Seeking Social Services on the Gaspé Coast : A Narrative Analysis of Anglophones’ Experiences of Access and Care

The author addresses the concern that Anglophone populations in the predominantly French-speaking Gaspé region of eastern Quebec are experiencing high rates of social problems such as poverty and unemployment. She notes that Anglophones in this region, as in other rural regions of Quebec, have identified facing difficulties related to access to social services, an aspect which further complicates existing social problems. Using a narrative methodology and post structural, feminist and intersectional lenses, the author explores the experiences of English-speaking service users in accessing and engaging with social services on the Gaspé coast. The author also explores the boundaries and reproduction of linguistic categories and identity and offers insight into resisting dominant discourses pertaining to linguistic difference in Quebec, specifically within the context of social services. The author notes that her research demonstrate that service users’ experiences were characterised by disproportionately negative effects in regards to service access and delivery such as intensified logistical problems and social work practice-related weaknesses. The research also concludes that experiences involved multiple, intersecting problems, which were irreducible to the singular dimension of language. The intersections of language and race, language and class, and language and ability were raised as critical concerns in terms of access to social services on the Gaspé coast. Finally, the author concludes that encounters between Anglophones and Francophones in the context of health and social services in the region were found to be entangled and inseparable from the historical and ongoing political struggles over language on this territory.

Master's Thesis

University of Victoria

Victoria, BC

2017

xi-126p.

en