Research Associates
Arlene Macdonald
Current position: Assistant Professor, Institute for Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch
Funding Agency: MITACS Elevate Strategic Fellowship
Post-doc duration: August 2010 – July 2011
Title of project: Religion at Work: Impressions & experiences of young adults of immigrant
background in Canada
Description:
My postdoctoral research examined religious diversity in Canadian workplaces. The project has two dimensions. Working from an existent database of focus groups and interviews conducted in multiple Canadian cities by Peter Beyer’s Immigrant Young Adult Project, I used narrative analysis to explicate the opinions, expectations, ethics and experiences of young adult immigrant populations entering Canada’s pluralist workforce. One of the striking findings was participants’ uneven knowledge of the legislative directives and judicial decisions that govern religious freedom in Canadian workplaces. This conceptual ambiguity contributed to a perception of ‘privilege’ for certain faith traditions.
The second phase of the research, still on-going, explores “religion at work” in the healthcare sector through an in-depth, qualitative case study. Between 2004 and 2008, the Sikh community in Brampton, ON worked collaboratively with the William Osler Health System Foundation to raise funds for the building of the Brampton Civic Hospital and to ensure culturally sensitive care in the new hospital. Their efforts were publically recognized by the hospital foundation’s decision to name the new hospital’s emergency centre after Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh religion. The Guru Nanak moniker is a highly visible and spatially enacted representation of those efforts, but it is unclear exactly what it signals – to the hospital, to Brampton’s Sikh community, to the mandate of multicultural health in Ontario, and to a broader polity coming to terms with religious diversity in the public sphere.
Publications related to Post-doc: (in progress)
“Religion in the Canadian workplace: views and experiences of young adults of immigrant background”
“Hijab Envy: Christian concerns about visibility in a religiously diverse Canada” (in progress)
Website: http://imh.utmb.edu/about-us/faculty/arlene-macdonald