Travelling tales and migratory meanings: South Asian migrant women talk of place, health and healing

Abstract

Geographers are bringing together narrative approaches and insights from cultural and feminist geography in building a body of work that examines the links between health, place and culture. This paper follows this direction in examining accounts of health and illness of South Asian migrant women living in British Columbia, Canada, using data from semi-structured interviews and a set of in-depth group interviews. The intent of the study was to explore how traditional medicine and indigenous medicine, as subjugated knowledges, were in tension or integrated with western medicine in the women's approaches to keeping healthy and managing illness. Analysis of the accounts shows intricate relationships among the body, food, place and identity. It is argued that these relationships are integral to the ongoing constitution of subjectivities and place in the context of the rapidly growing urban centres of the study. The paper concludes with comment on how this type of analysis of health and illness ‘talk’ de-medicalizes immigrants’ health behaviour, instead placing it within wider issues of integration and inclusion confronting racialized immigrant groups.

Les récits de voyage et les significations migratoires: des femmes immigrées de l'Asie du Sud s'entretiennent sur le lieu, la santé et la guérison

femmes immigrées, santé, alimentation, guérison traditionnelle, lieu, identité

Les géographes combinent des approches fondées sur le récit et des connaissances issues d'un corpus en géographie culturelle et féministe élaboré afin d'étudier les rapports entre la santé, le lieu et la culture. Dans cette foulée, l'article poursuit par une étude de récits sur la santé et la maladie tenus par des femmes immigrées de l'Asie du Sud et installées en Colombie Britannique (Canada). Les données sont tirées des résultats d'entrevues semi structurées et d'une série d'entrevues en profondeur menées en groupe. L'étude avait pour objectif d'explorer de quelles façons la médecine traditionnelle et la médecine indigène, définies comme des connaissances subjuguées, sont mises en tension ou intégrées à la médecine occidentale par les moyens déployés par les femmes pour se maintenir en santé et gérer la maladie. L'analyse des récits permet de montrer des relations complexes entre le corps, les aliments, le lieu et l'identité. Il est suggéré que ces relations sont indispensables à l'élaboration continuelle des subjectivités et du lieu dans un contexte d'étude caractérisé par une urbanisation rapide. En conclusion, l'article propose des commentaires sur la manière dont ce genre d'analyse de «discussion» sur la santé et la maladie permet de démédicaliser les comportements de santé des immigrants et plutôt de la situer par rapport aux enjeux plus considérables concernant l'intégration et l'insertion de groupes d'immigrants racialisés.

Cuentos de viaje y significados migratorios: mujeres inmigrantes del sur de Asia hablan de lugar, salud y curas

mujer inmigrante, salud, comida, curas tradicionales, lugar, identidad

Los geógrafos han juntado enfoques e ideas narrativos de las geografías de cultura y feminismo para crear un conjunto de trabajo que examina los vínculos entre salud, lugar y cultura. Este papel sigue esta dirección al examinar relatos de salud y enfermedad de las mujeres inmigrantes del sur de Asia que viven en British Columbia, Canadá. Hace uso de información recopilada de entrevistas semi-estructuradas y de entrevistas exhaustivas con grupos de mujeres. El objetivo del estudio era explorar la manera en que la medicina tradicional y la medicina indígena, como conocimientos subyugados, estaban en conflicto con, o integraban con la medicina occidental en cuanto al modo en que las mujeres mantenían la salud y trataban las enfermedades. El análisis de los relatos indica relaciones intricadas entre el cuerpo, la comida, lugar e identidad. Se sugiere que estas relaciones son esenciales a la constitución de subjetividades y lugar que continúa en el contexto de los centros urbanos cada vez más grandes donde tuvo lugar la investigación. El papel concluye con un comentario sobre el modo en que este tipo de análisis del diálogo sobre salud y enfermedad saca del campo de la medicina el comportamiento de las inmigrantes con relación a su salud, juntándolo con cuestiones más amplias de integración e inclusión que los grupos de inmigrantes racializados enfrentan.

Keywords:

• immigrant women
• health
• food
• traditional healing
• place
• identity

Acknowledgements

First thanks go to the women who participated in the study and field workers Bindy Kang and Jas Gill. I also acknowledge my colleagues in the research, Professor Emeritus Anand Paranjpe and Dr Parin Dossa of Simon Fraser University, and Dr Lyren Chiu of the University of British Columbia, and the valuable synergy of our group discussions about the project. Natalie Chambers and Cecily Nicholson made various contributions to the analysis and data gathering. Thanks also to insightful comments from anonymous referees. The study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's Metropolis Project, through the Vancouver Centre for Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis (RIIM, < www.riim.metropolis.net>).

Notes

1 This research is a constituent part of a larger multidisciplinary study exploring tensions between and/or integration of western biomedicine, traditional medicine and folk remedies in the ways immigrant and refugee women from four broadly defined communities attempt to keep healthy and manage illness. The team members had different disciplinary interests and political positioning with regards to the research project, but we were all interested in the recovery of the ‘subjugated knowledge’ of traditional and folk healing and comparing across groups. None of us was Canadian-born and represented different ethnicities. Two team members were of Indian heritage, one via East Africa, one had recently immigrated from China and the fourth, the author, grew up in England. The four communities from which study participants were recruited were loosely bounded according to local usage as Chinese, Iranian, Afghani and Sikh. This is not to suggest they are clearly defined, homogenous or fixed boundary groups. I follow McDowell's (1999: 100) conceptualization of community in terms of ‘a fluid network of social relations that may be but are not necessarily tied to territory’ which will be ‘defined both by material social relations and by symbolic meanings’.

2 The concepts of subjectivity and identity are often used interchangeably. My usage of subjectivity is consistent with McDowell and Sharp's (1999: 267), which encompasses both physical embodiment and the ways an awareness of a person's being in the world is constructed through a ‘range of emotional-mental processes’. This reflects a theoretical position in geography that is informed by poststructural interests in discourse and representation without losing sight of the material contexts of everyday life.

3 Abbotsford (population 128,000) is one of the fastest growing areas in Canada and the second most important destination, after Vancouver, for immigrants from India. Census figures from 2001 indicate that 63.3% of all its immigrants between 1991 and 2001 came from India.

4 The choice of field workers was predicated on language ability, their cultural capital within the Sikh community and the anticipation, especially in the group interviews, that the fieldworkers' degree of ‘insider-ness’ would create a safe environment for the women's story-telling. Feminist methodological literature concerning the power relations of interviewing across ‘race’, however, points to complex issues that guard against the notion of a simple racial or cultural matching. Furthermore, the ways multiple inscribed identities and social locations play out in research cannot be predicted (see e.g. Ramazonağlu with Holland 2002; Twine 2000). Nevertheless, the author, white and with the trappings of the authority of an academic position that would inscribe the interview setting differently for the women, chose not to be present at the interviews.

5 In 1999 the major immigrant classes to Canada were: economic (56%); family—entering as sponsored family members (29%); and refugees (13%) (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, < http://www.cic.ci.gc.ca>). Independent/economic-class immigrants include skilled workers, business investors, entrepreneurs and the self-employed. A points system initiated in the late 1960s to target skilled workers was developed further in a new raft of legislation in 2002 (Citizenship and Immigration Canada 2002). This reaffirms Canada's targeting of ‘flexible’, well-educated immigrants who are anticipated to contribute to the country's economic development, with sponsored (family-class) immigrants who are mainly women, invisible as economic agents.

6 Different names are given to herbs and spices according to the region in Punjab where women immigrated from, but fennel was most consistently used in reference to samf.

7 The integration of healing remedies and food ingredients is exemplified in a cook book, Indian Delights, written in 1961 by The Women's Cultural Group, a group of Indian immigrant women in South Africa who met regularly to share cooking tips. This consists of meal recipes, followed by remedies used for particular events or life course events. This has been passed down to a grand-daughter living in England, who is given specially prepared concoctions by her grandmother for particular events, such as at exam time. Whether the effect is believed in or not is less important than such preparations being valued as part of one's cultural heritage (Sarah Deedat, personal communication, 13 February 2004).