Native Narratives: Making Sense of Living in a Different Culture

This PhD exploratory, descriptive research, carried out in Finland, attempts to understand how non-white educated professionals, of African origin, make sense of living and working in Finland, in a culture distinct from that of their own. The research further investigates the impact of one’s cultural identity on making sense of that experience. The methodology is inclusive and draws both on the conceptual roots of Narrative Analysis (NA) (Clandinin, 2007) and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith et al. 2012). Narrative Inquiry is located within the Deweyan ontology of experience (Dewey, 1938) and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) which draws its philosophical underpinnings from hermeneutics, a theory of interpretation. Both these approaches allow for an investigation into the two focal points of interest of this research: understanding and making sense of human experience (through the voices of the participants) and identity work. This research directly contributes to expanding knowledge within the postcolonial interrogative space, proposed by Jack et al. (2011) as well as Said’s (1978) binary division between the West and East. Furthermore, the research gives voices to the subaltern, thus providing a deeper understanding of the meaning and the value of non-western cultural identities