Long Term Care Aide/ESL Program taken by a group of immigrant women. The purpose of the first part of the study was to assess how effective a B.C. government sponsored Long Term Care Aide/ESL program was in preparing a group of immigrant women for the workplace. A questionnaire was used to determine demographics and employment status. Also, it obtained perceptions on the strengths and weaknesses of the program. The purpose of the second part of this study was to hear the women's personal insights and voices about their experiences while taking the program and after the program. Semi-structured interviews were used to obtain these stories. Results from the quantitative questionnaire indicated that 94% of the immigrant women who had taken this course were employed as care aides. Three years after the completion this program, the women felt that the course had provided them with both a vocational skill and more English language skills. Results from the qualitative portion of this paper focused on how the women felt about their experiences in this Long Term Care Aide/ESL program in their own words. The data were analyzed and put into themes. Theme 1 was "The pain of renewal". It presented their collective stories of being an immigrant and struggling to begin again. Theme 2 was "The costs and the benefits". This theme presented the women's insights on working as care aides. Most of the women liked their jobs but found trying to secure a full time job difficult. Theme 3 was "The need to learn the language of care". All the women interviewed wanted to have more "caring" language, the "everyday" language to relate to their clients. Theme 4 was "Advice to other immigrant women". This theme revealed how some women felt about the work they did. The last theme, Theme 5, was "Hopes and dreams". Half of the women interviewed had aspirations to continue their education and these women were already enrolled in other health care courses. The results of the study are discussed and implications are drawn for research and pedagogy.

My study examines three female Black British bildungsromane: Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, Joan Riley’s Waiting in the Twilight, and Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen. By combining a study of a relatively established novel form with contemporary female diasporic fictions, my work looks at how gender, race and location complicate the tropes of the genre, while still adhering to many of its parameters. I explore ways in which the existential states of loneliness, isolation, and solitude faced by the female protagonists in England assist or inhibit the formation of collectivity and subjectivity. This study pays particular attention to ways that community formation and friendship, as well as work and affective labor, serve as means to find/create a sense of home in diasporic conditions, as in Brick Lane and Second-Class Citizen. I also study how a sense of community falters because of a disconnection from productive work in Waiting in the Twilight. / Department of English

This qualitative case study describes the language learning experiences of four South Asian women from their perspectives and uses tools of ethnographic inquiry such as interviews, participant observations and document analysis. The socio-cultural factors affecting their language learning process and acculturation are analyzed. Key elements of the lived experiences of these South Asian females surfacing in the case study data are isolation and gender inequity. Socio-cultural identity emerges as a very influential factor in the language learning process. I understand this identity as socially constructed, contradictory, and fluid. Peirce's poststructuralist conception of social identity as multiple, a site of struggle, and subject to change is used in the theoretical framework. Her concept of "investment" is employed to describe immigrant women's involvement in the language learning process. An umbrella category termed the "weight of society" is used to explain the influences of socio-cultural norms on the language learning processes of the four research participants. Implications for immigrant language training policies and further research are suggested.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2005.