The Role of Leisure in the Process of Acculturation of Taiwanese Migrants in Australia

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role leisure plays in the process of acculturation of Taiwanese immigrants. Many scholars have suggested that leisure plays an active role in the migration context not only facilitating acculturation toward the majority group in the host society, but also in assisting original cultural maintenance in the ethnic community. The original contribution this study makes to the body of existing literature is the conceptualisation of acculturation as the process of ethnic social, cultural and economic capital accumulation, which draws upon the theoretical work of Bourdieu (1983). That is, the measurement of the acculturation process can bring together relationships of various capital accumulations in the migration context and various ethnic capitals in different acculturation modes (assimilation, integration, separation, and marginalisation). However, this study concentrates only on integration and separation acculturation modes because of the short history in Australia of Taiwanese immigrants, the target research population. Transnational practice is taken into consideration as an important factor influencing the reproduction of ethnic capital accumulation in a new social space. In order to explore two models, leisure-separation acculturation model (LSA) and leisure-integration acculturation model (LIA), the researcher designed a parallel mixed method design for this study. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. In the qualitative interview, there were 13 participants: 7 in the separation group and 6 in the integration group. They were selected by purposive and snowball sampling methods. Two models, LSA and LIA that were developed in the qualitative phase, were tested in the quantitative phase by structural equation modeling (SEM) with LISREL software. Quantitative data were collected by snowball and convenience sampling methods from a sample of 505 and raw data was entered into a SPSS file. Analysis concentrated on 189 respondents in the separation mode and 210 respondents in the integration mode. These two models were refined using a modified parallel mixed methods approach. The leisure-separation model found that leisure had a direct effect on maintaining and binding social capitals, including Taiwanese social networks, Taiwanese solidarity, and Taiwanese social values. These collective actions and social groups or clubs were dications of Taiwanese immigrants’ social solidarity. Participating in leisure also made Taiwanese immigrants feel the importance of Taiwanese organisations and to feel a sense of pride at being a member within these organisations. Moreover, findings revealed that leisure indirectly affected the maintenance of other binding social capitals, including Taiwanese social norm of trust and reciprocity, and Taiwanese cultural capitals, which was Taiwanese cultural practice...