Migration and Settler Colonialism
My doctoral dissertation, “Indigenizing Settlement”: Investigating the Possibilities and Limitations of Indigenous-Immigrant Solidarity through Immigrant Settlement Organizations, examines the complexities of relationship-building through state-funded immigrant settlement agencies. Through fieldwork in an employment program bringing together Indigenous and immigrant youth, I argue that the immigrant settlement sector can be a potential site of resistance and disruption of settler colonialism. In particular, I argue that drawing on Indigenous knowledge serves as a powerful tool for immigrant agencies to push back against neoliberalism and settler colonialism and create alternative pathways for immigrants and Indigenous people. However, I find that immigrant serving agencies are limited in their ability to mount significant resistance to the state because of their reliance on government funding. Solidarity between the groups, then, is circumscribed because of the limited capacity these organizations have to explore the convergences and divergences between Indigenous and immigrant experiences. My doctoral research was supported by the SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship.
Publications
“Healing Toward Interdependency: Building Skills and Resistance Through Immigrant and Indigenous Employment” in the Journal of International Migration and Integration.
*Winner of the Daniel G. Hill Best Student Paper award in the Department of Sociology.
Under Review
“Racialized Settler Moves to Worthiness” (under review at Ethnic and Racial Studies)
In Progress
“Indigenizing Settlement? Lessons from a Prairie City” (Paper presented at the 2022 Canadian Sociological Association meetings)
Gender, Race, Migration, and Precarious Work
My research interests also extend into immigrant integration into racialized and precarious work. I am currently collaborating with Drs. Cynthia Cranford and Yangsook Kim on several projects at the intersection of migration, gender, and employment, drawing from interviews conducted by student-researchers at the University of Toronto Mississauga with immigrant workers in the Peel Region. In one paper, on which I am first author, we develop a framework for analyzing the enduring effects of migration, care, and employment policies and discourses on the employment trajectories of immigrants who are categorized as dependent. We find that in the context of a racialized, precarious labour market, dependent migrants find themselves in three distinct employment trajectories, which reflect and reinforce gendered inequalities while also opening opportunities for strategic maneuvering. In another paper, on which I am second author, we develop the concept of “precarious modes of incorporation” to show how migration policy and labour market conditions intersect to funnel immigrant men and women into lasting precarious work.
Publications
“Navigating Cumulative Disadvantages of Migration, Care, and Employment Regimes: Dependent Immigrants in Canada” in Social Politics (with Cynthia Cranford)
“Precarious Modes of Incorporation: Racialized and Gendered Employment Trajectories Among Immigrants in Toronto” in the Journal of International Migration and Integration (with Yangsook Kim and Cynthia Cranford)
Yukiko Tanaka 