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A Bourdieuian Analysis of Job Search Experiences of Immigrants in Canada

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Abstract

Drawing on qualitative interviews, this paper examines the labour market integration experiences of immigrants from Turkey to Canada. Analysis is framed in the context of Bourdieu’s theoretical framework in order to understand the ways in which members of certain immigrant groups follow varied integration trajectories. This paper contributes to the literature by first focusing on the experiences of immigrants who arrived with varied levels of education and under different immigration classes, settling in diverse segments of the labour market and, second, by exploring strategies developed to deal with job search challenges. The findings show that capital and habitus travelled with participants from Turkey and that the intersection of their immigration status with the set of written and unwritten rules of the Canadian labour market and its subfields (both professional and non-professional) shaped their integration experiences.

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Notes

  1. Turkish refers to all population groups in Turkey: Turks, Kurds, and others. When I use the adjective Turkish, it means immigrants from Turkey, not Turk.

  2. Refugee class comprises subcategories. For more information: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/outside/index.asp

  3. Only a few participants attended language courses (ESL or others).

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported by the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at the University of Western Ontario, and the Migration Research Program at Koc University (MiReKoc), Istanbul. The author is grateful for Wolfgang Lehmann and Belinda Dodson for their comments on earlier versions of this article. I also would like to thank to immigrants from Turkey who participated in this project.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Social Science Centre, Western University, Room 5307, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5C2

    Guliz Akkaymak

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Akkaymak, G. A Bourdieuian Analysis of Job Search Experiences of Immigrants in Canada. Int. Migration & Integration 18, 657–674 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-016-0490-0

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