1996/97 PCERII Funded Research Abstract
Research Title: Historical Analysis of Immigrant Integration to In-Land Cities, 1896-1971
Research Team:
(University of Winnipeg) - Principal Investigator
Research Domain(s): Economic; Social; Citizenship and Culture
This historically-oriented programme has three objectives: first, to undertake a comparative analysis of immigrant strategies of integration to medium-sized, in-land cities; second, to evaluate the social, cultural and economic adjustment of immigrants in those cities; third, to account for the social and cultural conditions and government policies and approaches that have led to successful integration.
The programme will focus primarily on the immigrant experience in prairie cities — Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary and Edmonton — between 1896 when immigration first occurred in significant numbers to the present, 1996. Given their historic ethnic diversity, prairie cities present an ideal opportunity for a comparative analysis of immigration: the inter-ethnic relations, divergent strategies of cultural survival and economic adaptation, and a record of vigorous public programs to shape the integration process, allow for an analysis of a process over an entire century and will provide an understanding of the nature of present day immigration cultures in other cities.
The study will examine the manner in which immigrants of a variety of ‘Old World’ experiences establish strategies of integration in different settings. It will trace and compare the cultural and economic conditions of the immigrants’ original settlements in overseas homes and/or initial rural settlements in Canada, to the conditions at the time of immigration and adjustment to the prairie city and over the course of the first two generations of sojourn in the prairie city. Special attention will be given to various degrees of rurality and community cohesiveness in pre-migrant experiences. The programme will seek to establish which strategies under which conditions led to successful integration.