THEORETICAL APPROACH

My aim was to examine the ways in which gender, race, religion and socio-cultural background as well as migration history intersect with the process of language learning. In order to investigate this, my research has focused on Gujarati women and their relationship with the majority institutions by taking a woman centred approach.

First of all, as mentioned in the previous chapter, challenges for feminist researchers were focused on the omission of women from ‘most forms of codified knowledge’ which created a world mainly experienced in terms of male interests and male ways’ (Maynard and Purvis, 1994). However, recent feminist research on migrant women has moved beyond this, starting with the deconstruction of simplistic polarization of women/men and essentialist categories of women to focus on the patterns of difference between women and the intersecting axes of inequality and power (Andall, 2003). Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1992) have examined the intersections of ethnicity and gender, arguing that racial categorisation involves discourses relating to subordination as well as exclusion. During the past two decades, an increasing body of post-colonial, non-white, feminist writers has emerged to elaborate feminist theories of intersectionality by considering the multiple positionings through sexuality , gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, class and culture identifying ‘women’ and their codifications of identity. (Gedalof, 1999).

The origin of the notion of intersectionality can be found in Kimberly Craneshaw’s article, ‘Mapping the Margins’ (1994). She uses the concept of intersectionality to denote the various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of Black women's employment experiences. Her idea is to illustrate that many of the experiences Black women face are not subsumed within the traditional boundaries of race or gender discrimination as these boundaries are currently understood, and that the intersection of racism and sexism factors into Black women's lives in ways that cannot be captured wholly by looking at the women race or gender dimensions of those experiences separately (Craneshaw, 1994).

According to Susanne Knudsen, intersectionality is a theory “to analyse how social and cultural categories intertwine. The relationships between gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, class and nationality are examined on multiple levels to explicate various inequalities that exist in society. They are not independent of one another but instead are interrelated forms of oppression that are manifested in multiple forms of discrimination” (2006:61).

Few researchers have explored issues of difference and diversity within the research process (Bhopal, 2001; Maynard and Purvis, 1994). Some have explored how issues of ‘race’, class and gender positions of the respondents intersect with those of the researcher (Bhopal, 1997; Osgood, 2012). Gujarati women, the participants in this research, as immigrants in the UK, experience marginalisation because of their inability to speak English which intersects with other aspects such as their gender, race and class. By following the feminist research methodology, I intend to challenge the commonly accepted uni-dimensional view of South Asian women which constructs them as passive, deficient, backward and lacking agency, and create a positive and empowering research experience for the participants by including their voices in the existing body of research. Ward (2008) in her ‘Dare to Dream’ project on the learning journeys of women mentions that there is a dearth of literature on the lives, aspirations and learning needs of ethnic minority women and her research starts to scratch the surface.

Block (2007) notes how identity is apparent in the work of Norton (2000) on immigrant women in Canada, Pavlenko, Blackledge, Piller and Teutsch‐Dwyer (2001) on language learning and gender, Bayley and Schechter (2003) on language socialization and multilingualism and his own work on multilingual identities in London (Block, 2007). According to him, in social sciences and in applied linguistics in particular, the default position as regards identity is to frame it as a social process as opposed to a determined and fixed product, following the tenets of poststructuralism. He further argues that, identity is a key aspect and there is a need to balance the acceptance of structure without sidelining the concept of hybridity.

“Indeed, the broadly post‐structuralist approach to identity that has been borrowed from the social sciences by applied linguists has been poststructuralist in its embrace of hybridity and third place, but it has also included and retained structure.” (2006:24).

Duff (2012) outlines this position as follows:

Poststructuralism is an approach to research that questions fixed categories or structures, opposi?onal binaries, closed systems, and stable ―truths and embraces seeming contradictions (p. 412).

Post-structuralist researchers examine how such categories are discursively and socially constructed, taken up, resisted (the site of struggle), and so on.

Relations between learners and their host community are recognised as sites of immense struggle by Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004) and Blackledge (2005, 2006). On the other hand, Brah (1996), Bhopal (1997), Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1992) inform us about the intersectionality experienced by women from different ethnic minorities. As minority speakers negotiate entry into a majority‐speaking society, they face difficulties, which according to Block ‘rather less research has identified the ways in which such domains are constructed and their borders reinforced’ (2006:22).

Another reason why intersectionality matters in my research is that it has always been argued that Gujarati Diasporas are making a great contribution to the socio-economic, cultural and political life of the host countries. A number of prominent Gujarati personalities such as Lord Dholakia, Lord Meghnad Desai, Lord Bhiku Parekh and others provide just a few examples of successful Gujaratis in the UK. The majority of Asians in the United Kingdom live in what Gidoomal (1993) refers to as the ‘£5 billion corridor’ that extends diagonally from Lancashire in the Northwest down to Kent in the Southeast. The Gujarati Diaspora has always retained its emotional, cultural and economic relations with the places of their origin in a very special way. It is noticeable in their desire to make emotional and economic investment in Gujarat by establishing hospitals, schools and colleges. They have successfully lobbied in their host countries for foreign investment in boosting and developing industries in Gujarat. However, as Mukadam’s research (2014) shows, it must be stressed at this point

that these experiences were not of the majority, but of a minority whose business acumen had enabled them to capitalise on opportunities after arriving to the UK. In contrast many who arrived as refugees had to suffer and face discrimination in jobs, housing and education during the Powellian19era. In an article published in The Independent on 29 October 2001, Yasmin Alibai Brown20 describes life in this interim period: "Resettlement camps, language lessons and other essential teaching were provided for us by the State. People could choose not to go to the camps, but most decided to take up the offer." In spite of the efforts to assist the refugees in settlement, the state apparatuses were already making the migrant refugee communities alienated from the mainstream. Given this historical background it is relevant here to explore how communities have struggled to survive and maintain their distinct cultural, linguistic and religious identity and at the same time to observe how intersections of class and gender interplay in the process of settling in a new community. As mentioned earlier, as a defence mechanism against racism and discrimination, South Asian communities have protected themselves against racial abuse through social and geographical clustering. This has had an impact on women in terms of linguistic communication with others, i.e., native English speakers. This research investigates these challenges facing Gujarati women who have been trying to build a new life in UK. By doing this, the study fills the gap in understandings of Gujarati women’s construction of identity, as identity implies the intricacy between the material relationships of social locations and sense of self . (Craneshaw, 1994)

The purpose of the study is to explore within a feminist poststructuralist framework (Brah, 1996; Norton, 2000; Pavlenko, 2001) the ways in which immigrant Gujarati women negotiate English language acquisition through multiple social identities, i.e. race, gender, class, religion, caste and culture, following Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2007) “...by documenting women’s lives, experiences and concerns, illuminating gender-based stereotypes and biases and unearthing women’s subjugated knowledge….”. Through this research I seek to

19_{Powellism is the name given to the political views of Conservative and Ulster Unionist politician Enoch} Powell. He is famous for his speech ‘Rivers of Blood’.

challenge stereotyped constructions and instead project Gujarati women’s agency by highlighting their responses and resistances.

The aim of feminist epistemology is to place women at the centre of the research process. There is a need to repair the historical trend of women’s exclusion from the domain of knowledge and to recognise that, knowledge must be built from women’s concrete, lived experiences. As Marjorie DeVault (1990) found, many women had not often had the opportunity to talk about their experiences with an interested party. This view was expressed when I approached the research participants for interviews; they were delighted that someone was willing to listen to their stories. They felt overwhelmed by the thought they were being heard, and the realisation that their lives matter too, made them express their views without any hesitation.

Brooks (2007) cites Jaggar (1997) to explain how this type of research as an accurate and reliable appraisal of society which also grants us a better chance of ascertaining the possible beginnings of a new society, in which all members can equally thrive (p.69). However, some feminists challenge this view by saying that these claims to accuracy can be promising yet problematic, because the experiences of some women are labelled ‘more real’ (better or more accurate) than another’s. However, I find Hesse-Biber’s view on this encouraging, that ‘every woman’s unique lived experience and the perspective, or standpoint based on her experience gains a hearing.’ Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2007) argue that Foucault’s work professes that all knowledge is contextually bound and produced within a field of shifting power relations. According to Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2007), research that follows Foucauldian tradition may interrogate cultural texts to unravel marks of the power relations that produced them, including traces of the dominant worldview embedded within the text as well as the ‘silences’. Moreover, the structure of society is embedded within language and representational forms. That means the dominant group may try to exercise absolute power over the symbolic resources (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2007:293). Gujarati women this research, marginalised subjects are subject to exploitation. To question their ‘silencing’ and invisibility in British society I have explored how patriarchal ways (private and public) shape discourses, including language, ideology and their impact on identity construction of Gujarati women who collude, challenge or resist these discourses.