Peripheral Ritualized Practices—Threads Connecting Decorations to the Cloak of Identity

Abstract

This is an ethnographic study which investigates the practices of language maintenance and ethnic identity affiliation for immigrant/migrant Nepalese families with primary to middle school children in the United Kingdom. The study presents a comparative case study analysis of three Nepalese immigrant/migrant families. Participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and historical narrative interview were used. The study investigated prior exposure to home country, ethnic, cultural, and social literacy practices that occurred in various contexts during a nine-month period. This analysis revealed a phenomenon I termed peripheral ritualized practices. Exposure to peripheral ritualized practices over time creates positive changes in attitudes toward multilingualism and diversity.

Keywords:

• Social Literacy Practices
• Ethnic Identity
• Language Maintenance
• Peripheral Ritualize Practices
• Intercultural Capital
• Multiliteracies

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Nettie Boivin

Nettie Boivin is an Instructor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. His research interests include Multiliteracy, Social and Emergent Literacies, Transnational Identity, Intercultural Communications, Cultural and Human Capital, Translanguaging, Transmultiliteracy. His publications are Chapter 11, Rush to educate: Ignoring the elephant in the room, Teaching and learning in the Arab world (Peter Lang, 2011); External factors influencing the co-constructing of experiential learning between Afghanistan participants and Malaysian lecturers, International Journal of Teaching and Education (Under review, 2015); Assessing emergent, social, and multiliteracy practices in urban Malaysian homes, Malaysian English Language Research Journal (2014); Content and language integration: Redesigning foundation curriculum to increase motivation, Malaysian English Language Research Journal (2014) and Trans-multiliteracy multigenerational approach: Bridging EAL/EFL schools with communities (first of two book series) (International Reading Association, submitted November 2014).