Hybridising identities by Korean mothers and daughters in New Zealand : a doctoral thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Albany campus, New Zealand
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Date
2011
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Massey University
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Abstract
The population in the Pacific region is becoming increasingly diverse. In New Zealand, Asian
migrants now make up almost 10% of the total population. Among them, women and second
generation migrants are often described as most vulnerable to acculturation stress and identity
confusions due to cultural conflicts, intergenerational issues and discrimination. However, their
resilience to overcome these difficulties and their processes to construct alternative identities are
not well understood. My study particularly concerns identity issues of Korean women migrants
in New Zealand. The aim of this study is to understand how they deal with the challenges and
re-construct their identities. For this purpose, this study draws on theories of hybridizing selves,
the dialogical self and the interactive nature of culture. Six Korean mothers and six Korean
young adult daughters were interviewed. Photographs and personal items were used to facilitate
the interview conversations. To undertake the analyses, this study draws on frameworks
suggested by discourse analysis and narrative analysis, and is underpinned by a social
constructionist approach. Informed by a discursive approach, the researcher was aware of the
potentials and constraints in the social and cultural context of the participants’ everyday lives.
Informed by a narrative approach, the researcher could explore participants’ active roles in
constructing their own stories. The findings demonstrate that these women are in the process of
constructing hybrid identities. By constructing hybrid identities, they can avoid the strictures of
being either ‘authentic’ Koreans or ‘assimilated’ Westernised women. Instead, they create
flexible, positive selves, negotiating gender, ethnicity, and the power structures experienced in
Western dominant society. The findings also show that mothers and daughters negotiate
identities in various ways. Mothers construct the sense of being in a minority in ways that allow
them to claim their strength and overcome powerlessness attached to their minority status. They
also strategically construct others as the same as themselves to restore a sense of equality and to
claim their rights in a Western country. Daughters construct themselves as being different from
both ‘typical’ Koreans and their western peers, and then this dislocation is used to create a space
to allow their own ways of adjustment. Daughters also describe their difficulties in carrying out
adult roles in the family, but this construction turns into a sense of worthiness as a valuable
contributor to the family. Regarding their future plans, daughters strategically use their hybrid
identities to form positive self images as competent young women in an international context.
Hybridised identities are also constructed with regard to intergenerational interactions within the
family: mothers formulate ways of hybridizing children based on both Korean and Western
notions of parenting, which becomes their way to be good mothers in the western society;
daughters draw on both the notions of being a good, caring daughter in Korean terms and being
an independent woman in New Zealand in order to negotiate their relationships with parents. To
conclude, this study documents how culture is not a set of inherent traits of an ethnic group but
is interactive, shifting and performative. Also migrant women are to be seen as active
negotiators in identity construction rather than victims of acculturation stress. These findings
have implications for health professionals in New Zealand who are interested in assisting
migrants in developing flexibility and resilience. The implications for appropriate cultural
competence in professional psychological practice are discussed in terms of the broader
understanding of culture and the importance of reflectivity for practice.
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Keywords
Korean women, Identity (Psychology), Immigrant women