Exploring how the lived experiences of Swahili-speaking East African female migrant care workers shape their response to workplace adversity in the UK

This thesis reports on a practitioner research project examining the experiences of Swahili-speaking East African women working within the health and social care sector in the UK. This research contributes to the growing literature on African migrant women and, more importantly, it introduces a new body of knowledge on how their shared socio-cultural experiences have helped to shape the response to workplace adversity for Swahili-speaking East African women. The qualitative methodology based on fourteen (14) personal interviews and two (2) focus groups provided substantial data in the form of transcribed recordings. These were analysed using critical discourse analysis and verified using triangulation method to ensure reliability and veracity. At the centre of the findings is the agentic distancing from victimhood imposed by adverse socio-economic conditions that are characteristic of the care sector. Discourse by participants revealed that experiences of struggle were overshadowed by expressive and deontic modalities suggesting a novel agentic power through universal collectivism and altruistic benevolence. Proficiency in translanguaging highlighted a capacity to control personal narratives and choices that would have otherwise remained undetected in monolingual discourse analyses. A pyramidal model in the discussion chapter suggests how well-being and agency can be achieved by advancing from the basic levels of resistance, through survival and solidarity to achieve ultimate levels of benevolence and altruism. These meaningful socio-cultural interactions create empowerment to develop psychosocial defences against occupational adversity. This thesis contributes to the broader health and social work and social care professional field by deepening understanding of how socio-cultural values can foster positive workplace ethics. Furthermore, it amplifies migrant women’s voices by shifting their identity from invisibilisation and deprivation to agency and ownership.