Thinking geographically about how people become wiser: An analysis of the spatial dislocations and intercultural encounters of international migrants

Abstract

Abstract Our research seeks to answer whether immigrants see the act of relocating to a different country and the place-based intercultural encounters associated with this migration as being conducive to wisdom. The study is interested in qualitatively analysing the spatial constitution of wisdom and the perceptions of wisdom that immigrants possess. This situated approach looks at wisdom in relation to narrativity, subjectivity, and positionality, as opposed to the now-dominant psychological view of wisdom as a quantifiable phenomenon that can be measured on a positivist scale. Both inter-country migration and living amongst other ethnicities in migrant cities are spatial processes of relevance to our attempt to think geographically about how people become wiser. We investigate empirically and develop the foregoing themes by drawing on in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with Romanian immigrants in Ontario, Canada, between 2014 and 2018.