This study examines the meaning of home for 19 Hindu Gujarati immigrant women living in the Montreal suburban municipality of Dollard-des-Ormeaux. Adopting a qualitative approach, this study redefines home as a multiple and dynamic concept, referring not only to the house but also the homeland, neighbourhood, cultural community and even the abstract feeling of belonging or being 'at home.' While this study concentrates on the women's present homes and neighbourhoods, the idea of the home as being reinvented across a variety of spaces and social relationships is a central theme. Home-making is argued to be an evolving social process that begins in the childhood and marital homes in India and continues with the transition into new homes in Montreal. The house and home spaces (the neighbourhood and cultural community) are sites where multiple dimensions of the women's identities are given a voice and reinvented. The women define the character of the home spaces, and also negotiate culture, ethnicity and identity within them. Through the construction of hybrid cultural identities, the women are able to make themselves and their families 'at home' between cultures. This study points to complex and sometimes paradoxical meanings of home, and emphasizes the significance of the suburban, rather than inner city, quality of home-making and adaptation processes among immigrant women in Montreal.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.20453 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Nair, Roopa. |
| Contributors | Ray, B. K. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Geography.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001641570, proquestno: MQ43924, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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