How visible minority immigrant professionals experience their employment settlement in Winnipeg: looking through a practice-based lens, seeking solutions
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Date
2020-01-23
Authors
Kumar, Alka
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Abstract
Abstract
This research study seeks to learn from the experiences of visible minority professional immigrants, “internationally educated professionals” (IEPs), often described simply as “newcomers,” who have migrated to Canada and settled in Winnipeg. The findings present and document the self-perceptions and understanding these individuals have of their migration journeys as contextualised through seeking employment settlement and overall integration in Canada, specifically in Winnipeg. While the sample is small, and deeply experiential, the objective of the research is that emergent insights form the basis of a theoretical-applied framework that can be used to support individuals figure out good strategies to enhance their employability, agency, and resiliency. In addition, the findings can be utilised by community stakeholders to create programming that addresses some gaps, creating social innovation–based resources that are well-coordinated, and also to develop their potential to be more customised, responsive and inclusive.
Qualitative enquiry–based mixed methods, including auto-ethnography, were employed to gather and analyse data. One of the core elements of this research is that it is strongly informed by the researcher’s practitioner experience in the newcomer settlement sector, one of its objectives being to help bring the often separate worlds of theory and praxis closer by strengthening the feedback loop between them. The study brings together the following interdisciplinary worlds in conversation with each other: PACS; economic migration; career practice in the context of employment transition; and auto-ethnography. It is hoped that by bringing the above perspectives and practitioner tools to the field of migration, as applied to employment and career transitions, unexplored avenues and paradigms of research, analysis and praxis will open that can in turn help move the interdisciplinary field of conflict transformation and peacebuilding in new theoretical, methodological, and practise-based directions.
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Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS), labour market integration, immigrant professionals, visible minority, qualitative research, auto-ethnography