“The Family Knot”: Negotiating Identities and Cultural Values through the Everyday Occupations of an Immigrant Family in Sweden

Abstract

This study explored how multiple cultures and identities are negotiated through family-orchestrated occupations in the context of international migration. Immigrant families often bring aspects of their past traditions into the lifestyles typical of their new host country, which can lead to dramatic changes in family life. In this narrative study, ethnographic methods were also used to gather data with one family who emigrated from Latin America to Sweden. A narrative analysis was conducted drawing storied material from multiple interviews, observations and field notes into a coherent whole. In line with narrative analysis, the findings are presented through stories, where the data and the theory are constantly interwoven and integrated. The structure of the findings is presented as an “unraveling” of personal stories from a main event or “knot”: “The Sunday Lunch”. The stories illustrate how occupations provide possibilities for negotiating different layers of the participants' own identities and cultural values, while renegotiating the relationship between their culture of origin and themselves. This study enriches current understanding of the complex process of immigration, and emphasizes the family unit as a fluid and dynamic place, actively reconstituted and negotiated through everyday occupations.

Keywords:

• Immigration
• Culture
• Narrative
• Family
• Identities
• Occupation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the participants for sharing their experiences and time. This article is based on the first author's master thesis, and a special thank you is therefore extended to colleagues who have been part of the process and to those who have reviewed the work: Gaynor Sadlo, Jette Haugbølle, Jon Wright, Sissel Alsaker, and Staffan Josephsson. The second author also wishes to express gratitude to the Toyota Foundation for support, which in part made this study possible (Toyota Foundation 2010 Research Grant, D10-R-0076).