In “Humanizing the Understanding of the Acculturation Experience with Phenomenology,” the author questions the general understanding of assimilation and instead uses the term acculturation to explain the Latino immigrant’s process adjusting to life in the U.S.A. The author claims a phenomenological approach, one where interviews and analysis of experiential descriptions, best humanizes the immigrant journey and allows a complete understanding of it. For example, the author argues that “in attempting to understand the impact of acculturation…researchers have focused on psychological stress” only instead of physical stress. (1) Phenomenology includes physical stress of the journey rather than just psychological.
The author conducted a small case study, analyzing the accounts of six adolescent Latina girls who live in the same state and immigrated from Mexico. She interviewed the girls and used the descriptions of their experiences to reveal a total understanding of the adjustment, instead of using “scientific theory, perspectives, conceptualizations, or any position that prescribes prior meaning” (2). The author is clearly an interpretivist and uses qualitative data as well as interpretations of the interviews she conducted to support her claim. This article explains an approach for research as to how to humanize immigrants and better understand their experience through research. The author gives a persuasive argument as to why an interpretivist approach is better than a positivist approach, and as a positivist, the article gives me another perspective and consideration for my research methodology as well as insight on specific aspects worth highlighting to humanize the immigrant experience.
(1) Skuza, Jennifer. “Humanizing the Understanding of the Acculturation Experience with Phenomenology,” Human Studies 30, no. 4 (2007), 453.
(2) Ibid, 450.
September 29, 2017 at 3:07 pm
A good article, Gwen, and a good summary! I like how you’ve identified, and started to think about, the way that the different ontological and methodological position of this article leads you to think about your own puzzle (and approach) in different ways. As you know, we’ll ultimately examine our puzzles from both neopositivist and interpretivist angles, so reading research from both perspectives early on is a good idea. What specific elements (theories, concepts, even ideas that *might* be transformed into variables) do you think you could take from this article and use in your own project in some way?