Doctoral defence: Gabriel Alberto Ceballos Rodríguez "Ethnic identity and acculturation among binational Estonian-foreign families and individuals"

On 5 December at 14:00 Gabriel Alberto Ceballos Rodríguez will defend his doctoral thesis "Ethnic identity and acculturation among binational Estonian-foreign families and individuals" for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in Sociology).

Supervisors:

Associate Professor Mare Ainsaar (PhD)
Associate Professor Marko Uibu (PhD)

Opponent:

Dr Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot (PhD), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium.

Summary

The number of binational couples, families, and individuals has increased across different European countries in the last few decades. Estonia is an interesting case for studying binational individuals and their families because the focus of studies on “mixedness” in the country has mostly explored partnership and individuals who have an Estonian - Russian-speaking background.

This study aims to explore the associations, perceptions and positions of binational Estonian-foreign individuals and their families in relation to the notions of ethnic identity and acculturation. It comprises a complementary mixed methods research strategy where findings from quantitative studies show that that the population of binational individuals in Estonia is influenced by patterns that are characteristic of the existing dynamics between the main dominant groups in the country: the ethnic-Estonian dominant group and the large Russian-speaking minority. Nevertheless, binational individuals increasingly seem to present more complex and non-linear associations towards ethnic identity and integration that differentiate them from these groups.

At the same time, qualitative research resulted from individual interviews conducted among a group of forty parents of binational children identified three mechanisms that result from parents’ elevated sense of ethnic identity after parenthood. Finally, identity complexity constitutes an additional element that influences the value that interviewed parents give to ethnic identity, as it seems to be not only associated with the variety of identity representations that parents in each identified group use to describe their children’s ethnic identities, e.g., mostly Estonian, fifty-fifty, world/global citizen, but also with the meanings they give them.

Overall, this dissertation aims to bring attention other emerging groups in the Estonian society and contributes to the global study of “mixed” individuals and families.