This thesis presents a qualitative study that used the making of self-portraits and their incorporation in collages to investigate issues of identity among recently arrived adolescent refugees. These collages were then analyzed to shed light on the influence of both the migration process and adolescence on the subjects' sense of their identity. / Fourteen asylum claimant teenagers---recently arrived in Canada from Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa---were asked to produce a collage that represents him- or herself. The collages consisted of a photographic self-portrait and images that the subjects culled from various newspapers and magazines made available to them. Nondirective interviews with the subjects, conducted in a subsequent session, provided biographical information that was used to support the analysis of the collages. / The study indicates that, transcending differences in geo-cultural origin, there are clear differences in the self-representation of male and female adolescents. This result underlines how much the construction of identity during adolescence is primarily that of gender identity. In addition, the study shows that despite the predominance of a "globalized youth culture," each teenager appropriates this culture according to his/her need to identify with and differentiate from the host society. The collages also indicated an engagement by the subjects in working out the comfort they draw or pain they feel in relation to the country and culture they have left behind. Finally, the collages also included a temporal dimension and the emphasis on the past, present, or future seems to correspond to the subjects' differing strategies for working through the experience of geo-cultural dislocation. / The study concludes that creative exercises such as self-portraiture and collage provide a rich source of psychological material and a non-threatening way of gaining access to the imaginary of recently arrived refugee teenagers. Consequently, the approach used here could also be used as a tool to provide support to adolescent asylum seekers. The results also indicate a need for a greater understanding of the relationship between self-image and mental health.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.101735 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Premand, Natacha. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | French |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Psychiatry.) |
| Rights | © Natacha Premand, 2006 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002585226, proquestno: AAIMR32851, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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