Role of Ethnography in Exploring Mental Health Experiences of Female Muslim Immigrant Youths

Female Muslim immigrant youths are at a developmental stage of transition to adulthood and face many challenges in their identity transformation due to racism, migration status and gender role. They are members of a cultural group whose experiences of mental health are established through multiple contexts. Informed by different theoretical perspectives, the methodology of ethnography is introduced as an appropriate approach to explore female Muslim immigrant youths’ mental health. This article also introduces critical ethnography as an appropriate design to examine critically the contextual and intersecting factors that influence female Muslim immigrant youths’ experiences. The steps to conduct an ethnographic study on female Muslim immigrant youths are also listed. This paper finally mirrors strengths, limitations and challenges of ethnographic approach in research related to female Muslim immigrant youths. and are given less freedom by their parents [14]. Furthermore, Muslim youths are often stigmatized as rebelling against their parental values and suffer identity crisis [15]. Leet-Otley [14] points out to another aspect of discrimination in the lives of female Muslim immigrant youths that they don’t have any choice to take up an identity because they are exposed to specific identities within the dominant society. However, studies have revealed that racism, has profound impact on Muslim youths’ perceptions of self and their cultural identity because they have to struggle to define meaning in self, their religion, way of life and community that consistently controls and dictates the portrayal of Islamic culture in a negative manner [16,17]. As a result of this racism, they are vulnerable to mental health problems. There is a large body of evidence indicating that experiencing any form of racism can lead to resignation, helplessness, alienation and lack of hope which in turn can deteriorate mental well being [8,9,18,19]. Notably, female Muslim immigrant youths are not a homogenous group. Some of them live in poverty, some have experienced violence pre-immigration, and others experience violence in their new home or a combination of these situations. As immigrants, they also experience some degree of uprooting, loss and separation [2]. Moreover, diverse nationalities and religious subgroups exist within their ethno cultural community. As a result, their identities, attitudes and experiences are established through multiple contexts. Accordingly, Collins and Gurrage [20] assert that women’s experiences are shaped by a range of identities which intersect and change in different social contexts. Similar idea is shaped by O’Mahony et al. [21] that immigrant women’s health care experiences occur within a cultural context and are influenced by factors such as social, political, historical, and economic differences.