"You Don't Know Me": Polite Racism, Cultural Capital, and Afro-Caribbean Identity in Multicultural Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This thesis examines identity formation and mobilization of social and cultural capital among first- and second-generation Haitian and Jamaican communities in Canada. Drawing on critical race theory, intersectionality, and sociological theories of cultural capital, it integrates Tara J. Yosso's model of community cultural wealth with the concepts of polite racism, racial ignominy, and duplicity of consciousness. These concepts articulate how subtle yet systemic racial exclusion - particularly in education and the labour market - undermines Afro-Caribbean cultural assets while upholding a veneer of multicultural inclusivity. The research reconceptualizes Blackness in Canada as a dynamic and contested identity, shaped by both historical legacies and contemporary systemic barriers. Through focus groups and in-depth interviews with Haitian and Jamaican participants in the Ottawa-Gatineau region, the thesis explores how cultural capital is leveraged to assert identity, resist stereotypes, and negotiate belonging across generations. Key findings demonstrate that cultural and social capital are not merely tools of social mobility but also sites of resistance and self-definition. First- and second-generation participants differ in their navigation of identity, highlighting a generational negotiation between cultural retention and adaptation, often under the pressure of systemic expectations. This negotiation is captured through the concept of duplicity of consciousness, which describes the lived tension between authenticity and assimilation in racialized contexts. The implications extend beyond academia, offering concrete policy recommendations for Canadian educational institutions and labour markets to better recognize and support the cultural wealth of Afro-Caribbean communities. In doing so, this research advances a more inclusive understanding of Blackness and multiculturalism in Canada.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.029 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".