Browsing by Subject "positioning"
Now showing items 1-3 of 3
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(2022)In the past two decades, Finland has gone through significant demographic changes. As more migrants from the Global South arrive in Europe, comparing their stories and analyzing how migration has impacted their lives is critical. Specifically, the particularities beneath migrant communities are necessary to grasp the diversity of minority groups arriving North. This thesis investigates the migration stories of queer migrants living in Finland. From an insider's perspective, this research analyses how Latin American gay migrants position themselves within migration narratives. Six participants who identified as gay men living in the metropolitan area of Helsinki were interviewed to reveal their perspectives on race, migration, and sexuality through an intersectional lens. Using holistic-content narrative analysis and position analysis, the participants' stories were examined to depict the specific nuances of the migration experiences of sexual and gender minorities. The study showed that gay Latino migrants strategically located and dislocate from positions according to the context narrated in their stories. Participants preferred to accentuate their queerness and hide their Latin American identity in different social circumstances. Particularly in Finland, gay positioning was narrated as more positive than the Latin American position. Accordingly, this research depicts how queer migrants from Hispano-America living in Finland accept and reject distinct social positions and reimagine their identity after arriving in Finland through narrative inquiry.
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(2023)Objectives. The research task of this study is to describe, analyse and interpret the use of “migrant student” and similar terms in two documents of an international intervention project, which aims to make assessment more equitable for “migrant students”. More specifically, this study aimed to answer the research question “In what manners is the migrant student positioned?”. Positioning involves the assignment of attributes to people, either to another individual/group or the utterer/their ingroup (Davies & Harré 1990). On top of assignment of attributes, naming and agentivising of “the migrant student” were considered to contribute to positioning, and were thus investigated as well. Methods. The material consisted of two documents, a grant proposal and an informational document for stakeholders, written by multiple authors, who are researchers. Documents were analysed with quantitative and qualitative means, namely frequency analysis of agent-verb-object combinations and discourse analysis. Both analyses drew from semiotics, semantics, and enunciative pragmatics. Results and conclusions. It was found that “migrant students” are consistently othered (Jensen 2011) - positioned as disadvantaged, incompetent and challenging. It was argued that the unfavourable positioning of the “migrant student” could serve to convince funders and stakeholders of the necessity and the success of the project, which is essential for securing academic funding. The implications of conducting educational initiatives that claim to advance equity for students, but simultaneously other them, were considered. It is suggested that academic othering may be necessitated by the structures that impact the agency of researchers. It is also recommended that future research not only explores academic othering in other academic genres, but also involves those in powerful positions in structures like universities.
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(2023)Objectives. The research task of this study is to describe, analyse and interpret the use of “migrant student” and similar terms in two documents of an international intervention project, which aims to make assessment more equitable for “migrant students”. More specifically, this study aimed to answer the research question “In what manners is the migrant student positioned?”. Positioning involves the assignment of attributes to people, either to another individual/group or the utterer/their ingroup (Davies & Harré 1990). On top of assignment of attributes, naming and agentivising of “the migrant student” were considered to contribute to positioning, and were thus investigated as well. Methods. The material consisted of two documents, a grant proposal and an informational document for stakeholders, written by multiple authors, who are researchers. Documents were analysed with quantitative and qualitative means, namely frequency analysis of agent-verb-object combinations and discourse analysis. Both analyses drew from semiotics, semantics, and enunciative pragmatics. Results and conclusions. It was found that “migrant students” are consistently othered (Jensen 2011) - positioned as disadvantaged, incompetent and challenging. It was argued that the unfavourable positioning of the “migrant student” could serve to convince funders and stakeholders of the necessity and the success of the project, which is essential for securing academic funding. The implications of conducting educational initiatives that claim to advance equity for students, but simultaneously other them, were considered. It is suggested that academic othering may be necessitated by the structures that impact the agency of researchers. It is also recommended that future research not only explores academic othering in other academic genres, but also involves those in powerful positions in structures like universities.
Now showing items 1-3 of 3