Containing Diversity
Canada and the Politics of Immigration in the 21st Century
Description
Although Canada is known internationally as a leader among industrialized countries for inclusive practices towards immigrants and refugees, the twenty-first century has witnessed a rise in the number of refugees and temporary migrant workers who are often denied citizenship and may also experience detention and deportation. Containing Diversity examines to what extent Canada’s long-standing support for immigration, multiculturalism, and citizenship has shifted in favour of discourses, policies, and practices that "contain" diversity.
This book reflects on how diversity is being "contained" through practices designed to insulate the Canadian settler-colonial state. In assessing the Canadian government’s policies towards refugees and asylum seekers, economic migrants, family-class migrants, temporary foreign workers, and multiculturalism, the authors show the various contradictory practices in effect. Containing Diversity reflects on policy changes, analysed alongside the resurgence of right-wing political ideology and the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, Containing Diversity highlights the need for a re-imagining of new forms of solidarity that centre migrant and Indigenous justice.
Reviews
“One of the most exciting contributions to the immigration literature in the last few years, Containing Diversity is a valuable resource not only for migration scholars, but also for policy analysts, as well as immigrants themselves who wish to learn about Canadian immigration policies.”
- Deniz Cevik
“Containing Diversity makes what is often invisible, visible, shedding new and substantial light on the struggles of im/migrant groups who are at once essential to national economies, yet multiply marginalized on intersecting grounds of oppression.”
- Alexandra Dobrowolsky, Saint Mary’s University
“With Containing Diversity, Abu-Laban, Tungohan, and Gabriel not only offer a convincing and disconcerting appraisal of the politics that shape 21st century immigration policy in Canada, but also a carefully articulated ethical path forward – one that supports a politics of social and global justice”
- J. Adam Perry, St. Francis Xavier University
“In addition to both its new arguments and impressive synthesis of existing literature that will appeal to both new and senior scholars, it is easy to envision how this volume will be an excellent teaching resource for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses. Containing Diversity would work well as a core text addressing the politics or sociology of migration in Canada whose chapters each address a core theme, or as an assigned book for students to review and contend with its framework.”
- John Carlaw, Toronto Metropolitan University