Tamil Youth Research Articles

Language Use Among Malaysian Tamil Youth

Summary Most studies on the language use of Malaysian Tamils focus on the upkeep of the Tamil language. There is, however, a dearth of investigations into language use in a multilingual context among the younger generation of speakers. The present study aims to fill this gap by using Fishman’s (1972) domain model to examine the language used by Tamil youth in intra-group communication in seven domains. Data were collected from 109 questionnaires, 42 audio-recordings of natural conversations and 40 interviews. The findings revealed that in four domains, which were the family, friendship, religion, and neighbourhood, Tamil is used more frequently. The highest usage of the language is predominantly among friends. However, there was a decreasing use of Tamil in the family domain among the younger generations with many married participants claiming to use English rather than Tamil as the home language. This does not bode well for the maintenance of Tamil as a first language in the future. The findings show how participants’ use of Tamil, English and Malay is linked to concepts of identity, solidarity, and their perceptions of these languages. The findings also point to the development of a localised variety of Tamil reflective of the Malaysian cultural landscape.

Uṟumi Mēḷam: a musical sanctuary for at-risk Tamil youth in Singapore

ABSTRACT This article investigates why uṟumi mēḷams are successful in empowering Singaporean Tamil Hindu youths and keeping them away from gangs and crime. Drawing on oral history resources, historical newspaper articles, and ethnographic data from field research conducted in Singapore, Malaysia, and Tamil Nadu (South India), I explore the chain of events and official narratives that associated uṟumi mēḷams with moral panic, before then considering how musicking in an uṟumi mēḷam appeals to Singaporean Tamil Hindu youths. Finally, the article examines approaches adopted by uṟumi mēḷam to engage their young artists so that they feel purposeful and accepted by the group. Building on music and youth empowerment discourse, I argue that uṟumi mēḷam has an enormous potential as an activity to engage and empower at-risk Tamil youths.

Literacy Practices of Tamil Youth in Singapore

Literacy Practices of Tamil Youth in Singapore

Emerging ethnic minority sub-cultures: young Tamils in the post-war context in the Tamil-dominated areas in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACTSignificant socio-cultural and political changes have taken place in Sri Lanka since the end of the most recent war in 2009. There is, however, a lack of research on minority youth sub-cultures in Sri Lanka. This paper seeks to fill the gap, describing different elements of Tamil youth sub-cultures and identifying factors which can be used to distinguish them. The research aimed to explore emerging youth sub-cultures, considering Somasundaram’s idea of collective trauma and Hall’s concept of resistance: which are combined with other broad theoretical conceptualizations and synthesized as resistance, intersectionality and identity, as a lens to understand the sub-cultures among Jaffna post-war youth. Ethnographic approaches are used to understand Tamil youth phenomena, with interviews and focus group discussions among youths and professionals. Seven youth sub-cultures in which war trauma is a predominant factor are identified. The results suggest that in-depth studies of all youth sub-cultures are needed.

‘United we stand, divided we fall’: a case study of Sri Lankan youth in citizenship development

Citizenship is essentially a legal formality that denotes membership of a state. However, it should contain an emotional element for individuals to willingly identify themselves with the nation-state. The absence of such emotion often prompts bloody conflicts where people attempt to carve independent entities of power by fragmenting the nation-state. Youth, with their inherent zest for grand ventures, are often keen participants and even initiators of such conflicts. Citizenship therefore should entail an active process of emotional engagement especially of youth in order that sustainable solidarity may be fostered. Sri Lanka stands as an ideal case study in this regard, demonstrating the terrible consequences of the isolation of youth – whether real or perceived – from the collective identity of the state and the equally powerful impact they can have when properly integrated into the state mechanism. This paper discusses Tamil youth disillusionment in Sri Lanka that manifested itself in a vicious ethnic conflict in juxtaposition with the role of Sri Lankan youth as agents of peaceful change in a post-war nation-building context. In drawing a conclusion, the paper discusses the importance of active civic engagement of youth in building ‘One Nation One People’.

Youth and peacebuilding in Sri Lanka

Youth are often thought as perpetrators of violence and those who are easily coerced into participating in armed conflicts. Youth who participate in armed conflict or violence are often those who are deprived of basic amenities or have been victims of violence at a particular period of time within their societies. In this article, I posit that youth can be positively engaged in post-conflict scenario by examining the Sri Lankan case. This article provides definitions of youth, theories which support the perception that youth are more often perpetrators of violence, youth bulge and an assumption that youth can be engaged in the peacebuilding process. More often the problem in Sri Lanka is not seen as centred around the aspirations of youth in the country - more particularly Tamil youth. Thus, I argue that if youth are engaged in the peacebuilding process in Sri Lanka, it could provide a situation where there could be lasting peace in the country and thereby preventing a relapse into war between the Sinhalese and the Tamils.

Reconstructing heritage language: resolving dilemmas in language maintenance for Sri Lankan Tamil migrants

In recent years, Sri Lankan Tamils have fled their homeland as refugees as a result of the ethnic conflict in the country. Despite their heightened linguistic consciousness, community elders claim that Tamil youth are turning their backs on their heritage language. My data from Lancaster (California, US), East London (UK) and Toronto (Canada) shows a more complex attitude towards language maintenance by Tamil youth. Though a majority of the youth declared that English was their dominant language of proficiency, they insisted that it did not affect their positive orientation to ethnic identity and community affiliation. They adopted diverse language practices to enjoy in-group identity: namely, code switching into Tamil; emblematic uses of Tamil; switches into Tamilized versions of English; receptive competence in Tamil which enabled them to respond in English; and ritualized practices of communication where they could participate in communicative events with the aid of multimodal resources. These practices suggest that migrant Tamils are treating languages as fluid resources for identity and community construction. The hybrid and multilingual construction of heritage language and identity enables Tamils to shuttle between different languages and communities in migrant settings to resolve the dilemmas of mobility and identity.

Migrant ethnic identities, mobile language resources: Identification practices of Sri Lankan Tamil youth

AbstractIn the context of multilingualism and migration, the place of ethnic identities has come into question. Applied linguists have to contend with the possibility that ethnic identities have to be redefined in the light of changing orientations in the field. The critique of essentialism, the dismantling of the ”one language = one community” equation, and the fluidity of translanguaging have raised the question whether ethnic identities can be treated as real anymore. In the face of these changes, one group of activist scholars invokes values of ecological preservation and language rights to insist on traditional ethnic identities. Another treats ethnic identities as transient and playful under labels such as ludic ethnicities and metroethnicities. Interpreting the identification practices of Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora youth in UK, USA, and Canada, this article argues for a middle position of strategic constructivism. That is, though the Tamil youth are multilingual, and do not claim full proficiency in Tamil language, they use their mix of codes to construct Tamil ethnicity in situated uses of their repertoire. The article argues that ethnicity should be treated as a changing construct, with different codes employed to index identity in changing times and places.

The Talk of Tamils in Multilingual Montreal: A Study of Intersecting Language Ideologies in Nationalist Quebec

AbstractIn Montreal, racial, caste, socioeconomic, and gender inequalities are often masked as neutral‐seeming linguistic differences of dialect, register, and accent. These sociolinguistic hierarchies are upheld by intersecting language ideologies, or essentialised beliefs about language use and ethnic identity. Quebec nationalist and multicultural policies endorse language ideologies of linguistic purity and sociolinguistic compartmentalisation to depict a cohesive nation while maintaining its racial and ethnic distinctions. Similarly, Montreal Tamil diaspora leaders encourage different Tamil‐speaking groups to participate in sociolinguistically segregated domains to preserve purist linguistic standards and maintain socioeconomic, caste, and gender distinctions. Heritage language programmes reproduce these language‐based distinctions for differentiating between types of Québécois citizens, while Montreal Tamil youth selectively challenge or endorse such prescriptions to produce a range of social identities and linguistic practices that correspond to their experiences as ethnic and racial minorities.

Religion and Ethnicity among Sri Lankan Tamil Youth in Ontario

The paper presents survey and interview data from twenty-five Sri Lankan Tamil youth in Ontario, specifically dealing with the interaction between religion and ethnicity, the experience and expression of religion, the importance of religion, as well as the importance of the Tamil language for religious and ethnic identity. Herbert Gans's ideas about "symbolic ethnicity" and "symbolic religiosity" are used to explore the ways in which Tamil youth in Ontario interact with their ethnic and religious heritage. Many express their ethnicity through seemingly mundane acts such as wearing a sari to a family gathering, eating with their hands, and watching Tamil movies. Many are losing their proficiency in the Tamil language, but see it as essential for their ethnic identity. Many only attend a Hindu temple three to five times per year, but see it as essential for passing on their cultural heritage to their children. In other words, much of their ethnic and religious identity is constructed through a symbolic transnationalism. The research, although preliminary, begins to fill gaps in scholarship on the Sri Lankan Tamil population in Canada, as well as the role of religion in the lives of immigrant youth. Cet article présente les résultats d'une enquête et d'entrevues faites auprès de vingt-cinq jeunes Tamouls sri-lankais en Ontario, et portant particulièrement sur l'interaction entre la religion et l'ethnicité, à savoir : l'expérience et l'expression de la religion ainsi que son importance, tout comme celle de la langue tamoule concernant l'identité religieuse et ethnique. Nous nous appuyons sur les notions d'«ethnicité symbolique» et de «religiosité symbolique» d'Herbert Gans pour explorer la manière dont les jeunes Tamouls ontariens composent avec leur héritage ethnique et religieux. Plusieurs d'entre eux expriment leur ethnicité de manière banale, comme de porter un sari à une réunion de famille, de manger avec la main ou de regarder des films tamouls. D'autres perdent leur capacité de parler couramment le tamoul, mais voient dans leur langue un facteur essentiel de leur identité ethnique. D'autres encore n'iront que trois ou quatre fois par an au temple hindou, mais y voient un élément fondamental du passage de leur héritage culturel à leurs enfants. En d'autres mots, ces jeunes construisent la plus grande partie de leur identité ethnique et religieuse à travers un transnationalisme symbolique. Bien que ce travail ne soit que préliminaire, il commence à combler les lacunes de la recherche universitaire en ce qui concerne la population tamoule au Canada ainsi que le rôle de la religion dans la vie des jeunes immigrants.

Introduction: The Experiences of Second-Generation Canadian Youth

Introduction:The Experiences of Second-Generation Canadian Youth Evangelia Tastsoglou Research on the second generation is relatively recent, but growing quickly in Canada and internationally. This issue of Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada has its origins in a workshop held at the Tenth National Metropolis Conference, which was held in Halifax. In many ways it continues a conversation left unfinished in that session. The nine articles deal with various experiences of second-generation Canadian youth through qualitative and quantitative research and in-depth and nuanced analyses. Several of the articles discuss the conceptual challenges and ambiguities of the second generation (Byers and Tastsoglou; Gallant; Hébert et al). The majority deal with the term in a pragmatic way according to their research needs. A broad definition of second generation is adopted to include the 1.5 generation (those born outside Canada but coming to Canada at an early age (Hassan et al.; Amarasingam), as well as the new generation youth from visible minority immigrant families, which also includes the 1.5 generation (Miu et al.). The focus of the issue is on youth — the stage in life when major transitions usually take place, such as graduating from school, entering post-secondary institutions, entering the labour market, forming new households, but also coming to terms with ethno-cultural identities. It is in these junctures that the most "telling examples of the things that make the second generation distinctive" (Kobayashi 2008, 3) take place. The majority of articles in this issue center on the nature of ethno-cultural identification in the second generation and beyond, its difference from that of the immigrant parents, as well as its relationship to being Canadian, and how this relationship plays out in particular localities, cities, and regions of Canada or within particular ethno-cultural groups. Jurva and Jaya deal with the identity and ethnic identification experiences of Finnish second-generation youth in Ottawa and how the latter balance their Canadian identity and appreciation of multiculturalism with their ethno-cultural roots. Being Canadian in the context of multiculturalism includes the possibility of being Finnish. Although the connections with "Finnishness" vary greatly, overall the Canadian cultural identity is highly salient, while the meaning and practice of "Finnishness" is selective and symbolic. Gallant's findings speak [End Page 1] about a great variety of identities among second-generation youth in Quebec that are generally different from the ethnic identities of their parents. Furthermore, even those who identify with their immigrant parents' origins have very different representations of these ethno-cultural groups than their parents. At the same time, they also profess a strong civic allegiance to Quebec or Canada. For Sodhi, second-generation Indo-Canadians engage in a life-long process of striving to amalgamate Canadian individualistic and East Indian collectivistic value systems and to accommodate the "best of both worlds" into their lifestyle, i.e., to foster bicultural identities. In this process, the researcher suggests that intergenerational dialogue is paramount in achieving a "third space," whereby individuals are able to live comfortably in both cultures, as they also become aware that ideas, practices, and traditions are continuously evolving and changing. Byers and Tastsoglou focus on the particular character and process of forming ethno-cultural identity, as well as its relationship with "Canadian-ness," through a comparative analysis of the accounts of second-generation Greek and Jewish youth in a smaller urban centre, Halifax. As a result of Canada's multicultural philosophy and policy, but also the dynamics of multiculturalism, in second- and third-tier cities in Canada with smaller immigrant populations, youth experience tension and ambivalence between maintaining an ethno-cultural affiliation and being fully accepted as Canadian. In contrast to the experiences of the Greek and Jewish youth in Halifax, Ali argues in her article on the second-generation youth in Toronto that Canadian multiculturalism in the highly diverse schools and neighbourhoods of the city has successfully created the perhaps questionable impression of inclusivity and equality, as a result of which the multi-ethnic second-generation youth of her study can comfortably identify with the ethno-cultural origins of their parents without feeling the need to identify as Canadian. Amarasingam's findings about Tamil youth...

Critical and Emerging Discourses in Multicultural Education Literature: A Review

This article has three objectives. First, it examines critical discourses in the academic literature on multicultural education that point to the major conceptual flaws in multicultural education theory that led to practices that have achieved effects opposite to the intent of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. Second, it identifies some of the suggestions being made in the context of the "post-multiculturalism" discourse on how to overcome these flaws in multicultural education theory and practice. And, third, it discusses some possible implications of the key findings of the review for multicultural education. Current multicultural education practices in Canada based on ethno-racial distinctions (i.e., curricula essentializing knowledge about "Other" cultures and celebrating them) have not contributed to the elimination of racism nor the unequal treatment of minority non-White students, nor have they led to the critical examination of the dominant White, middle-class Eurocentric culture. However, the review also demonstrates that the complexity of the issues identified as problematic within multicultural theory and practice makes it difficult to formulate a unified multicultural education mission that speaks to the multiplicity of identities, fluidity of culture, negotiation of power in the cultural space, and the new politics of difference based on universal dignity and equality. It is even more difficult to organize and implement such a mission especially in the absence of a federal multicultural education policy. Suggestions as to how provincial ministries of education might use the identified shifts in the meaning of culture, cultural difference, cultural identities, citizenship, and civic and national identities are provided. Cet article poursuit trois objectifs : en premier, nous y examinons les discours critiques dans les publications universitaires qui relèvent les défauts conceptuels majeurs dans la théorie de l'éducation multiculturelle et une mise en pratique qui a atteint des résultats opposés à ceux visés par la Loi sur le multiculturalisme canadien. Deuxièmement, nous signalons quelques suggestions parmi celles proposées dans le contexte du discours « post- multiculturel » sur la manière de surmonter ces défauts dans la théorie en question et son application. Et en troisième lieu, nous nous arrêtons à quelques implications possibles des découvertes cruciales qui découlent de cet examen critique de l'éducation multiculturelle. La conduite actuelle de cette dernière au Canada s'appuie sur des distinctions ethno-raciales (par exemple, des programmes scolaires portant essentiellement sur la connaissance des cultures de l'« Autre » et sur leur célébration) et elle n'a contribué à éliminer ni le racisme, ni le traitement inégal de la minorité des étudiants non-blancs; elle n'a pas non plus mené à un examen critique de la culture dominante blanche et eurocentrée de la classe moyenne. Cependant, cette recension prouve aussi que la complexité des questions identifiées comme posant problème au sein même de la théorie multiculturelle et de sa mise en pratique, rend difficile la formulation d'une mission concernant une éducation ad hoc unifiée qui puisse s'adresser à la multiplicité des identités, à la fluidité des cultures, à la négociation du pouvoir dans le domaine culturel et aux nouvelles politiques fondées sur la dignité et l'égalité universelles. Il est particulièrement encore plus difficile d'organiser et de remplir une telle mission en l'absence d'une politique fédérale en éducation multiculturelle. Cet article offre enfin des suggestions sur la manière dont les ministères provinciaux en éducation pourraient se servir des mutations identifiées dans les concepts de culture, de différence et d'identités culturelles, de citoyenneté et d'identités civiques et nationales.

Sri Lanka's Provincial Council System: A Solution to the Ethnic Problem?

Research Article| August 01 1992 Sri Lanka's Provincial Council System: A Solution to the Ethnic Problem? Amita Shastri Amita Shastri Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (1992) 32 (8): 723–743. https://doi.org/10.2307/2645365 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Amita Shastri; Sri Lanka's Provincial Council System: A Solution to the Ethnic Problem?. Asian Survey 1 August 1992; 32 (8): 723–743. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2645365 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAsian Survey Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1992 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.