No straight lines or tidy boxes: young Assyrian women negotiating identities and educational pathways in New Zealand

Abstract

In recent decades many Assyrians have fled their homeland in Iraq to escape religious and ethnic persecution. This study explored how young Assyrian women are adjusting to life in New Zealand, in view of the little research that has been conducted with Assyrians in New Zealand and internationally to investigate their experience of resettlement. Inspired by the principles of participatory action research (PAR), I aimed to prioritise the rights and interests of participants and support them to take action to address issues raised. I undertook 400 hours of ethnographic work with 60 young women (between 16-25 years) and 72 Assyrian adults (53 women and 19 men); six interviews and a series of five focus groups with young Assyrian women; four interviews with Assyrian parents and two interviews with teachers of Assyrian students. A thematic analysis was employed to analyse transcripts and field notes. The research focused on two topics: cultural maintenance \ adaptation and what influenced the educational pathways the young women took. While participants indicated that they wanted to integrate (i.e. both maintain their culture and adapt to aspects of the New Zealand culture), they were treated as 'different' by (other) New Zealanders and discouraged from acting too Kiwi by other Assyrians. Participants managed the desire to attain optimal inclusion with members of the Assyrian community and the New Zealand public by shifting the way they positioned themselves in their speech in a manner that intercultural communication theorists describe as 'mindful identity negotiation' (Ting-Toomey, 2005). This highlights the contested and negotiated nature of the acculturation process, which is rarely detected in quantitative acculturation studies. Educational pathways were challenged by language difficulties, different teaching styles; being an older student, financial constraints, perceived discrimination and other life interests, such as marriage; but supported by the development of goals and support from family, teachers and friends. I describe how the PAR approach contributed to the research and reflect on why 'action' did not take place. Implications and suggestions for how teachers, acculturation researchers, parents and policy makers can support young people from small ethnic communities to establish their life pathway in this country are offered.