In Search of My ‘Real’ Self, My Ontological ‘I’, and ‘The Eastern Researcher’ Through Journeying with Berger and Luckmann’s “The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge”
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This article is a conscious reflection of my ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ selves engaged in research with new immigrants in Brantford and Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk counties, a mid-sized rural/urban town in Ontario that is now experiencing unprecedented immigration. I use Berger and Luckmann’s work in “The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge” to clarify my own personal and academic values. Specifically, their critical analysis of the concepts such as ‘Identity’, ‘Socialization’, ‘Roles’, and ‘Knowledge’ raises questions for me about the validity and legitimization of my knowledge claims and praxis. The authors work challenges me to probe deeper into the process of newcomer integration. In the process of this enquiry I am able to dismantle my ideology(s), both as an immigrant and as a researcher and witness the dialectic dance of identity construction between ‘self’ and ‘society’ . I witness my ‘self’ and the ‘other’ not as binary selves but as twin selves. In other words, the ‘other’ though a separate entity is also a reflection of myself. In solitude I embrace the jewels in the womb of both my Western formed ‘I’ and Eastern formed ‘I’.