Reading Notes: Security and Immigration, Changes and Challenges

[ajnabieh]

I recently read a report by a group of Canadian academics and community activists on immigration and citizenship policy in the post-9/11 period, called Security and Immigration, Changes and Challenges: Immigrant and Ethnic Communities in Atlantic Canada, Presumed Guilty? (link to PDF). It was an enlightening report, not merely because I know next to nothing about Atlantic Canada. (Let's be real: like most North Americans, my mental image of Canada basically stops at Montreal, and east of that point I have only a vague notion of bears, trees, and Anne of Green Gables.) Much of what was in the report was profoundly similar to immigration politics and policy in the past decade-and-change in the US: Muslim and Arab communities being targeted for state surveillance, an increased securitization of migration policy, and anxiety from migrant communities about what future changes will mean for their ability to remain in Canada, or remain in status.

However, there was an angle that was new to me: the context of the US/Canada relationship. One of the major complaints of the immigrants and immigrant service organizations surveyed by the team was that Canadian immigration policy was becoming more like the US's during this decade. This was particularly disheartening because these new Canadians defined themselves as Canadians-not-Americans. Canada was not supposed to act like the US; it was supposed to prioritize human security and human rights, both in its migration policy and in its treatment of immigrants once they arrive in Canada.

The framework in which I locate my work is that of transnational migration, meaning not just migration that crosses international borders, but migration where people, ideas, and material goods flow back and forth between 'sending countries' and 'receiving countries.' However, this report suggests the importance of third-party countries to migrants' understanding of their own political movements and frameworks. They don't merely form the discourses that structure their political actions from the dialogical relationship between their experiences 'back home' and their experiences in diaspora; instead, they imagine other interlocutors against whom they define their discourses. This is new to me in the literature on transnational migration (which, incidentally, isn't the perspective this report takes--it's firmly rooted in domestic Canadian politics). I'd posit that this is because the literature on transnational migration has been largely about US/Latin America migratory circuits--and that American politics doesn't, very often, define itself against politics in other countries, certainly not the way that Canadian politics positions itself against US politics.

The report also deals in a very interesting way with how freedom is defined and understood by members of Atlantic Canadian immigrant communities; the researchers aimed to elicit meaningful definitions of freedom from their participants, and paint a picture of a very substantive working notion of freedom, which emphasizes fundamental freedoms, especially freedom of movement. It would be interesting to develop a comparative notion of how freedom is defined among dominant and subaltern communities in the US and Canada, considering how both countries make 'freedom' central to self-development.

In any case, I recommend the report if you're interested in ethnic politics in Canada, or broadening your lens on the security state and migration policy outside of either a Eurocentric or American lens. It also has an excellent methods section, which is clear, detailed, and explains enough to really ensure that readers who care about methods understand how the data was collected.

Comments

[frandroid]

Being not-American is a defining characteristic of English-Canadian identity. One of the reason that is is because English-Canadians are, on average, pretty much average Americans, except for single-payer healthcare and having the second language speakers control one province. Imagine the day an American state formally becomes Spanish-speaking first... It's still going to be the USA but with a twist. (Saskatchewan, for its part, has chances of becoming a province populated with an aboriginal majority by 2050, but recent mineral wealth extraction in the province has provoked an influx of settlers that might push this further back.) There is a long history of Canadians trying to differentiate themselves from Americans basically goes all the way back to the War of Independence. In 1965 Canadian philosopher George Grant wrote Lament for a Nation, complaining about increasing Americanization of the country, and it wouldn't really sound too weird today except for the issues that aren't hot (or different) anymore.

So anyway, while I see where you're going with this, I think it says more about Canadian identity than about third-party concerns in transnational migration and identity. :)

[ajnabieh]

There definitely is something very much about Canadianness in this. Which is fascinating in part because of *quickly* new Canadians absorb this notion of Canada as Definitely-Not-America; it's a core part of political socialization. So, yeah, I take your point. That said, I wonder if this is a specific case of a generalized phenomenon. I know I've read stuff about how small states have to identify themselves with other states and their interests in order to be players in international relations--and while Canada isn't a 'small state' by any rational definition, it is so dwarfed in international relations by its southern neighbor that it sometimes acts like one. So there's a comparative question here--I just don't quite know it yet.

Fascinating about Saskatechwan! I knew it had a large First Nations community, but not that they were on the edge of becoming the majority. Are the aboriginal communities getting a piece of the mineral wealth pie, or are they generally being cut out of it?

[frandroid]

They're being generally cut out of it. Saskatchewan and Manitoba, on top of having the highest proportion of aboriginal people in the country, also imprison aboriginal people the most, per capita.