Success as self-determination: a subject-centred analysis of immigrants’ definitions and perceptions of success

Abstract

ABSTRACT What does it mean for an immigrant to be successful? Significant research on immigrant integration and success has utilised ‘objective’ measures – such as income, educational attainment, and occupation – to evaluate immigrant (group) success and attainment. But those measures often do not capture details of immigrants’ lived experiences nor their own perceptions of success. We explore this dissonance between objective and subjective understandings of immigrant success by analysing how 46 immigrants describe and evaluate their own and other immigrants’ success. Almost universally, interviewees referenced self-determination – the ability to determine their own circumstances – as the essential component of success. Within this general notion of success, interviewees weigh their current situations against the past to find relative improvements in their self-determination compared to their pre-migration conditions (‘relative self-determination’); see evidence of self-determination in their present circumstances (‘evident self-determination’); and/or foresee their investments in self-determination paying off for descendants in the future (‘prospective self-determination’). Defining success as self-determination creates a broadly flexible and accommodating framework that sets-up success, rather than failure, as the default outcome. Because perceiving oneself as successful can positively affect an individual’s life, accomplishments, and self-esteem, defining success as self-determination may produce meaningful and lasting improvements in immigrants’ and others’ lives.