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Long, J. 2014. Seeing a Tolerance of Ambiguity in the Field: Experiences of

Settlement Service Workers in London, Ontario. Paper presented at CASCA

Conference, Toronto, ON. April 30th – May 2nd.

Tolerance of Ambiguity: New avenues for anthropological futures?

For the purposes of this conference, where the idea of

uncertainty meets with future anthropological endeavours, we

will engage with the concept of tolerance of ambiguity as a

means to explore and interrogate the role of anthropologists in

their fieldwork and in their political and social engagements.

As first presenter on our panel, (CLICK) I want to take this

opportunity to first provide a brief overview of the use of this

term in social science and in anthropology and then define how I

will be using this term myself. This overview will be followed

by an application of this term to research that I conducted in

London, Ontario with service providers working in community and

integration services and end with a brief analysis concerning

the possible use of this term by anthropologists. It is my hope

that this panel and this paper will begin a conversation on the

general usefulness of the term in the anthropological

literature. CLICK

The tolerance of ambiguity was first coined by Psychologist

Else Frenkel-Brunswik in 1948. This term, which ironically has

no one definitive definition, has engaged scholars ever since

particularly in the fields of medicine, psychology and in

organizational behaviour (Furnham and Marks 2013: 717). Sample

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topics of research from the field of medicine’s use of this term

include: ‘ensuring a tolerance for ambiguity among medical

students to, promoting better health care through physicians’

ability to communicate medical results to their patients to,

(CLICK) motivations behind adolescent risk-taking behaviours and

its causal link to a tolerance for ambiguity in life

perspective. Although there is a range of topics, this concept

is often couched in medical terms and understood to be a

personality trait; a definition that builds off a psychological

understanding.

Psychologists DeRoma, Martin and Kessler (2003) define the

tolerance for ambiguity according to Budner as “an individual’s

propensity to view ambiguous situations as either threatening or

desirable” (105). Therefore, when this term is understood as a

generalized personality variable, and where tolerances for

ambiguity are low, individuals are associated with behaviours

such as “crude stereotyping, rigid defenses, and a general lack

of insight” (Levine 1985:12). Put simply, if you have a low

tolerance for ambiguity, you will not be comfortable with

situations or people who are different that you.

A popular variable of this concept is something called

‘uncertainty avoidance’. (CLICK) Uncertainty avoidance is

defined as “the extent to which people feel threatened by

ambiguous situations, and have created beliefs and institutions

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that try to avoid these” and has been used by some sociologists,

most notably Geert Hofstede (Hofstede 1984: 419 as cited in

Furnham and Marks 2013: 718). Hofstede’s work plays out in the

fields of cultural competence, where uncertainty avoidance is

defined as “the extent to which the members of a culture feel

threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created

beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these” (The Hofstede

Centre N.d.a). As an example, this centre finds that Canadians

are more “uncertainty accepting” than the United Sates or

Germany or Greece, which is not pictured here, but which scored

a 100 on the UAI index. Although these practical applications of

the term take another step forward to understanding a tolerance

of ambiguity through cultural means, this definition is limited

by its reified understanding of ‘culture’ and its perceived

inherent values. (CLICK) But where are the anthropologists?

Overall, in my research on this topic, the concept of

tolerance of or for ambiguity has had little to no traction in

the field of anthropology as a theoretical point of analysis.

However, anthropologists have (uncritically) used this term in

the following ways: as an attitude that needs to be inculcated

into Anthropology students; as a manner in which to understand

the inductive approach of Anthropologists in the field.

According to Cora Du Bois, in The Teaching of Anthropology,

argues that a tolerance for ambiguity is one of the attitudes

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that anthropologists as teachers need to foster in their

students (1963:37). She describes this attitude as “a capacity

to entertain uncertainty, to cope with paradox, to allow for the

indeterminate” (Du Bois 1963: 37). She argues that this trait is

not often taught in primary or secondary education and that it

decreases over time. I would agree with Du Bois from my own

teaching experiences about the importance of this attitude

however, she does not use this term as a point of investigation.

Regna Darnell (2001) once used the term ‘tolerance for

ambiguity’ to describe the moment when anthropologists conduct

ethnography and move between our theoretical aims in the field

and our experiences as participant observers (263). Yet, this

brief mention in her book Invisible Genealogies: A History of

Americanist Anthropology is just that, a brief mention, and the

term is not used as an analytical concept. Therefore, despite

these applications, tolerance for ambiguity has not been used by

anthropologists as an analytical concept or a means to analyse

or question findings. (CLICK)

Donald Levine writes from a sociological perspective about

the implications concerning ‘ambiguity tolerance’ are that “a

pronounced openness for experiential ambiguities may be

functional for and reinforced in specific kinds of social

contexts” (1985:13). In this way, Levine focusses on how

tolerance, and intolerance, is learned, context-dependent and is

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something ‘between people’. Using Levine’s approach to the term,

I want to focus on how a tolerance for ambiguity affects

relationships between and among individuals who are perceived to

be culturally different because I want to understand how

tolerance for ambiguity affects perceptions and relationships

among individuals and in situations where categories of

distinction, such as “us” and “them”, are threatened. It’s in

this space that I think anthropologists could engage with this

term.

I will use the tolerance for ambiguity to investigate the

experiences of service providers in community and integration

programming for newcomers. This research was conducted in

London, Ontario in 2012 on behalf of a community provider and is

best described as community-based research. In focussing on this

term as a means of analysis, I aim to start a conversation about

the usefulness of this term in anthropological studies. (CLICK)

Integration in London, ON

According to an article in the London Free Press, the

London metropolitan area has 18.8% immigrant residents (as of

2011), which is less than the Ontario average of nearly 30%,

which is odd considering London just outside of one of Canada’s

10 largest cities. Why is this? It is because there are

significant barriers to integration and retention of London’s

immigrants which include: a lack of employment opportunities,

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recognition of professional skills, issues related to accessing

health services, finding affordable housing, and combatting

language and discrimination issues (B & AA 2006). CLICK

For this project, and what you see up here are the

questions of this project, I was hired by a non-profit

organization, the United Way to learn immigrant experiences of

the available settlement and community programming for newcomers

in the London area. I chose the location of the centres where I

conducted interviews and participant observation based on

whether or not they were targeted, universal and mixed centres

(CLICK). You can see the various definitions here but the major

difference among these centres is the clientele that frequent

them. Targeted centres cater specifically to newcomers, whereas

universal centres have little to no targeted programming for

newcomers. Mixed is just that, a mix of targeted and universal

programs. Newcomers largely attended targeted programming at all

these centres.

This paper is based on the results of the 15 interviews

that I conducted with service providers across the various

centres (5 targeted, 5 universal, 5 mixed). I also collected

data through an online survey of 24 partner sites of our

community partner. Since I’m likely out of time already, I will

go now to the findings of the research.

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From this research we learned that newcomers and service

providers alike were satisfied with much of the programming that

was provided, however, there were notable barriers to

accessibility. I’ll start with a finding from the survey. One of

the questions asked in this survey was about access and

availability of services for newcomers in the London community.

According to the survey respondents the three most predominant

reasons for inaccessibility of programming were: accessing

interpretation services in a timely fashion and perceived

language barriers, funding limitations, waitlists for services

or lack of space/capacity.

As found by other researchers in the settlement and

integration literature, the service sector is perpetually in a

state of not having enough financial support or people power.

These findings are also evident from my in-depth interviews.

As you can see from service provider # 4 here – she

believed that quality among programs drops due to the intense

and busy schedule that they’re made to keep due to lack of

staffing and financial support. This quote was taken from a

provider at a universal centre, however, participants from the

mixed and targeted center experienced the same thing. (CLICK)

I make the assumption from these findings that service

providers who are dealing with a shortage of resources, time,

and support must have a flexible approach to their everyday work

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lives in order to come up with creative solutions and strategies

to the issues they face every day when providing services to

newcomers. In this way, I believe that these services providers

must have a tolerance for ambiguity in order to cope with the

uncertain situations created through the funding and support

structure of non-profit organizations (see Rob Shield’s

article). In this way, I’m using tolerance for ambiguity like

those in the field of medicine or cultural competency who see it

as an ability to provide a service when faced with ambiguity or

uncertainty. Okay, this is the first potential use of this term.

This is another chart from the online survey respondents

regarding whether their centre served immigrant clients.

Overall, the vast majority (85%) of respondents indicated that

20% or fewer of their clients would be considered or identified

as immigrants. In a follow up question, which I’m sorry has not

graph, the majority of respondents described their capacity to

serve the immigrant community as ‘somewhat’ to ‘very capable’.

Thus, the majority of respondents reported that despite the fact

that they did not encounter newcomers that they would be

‘somewhat to extremely capable’ of providing services.

Yet, when I asked those service providers who were doing

interviews with me regarding their comfort level (and who by the

way were universal service providers and who would be considered

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equivalent providers to those in the survey because they also

served approximately the same percentage of newcomers, which was

very few), they have different perspectives.

For example, Service provider 4 said: “I think that many

service providers do a good job but due to our (Canadian)

background, we’re missing some things”. I draw out this part of

the quotation because it shows how this provider separates

newcomers from other clientele and how their beliefs and needs

may be different than those of Canadians. I think this quote

shows us how there is the potential to understand how tolerance

for ambiguity affects perceptions and relationships among

individuals, in situations where categories of distinction, such

as Canadians or immigrants, are understood. I’ll continue with

another quote.

A more defined example of how cultural difference is

related to comfort level can be seen through this service

provider who refutes the findings from the survey and discusses

her discomfort about knowing what to do for immigrants because

she doesn’t want to offend anyone. I bring these quotes up with

relation to the survey research because I think they pinpoint

another instance where we can use a tolerance for ambiguity as

anthropologists. CLICK

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As a reminder, Levine argued for the sociological

implications concerning ‘ambiguity tolerance’ which he described

as “a pronounced openness for experiential ambiguities may be

functional for and reinforced in specific kinds of social

contexts” (1985:13). CLICK - When looking at these two reactions

to ambiguousness which comes in the form of cultural difference,

I see there to be a demarcation of categories between us and

them which has the capacity to influence one’s workplace

environment and social encounters. Secondly, I also see there to

be a discomfort with cultural ambiguity which may lead to

situations where service providers are not comfortable or fully

able to help their clients because of this perceived cultural

difference.

In this way, I think the concept, ‘tolerance for ambiguity’

can be used in three ways: (1) As a means to understand

flexibility as being a necessary trait among service providers;

and (2) As a means to understand the importance of developing “a

pronounced openness for experiential ambiguities” in order to

foster comfort in work and social contexts. (3) as a means to

start interdisciplinary conversations across the social sciences

on topics that anthropologists hold dear. Thank you.