In sharing my research about immigrant alcohol use, I am aware that it can sometimes seem as though immigrants are being classified as one big unanimous group. This is incredibly false! For example, I am extremely interested in how an immigrant’s alcohol use can differ based on their place of origin or time spent in Canada. Unfortunately, many of the types of statistics required to properly measure alcohol use over time requires large amounts of people in each group (in this case, place of origin) to compare results. Therefore, people are often grouped into categories and in the case of my most recent research, immigrants are only grouped into different generational statuses.
This “issue” of not having enough participants of a marginalized group (e.g., racial minorities, cultural minorities, sexual minorities, those without stable housing) to report meaningful results is unfortunately common. It’s not that these groups don’t exist, it’s that traditional research recruitment strategies often miss these groups. For instance, some marginalized individuals who are willing to participate in research may not be available during traditional research times, may not speak the required language, or may not have reliable internet. Academia is certainly improving at doing more inclusive research, but the reality is not all researchers have the resources, ability or the willingness to spend extra time being creative at recruiting diverse participants. Graduate students especially face additional challenges as we are very invested in not taking 100 years to graduate, and sometimes are not involved with every aspect of the planning and recruitment phase of a research study.
I still want to do my part in shedding light to the diversity of experiences that make up immigrant alcohol use. This leads me to a mini-series I’ll be doing over the course of my blogs called “It’s a Generational Thing”. I’ll be asking questions about alcohol use to some people of diverse cultural backgrounds and generational statuses (without including names) and sharing some answers. Next time, you’ll read about my answers to some questions including, “In your opinion, what role (if any) does alcohol play in your culture?” and “are there any taboos and/or stereotypes about alcohol in your culture?” I hope this inspires you to reflect on your cultural experiences of alcohol use and if you feel comfortable, discuss this with a friend to learn something new about their experiences!
I’m looking forward to sharing and thank you for reading!
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Photo by Nourdine Diouane on Unsplash
