Eighteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

This paper investigates intergenerational gender negotiations in Nigerian households in Ireland. The research does not focus on ‘integration’ or ‘assimilation’ of the minority ethnic youth, but rather feelings of belonging, participation and integration on their own terms. In doing so, the research shifts away from what Nancy Lopez describes as ‘ethnicity paradigm’ where the primary objective of the study is to discover how certain, presumably inherent cultural characteristics of a given minority group either facilitate or delay integration into the mainstream society. That is, instead of asking how they assimilate, the study asks how they are racialized and gendered and how racialized and gendered experiences shape their daily lives. Echoing Yen Espiritu’s research of Filipino families in the US, this research approaches household negotiations not as a private matter, but recognizes the influence of social, historical and transnational dynamics on intergenerational relations. Thus, the study investigates how migrant families and individuals in Ireland are negotiating gender being subject to specific gendered and racialized discourses. Here, the discourses are being viewed through a historical post-colonial perspective particular to Ireland, where while the British have successfully constructed the Irish as a subordinate race, the Irish have been significantly involved in the British ‘civilising missions’ in Africa, including Nigeria. The processes of both being colonised and contributing to colonisation led to specific ideologies of gender, Irishness and the ‘Other’. This paper examines the role of these historical colonial dynamics on contemporary migration in Ireland.