Italian Canadian youth and the negotiation of identities
Subtitle: the discourse on italianità, language and the spaces of identity.
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 436
Subjects: Italians -- Canada.; Italians -- Race identity -- Canada.; Italians -- Canada -- Languages.
Description: This thesis analyzes the identity politics (Hall 1990) and multiple discourses of being and becoming Italian Canadian among second/third generation Italian Canadian youth in Toronto.Using Giddens (1991) terms centre and periphery, this thesis investigates, firstly, the Italian Canadian/Italian centre(s)' various contradictory discourses on italianita (i.e., representations of italianness), definitions of the "right" forms of cultural and linguistic capital (Bourdieu 1977), and who can legitimately claim to be and become the "right" Italian Canadian. These local and transnational discourses produced across the Italian Canadian/Italian centre(s) define italianita and its spaces.The analysis shows how those dominating the Italian Canadian/Italian centre(s) essentialize italianita, use linguistic and cultural capital (i.e., Standard Italian, Italian culture and representations of present-day Italy) as a way of controlling who is included and excluded from the Italian Canadian/Italian worlds. Along the periphery, Italian Canadian groups reproduce and contest centre-discourses in order to redefine italianita and its spaces. Italian Canadian youth manoeuvre for access to forms of linguistic and cultural capital and positionings as legitimate possessors of such capital in order to tap into symbolic and material resources and the spaces of italianita across multiple worlds.Secondly, this thesis investigates those along the periphery: Italian Canadian youth organizations and other groups, and specifically how eight second/third generation Italian Canadian youths manage, negotiate and challenge identities (e.g., ethnicity, language, religion, gender and sexuality) through the discourses on self-identification, language, culture and italianita across and within discourse sites (e.g., home, university campus, university Italian language classrooms, peer group social sites and workplace) and multiple worlds (i.e., Italian Canadian, Canadian and Italian).In sum, this research uncovers the tensions and contradictions of what it means to be and become Italian Canadian across a multi-generational immigrant community that is undergoing change and re-analysis within a globalizing world.Critical ethnography and multiple field methods were used to explore the politics of identity. The data was analyzed using discourse analysis (Chouliaraki & Fairclough 1999), focusing on the discourse on language, culture and the representations of italianita and primarily examining content with references made to linguistic practices when they revealed social positionings.
Notes: Adviser:  Normand Labrie.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-05, Section: A, page: 1755.