I make sense, therefore I am

Abstract

This developmental paper presents findings of the data analysis of a PhD study. The study investigates how black professionals of African origin make sense of their experiences of life and work in Finnish culture. The methodology adopts critical interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), and borrows fromnarrative analysis (NA). The findings show that,in the process of sensemaking, the participants of the study carry out identity work. All the participants drew from the cultural values rooted in their respective home cultures. However, the identity work carried out by female participants differed to that of their male counterparts. The female participants maintained a strong sense of women identities, whereas the male participants expressed a sense of identity ambiguity.