Sensemaking and Identity Work in a Foreign Host Culture.

This paper presents qualitative, exploratory research carried out as a PhD study. It investigated how black educated professionals of African origin experience life and work in a foreign host culture in Finland. The methodology applied in the study was Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). It also applied elements of Interpretive Poetics (IP). The findings show that participants employ sensemaking as a cognitive tool to understand and create meanings of their experiences in the host culture. Their sensemaking relies on and is informed by the values of their native cultures. Whilst navigating their positionality in the host culture they experience identity threat, and as a result, undertake identity work. The study makes a methodological contribution by adding a narrative dimension to IPA (interpretive poetics), thus acknowledging the person's linguistic choices and the meanings they offer. Ontologically, by adopting a critical approach, the study questions the prevailing western ontological perception of the 'other', thus providing a basis for new hybrid epistemologies through reconceptualisation of the Western working cultures and discourses that render some people worthier than others. Finally, the insights into the value of cultural identity provide a contribution to knowledge within organization and diversity management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]