African immigrant women’s transition and integration into Canadian society: expectations, stressors, and tensions

Abstract

This article contributes to an emergent body of research that explores African immigrant women’s experiences in Western destination countries. Foregrounding these immigrant women’s voices in this research, we aim to better understand the challenges they grapple with as newcomers to Canada. Specifically, our study sought to explore the stressors they faced within and outside the family and how these stressors mediate their transition and integration into Canadian society. We conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analyzed two focus groups with twenty African immigrant women in Alberta, a Western province among Canada’s ten provinces. Three main themes emerged from our study: (1) Participants felt ill prepared to face the challenges of starting life anew in Canada, which included in particular navigating changes in economic wellbeing and gender roles; (2) Participants experienced a lack of community support, which was reflected in both mental/emotional health and parenting issues; and (3) Participants expressed frustration with the manner in which Canadian socio-legal systems manage immigrants’ family issues. Our findings underscore the need to actively engage African immigrant women and men in the development of policies and practices that mediate their everyday lives in Canada. Such policies and practices should consider the changing gender relations, cultural knowledge, and informal support channels within African immigrant communities.

Keywords:

• African
• Canada
• gender relations
• immigrant
• women

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University of Alberta Kule Institute for Advanced Studies Dialogue Grant.

Notes on contributors

Philomina Okeke-Ihejirika is a full professor of Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her research focuses on Gender and Development as well as on International Migration from the South with a special focus on Africa and its emerging Western Diasporas.

Bukola Salami is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta. Her area of research and expertise is immigrant health. Her program of research seeks to bridge the gaps between immigration policies and health policies and practices.

Aryan Karimi is a doctoral candidate in Department of Sociology, University of Alberta. His research interests include sociology of gender and sexuality and sociocultural anthropology of Iran and Middle East. He also has expertise in ethnicity, migration and multicultural studies in Canada.