Leisure, Biculturalism, and Second-Generation Canadians

Abstract

This paper focuses on biculturalism, leisure, and it explores diversity within the leisure experiences of second-generation Canadians whose parents emigrated from South Asia. The participants' lives and leisure were shaped by their biculturalism—the way in which they identified as south Asian and Canadian, embracing and retaining aspects of their traditional South Asian culture, while adopting and adapting to the culture of the dominant Canadian society in which they were raised. The study found that leisure helped incorporate parts of both traditions and reconcile the differences between the two cultures by providing opportunities to draw the two sets of traditions together. This integration was accomplished by introducing family and ethnic friends to dominant group practices and likewise introducing dominant group friends into their traditional minority ethnic traditions. The longitudinal nature of the study provided a sense of the sequence of meaning making over a ten-year period.

KEYWORDS:

• Biculturalism
• leisure
• longitudinal qualitative research
• second generation