L08(b) - Affective Dimensions of Migration, Inclusion, and Intergroup Relations
Date: Jun 3 | Time: 08:45am to 10:15am | Location:
Chair/Président/Présidente : Andrew Basso (University of Toronto)
Immigrant Belonging: Understanding the Role of Welcoming Local Environments: Antoine Bilodeau (Concordia University), Jean-Philippe Gauvin (Concordia University)
Abstract: Immigrants’ sense of belonging to the host community is crucial to their successful inclusion, facilitating among other things their political engagement. Identifying the conditions under which immigrants express stronger belonging thus helps promote a more successful inclusion for newcomers.
We investigate the roots of belonging among immigrants, more specifically the role of local contexts. Building on existing work indicating that the way the host population of a country defines who belongs to the nation shapes the strength of immigrant belonging (Simonsen, 2016), we examine whether a similar relationship is replicated at the local level. We examine whether immigrant belonging is stronger when living in localities where the host population defines who belongs to the nation using more attainable characteristics than when living in localities where the host population defines who belong using more ascriptive characteristics. While research shows the role of policies and welcoming contexts at the national level on immigrant belonging, rarely has a similar relationship been tested at the local level.
We examine this question using a stratified survey of 2000 immigrants and 3000 non-immigrants living in 29 localities in Quebec. Following earlier works, we investigate immigrants’ sense of belonging by measuring feelings of being attached to and being accepted by the host community (Bilodeau et al. 2019). We measure criteria used to define who belongs to the nation with questions adapted from those of the ISSP national identity module.
The Emotional and Transformative Impact of the Refugee Journey: Maissaa Almustafa (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: According to the United Nations, there are over 70.8 million forcibly displaced people around the world today - the highest number ever recorded (UNHCR, 2019). Yet, the lived experiences of these people, the details of their daily struggles and resilience, and the impact of such experiences on their wellbeing are still largely missing and undertheorized in migration and refugee studies and policy discourse. This gap limits our ability as scholars, and policymakers to grasp the real predicaments and aspirations of displaced people. In this paper, I focus on refugees’ experiences and examine the individual experiences of refugees from Syria during their search for protection. I argue that within the circumstances of deterrence, refugee journey turns into a complex act of survival and an intense emotional process that involves sentiments of fear, anxiety, humiliation, and loss and engenders confusing transformations of refugees’ positionality and identity, which reflects the tragic dimension of the global crisis of protection and its massive “human cost”. In this paper, I examine the emotional toll of refugee journey and its transformative impact on refugees’ lives and propose that refugees who undertake precarious journeys in search of protection arrive at their new localities with a heavy load of traumatic scars that affect their perceptions of selves, family, and life in general. My analysis builds on actual stories of refugees and reveals the consequences of the crisis of protection and exclusionary policies on refugees’ lives from the very personal perspective of refugees.
The Duality of the Segregation Effect in Ethnoterritorial Conflicts: Surulola Eke (University of Manitoba)
Abstract: Scholars have debated the relationship between social distance and intergroup relations. In one cluster are scholars who argue that it engenders conflict. Enos and Celaya (2018, p. 26), for example, note that social distance causes intergroup conflict because the lack of contact facilitates the development of a negative perception of outsiders. Similarly, Takacs in a series of studies (2001, 2007), avers that social distance engenders conflict because it enables collective action through social control. In a second cluster, scholars contend that social distance can also be an instrument of conflict prevention. Bhavnani et al. (2014, p. 226), for example, note that partitioning and the restriction of mobility dampen intergroup violence. In the same vein, Ireland (2008, p. 1334) notes that such mechanisms can prevent intergroup conflict because it minimizes contempt for otherness, which results from ethnic mixing. Using the general inductive approach to study the experiences of intergroup relations of 24 individuals in two communities in Nigeria’s ethnoterritorial conflict hotbed, Jos, I found that the effect of social distance on intergroup relations leans towards conflict emergence than prevention. But the way it engenders conflict in this context is more nuanced than previously explained. In the Jos case, ethnic group enclaves sprung up in previously ethnically-mixed communities following the sudden outbreak of ethnoterritorial conflicts. Although aimed at conflict avoidance, the ethnic groups’ separation from each other did not result in conflict prevention. Rather, the lack of contact engendered fear and suspicion, which motivated pre-emptive attacks by the different ethnic groups.