In my pro gradu thesis, I study immigrant identities as language users and language learners as presented in transcripts from interviews regarding their immigration experience and working life, gathered in 2012-2013. The concept of identity that I utilize in my thesis treats identities as context-dependent, multiple, sites of struggle and subject to change.

The interview data was gathered by the Transforming Professional Interaction project (funded by Academy of Finland 2011-2014). The data was analyzed through the means of narrative analysis and discourse analysis. Special attention was paid to how immigrants position themselves in relation to other characters in their narrative, the audience and dominant discourses.

One of the main results of my research is that highly educated female immigrants from Eastern Europe consistently present an image of themselves in their narratives as hard-working and capable users and learners of Finnish. Another central result is that immigrants resist and renegotiate unwanted identity discourses that they are subjected to. From the data, an image emerges which presents immigrants as active societal actors who participate in societal discourse to make their own voices heard.