‘We are chameleons’: identity capital in a multicultural workplace

Abstract

This exploratory research investigates ‘identity capital’ in a multicultural workplace environment. Guided by Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical approach to capital and James Côté's concept of identity capital, we examine the strategic deployment of identity capital among adults in a multicultural immigrant-serving organization in Mississauga, serving the region of Peel, Ontario. The study involves 15 personal interviews with staff of this organization. The findings show that identity capital is deployed in social situations with clients, colleagues, and supervisor in the workplace. Moreover, the deployment of identity capital occurs through greetings, body language, finding connecting pieces, and methods of communication. Finally, the deployment of identity capital is strategic. The paper concludes that identity capital is a useful concept to explain the varied resources individuals have available to negotiate changing workplace environments.

Keywords:

• Greater Toronto Area
• identity
• identity capital
• multiculturalism
• settlement organizations
• workplace

Acknowledgements

We thank CERIS – The Ontario Metropolis Centre in Toronto, Canada, for supporting this project with the Graduate Student Research Award. We also thank Mehrunnisa Ali, Farishta Dinshaw, Sutuma Ghosh, Allen Tyyskä, the settlement organization and all research participants, who will remain anonymous to protect their identities. Finally, we appreciate the comments made by the anonymous reviewers

Notes

1. Although a separate form of capital, identity capital interrelates with cultural and social capital (Côté & Levine 2002). For example, identity capital can encompass cultural capital when belonging to multiple groups relates to personal identification and group validation (Côté, 1996; Côté & Levine, 2002).

2. For example, Myhill (2003) has argued against ‘native language and identity’ ideology because it gives an impression of a ‘hierarchy of authenticity’.

3. Recent immigrants are individuals who immigrated to Canada in the five years prior to the 2006 Canada Census.

4. ‘South Asian’ includes India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal. This term conflates diverse groups of people who differ linguistically, ethnically, and culturally.

5. Differences within Peel are also apparent in the immigrant composition of the three municipalities. For instance, 52 percent of the immigrants in Brampton and Mississauga were born in Asia, compared with Caledon, where 73 percent were born in Europe (Wu, 2008).

6. Under the Employment Equity Act, the ‘visible minority’ category refers to individuals, besides Aboriginal persons, who are ‘non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour’. The categories are: Chinese, South Asian, Black, Arab/West Asian, Filipino, South East Asian, Latin American, Japanese, Korean, and Other (Statistics Canada, 2008).

7. The word client refers to newcomers who are accessing services at the organization. Some participants stressed that ‘client’ is misleading because the relationship can be described as a partnership between the staff and immigrant.

8. This ‘hierarchical arrangement’ can refer to the formal organization of the workplace and the social and cultural expression of authority.

9. For confidentiality reasons, we altered the languages.