Category: Events

Save the Date Ottawa! May 26 Conference: Building A Sanctuary City from Below

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An exciting event coming up in Ottawa

*Please share widely*

From the Ground Up: Building a Sanctuary City Together

Every day we witness the fallout of the global crisis of displacement. And we see how governments too often fail to act – or act to make matters worse. Federal immigration laws continue to limit access to status and force people to make life-threatening decisions to seek safety. Ottawa City Council refused to pass a sanctuary city policy, and cities that have policies on paper continue to fail people with precarious immigration status. It’s clear that the work of building inclusive and safe communities for all must begin with us.

We believe that we have the knowledge and the power to do this. In Ottawa and across Canada, organizers, community members and front line service providers have been building safer communities through creative strategies developed from the ground up. Let’s bring our collective skills and experience together to build a sanctuary city from below.

Join us for a day of discussion, learning, and strategizing about:

– Critical Casework: Protecting privacy and access to services
– Border Crossings: Supporting failed asylum seekers
– Unconditional Access: Examples from other cities
– Policing and Immigration: Limiting police discretion

Special guests include:
– Ingrid Mendez, Sanctuary Health, Vancouver
– Serge Bouchereau, Comité d’action des personnes sans statut (CAPSS), Montréal
– Overdose Prevention Ottawa

*Free and open + Snacks
*Onsite childcare
320 Jack Purcell Ln, Corner of Elgin St. 9am – 3pm
* The venue is fully wheelchair accessible.

Addressing Risk & Uncertainty in Migration ~ Workshop Agenda

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Our workshop agenda has just been announced, and we’re very excited about the presentations. We have a limited number of spots available for faculty, students and/or community members who want to participate in the discussion. Contact me for details on how to register.

Salina

AGENDA
Addressing Risk and Uncertainty in Migration: Theory, Processes, and Policy Responses
Thursday, May 18, 2017 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Munk School of Global Affairs, 1 Devonshire Place, Room 208N, University of Toronto

10:00 a.m. Registration & Refreshments
10:05 a.m. Opening Remarks
Can Aybek and Salina Abji

10:15 a.m. Panel 1
Governing Risk or Risky Governance? Historical, Comparative and Policy Perspectives
~ Harold Bauder & Dayana Gonzalez, Ryerson University: “Responses to ‘illegality’: Urban Sanctuary in International Comparison”
~ Geraldina Polanco, University of Waterloo: “‘Illegality’ and the ‘Benefits’ of Managed Migration Programs”
~ Jiyoung Lee-An, Carleton University: “’Fake’ or ‘Real’ Marriage? Governing Practices of Spousal Immigration in Canada”
~ Maximilian Smith, York University: “Making Room for Social Psychiatry and Sociology in Historical Studies of Migration and Mental Health”
Discussant: Can Aybek, University of Toronto

12:30 p.m. Catered Lunch with Keynote Presentation
Featuring: Dr. Anna Korteweg
The Risks of “Immigrant Integration”: The Racialized Gendered Production of Non-Belonging

Anna Korteweg is Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Professor Korteweg’s research focuses on the ways in which the problem of immigrant integration is constructed in the intersections of gender, religion, ethnicity and national origin. From this critical vantage point, she has analyzed debates surrounding the wearing of the headscarf, so-called “honour-based” violence, and Sharia law. Current research projects focus on racialization and LGBTQ/gender rights construction in refugee politics, on the criminalization of migrant status, and on the citizenship implications of refugee sponsorship.

1:45 p.m. Panel 2:
Negotiating Uncertainty: Lived Experiences of Vulnerability and Risk
~ Jolin Joseph, York University: “Right to Flight: Gendered Im/mobility in the Recruitment and Regulation of Indian Women Migrants”
~ Kathryn Dennler, York University: “‘I try to live my life’: Affective geographies of migrants with liminal immigration status”
~ Sohoon Lee, University of Sydney: “Using markets and kinship to cross spatio-temporal borders: a Case of Korean-Chinese migrants in South Korea”
~ Marie Coligado, Carleton University: “‘What you do is you do your best’: Challenges to Legal Representation of Immigration Detainees”
Discussant: Salina Abji, Carleton University

3:45 p.m. Facilitated Discussion: Journal Special Issue

4:30 p.m. Dinner for Presenters ~ By invitation only

A limited number of spaces are available ~ please contact Salina Abji and Can Aybek for more details.
salina.abji AT mail.utoronto.ca and c.aybek ATutoronto.ca

Gender, Islamophobia & Resistance ~ panel at University of Toronto

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I’m part of a panel co-hosted by the Migrant Mothers Project and CERIS, the Centre for Research on Immigration and Settlement.

Come through!

Details:

In this seminar, panelists will examine political and social contexts that have given rise to new forms of discrimination and barriers for Muslim Immigrant women’s participation and inclusion in Canadian cities. Panellists will also examine different
expressions of Islamophobia in Canada: in laws, in policies, in public discourses, and in service provision to Muslim immigrant women and their families. Our discussion will also highlight resistance strategies and counter discourses to Islamophobia, including culturally informed social work practices that resist the social monitoring of Muslim women.

PRESENTERS:

LEÏLA BENHADJOUDJA, Assistant Professor, School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies, University of Ottawa.

SALINA ABJI, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University

SONIA BEN SOULTANE, PhD Candidate/FRSC doctoral award recipient, McGill School of Social Work; Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Migrant Mothers Project at University of Toronto, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

DATE & TIME: May 26, 2017 – 2 to 4 pm (EST)

LOCATION:
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto
246 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON
Room 548
(Near the St. George TTC Station)
Event Page: Click Here

 

 

 

Addressing Risk & Uncertainty in Migration ~ Workshop at the Munk School May 18, 2017

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Can Aybek and I are co-hosting a research workshop on Addressing Risk and Uncertainty in Migration: Theory, Processes & Policy Responses at the Munk School, University of Toronto, on Thursday, May 18, 2017.

We were impressed by the quality and number of submissions received for the workshop. Invitations have just gone out today to a handful of applicants based on quality, fit, and potential for publication. It promises to be an exciting and enriching day of research and dialogue!

The workshop will be open to the pubic (with limited seating available) so stay tuned here for more details.

Learn more about the Munk School of Global Affairs

Read the original Call for Papers

Sanctuary Cities & the Future of Regularization ~ A community forum

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The Rights of Non-Status Women’s Network (RNSWN) is hosting our 2017 Spring Forum at the University of Toronto on Wednesday, May 24, 2017.

Come Through!

Spring Forum Time

Spring Forum Time ~ Source: RNSWN

DESCRIPTION

Please join us for our spring forum, a biannual networking and information sharing event. The forum’s morning panel will present individuals’ and front line workers’ struggles and strategies to gain access to City of Toronto services for people without immigration status. The afternoon panel will discuss a variety of approaches and strategies on status regularization for people with no legal immigration status. We welcome your questions for all our panellists in open Q&A sessions at the end of each panel and invite you to network over a delicious lunch break.

9:30 to 10:00 Registration and Networking

10:00 to 12:30 Panel on Sanctuary City Toronto with speakers from Research Institutions, City Officials, and Social Service Organizations

12:30 to 1:30 Lunch & Networking

1:30 to 3:30 Panel on The Future of Regularization with speakers from Refugee, Legal, and Grassroots Advocates

3:30 to 4:00 Wrap Up and Discussion

Suggested Donation (for operational costs) to be paid in cash at the door. A receipt can be provided.

• Non-Students: $5-10

• Students are free. Please bring your student I.D.

Please RSVP by Friday May 19th as spaces are limited ~ Thank You!

Thank you to Migrant Mothers Project, South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, FCJ, and Springtide Resources who have generously supported this symposium.

~ Space is fully wheelchair accessible. Please let us know of any accessibility needs in advance so that we can do our best to accommodate them.

DATE AND TIME

Wed, 24 May 2017

9:30 AM – 4:00 PM EDT

LOCATION

University of Toronto- Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

246 Bloor Street West

3rd Floor- Student Lounge

Toronto, ON M5S

RSVP on Event Brite

Emerging Scholars Colloquium with Salina Abji

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I’m looking forward to presenting my research at the upcoming Emerging Scholars Colloquium at Carleton University on Tuesday, March 28, 2017.

“Because Deportation is Violence Against Women!”
Activism in Response to Precarious Migration and the Securitization of Women’s Shelters in Canada

SSS - Protest in Toronto - Oct 2008 - large res

Shelter | Sanctuary | Status campaign, Toronto, 2008. Source: NOII

In 2011, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) issued a national directive effectively allowing border guards to enter women’s shelters to investigate and deport “unauthorized” migrants. The policy was implemented despite significant protests from a national coalition of over 200 feminist and migrant rights organizations. In this presentation, I will share findings from my doctoral dissertation, where I analyzed the politics of state responsibility that are produced through such contestations over border enforcement within women’s shelters. State responsibility is a legal principle outlining the human rights obligations of states under international law, including women’s human rights to protection from gender-based violence. However, it is less clear to what extent a state’s obligations extend to women without legal status, who are not formally recognized by the state but who may nevertheless require access to shelter and support services. In my presentation, I’ll discuss two key framing strategies used by activists to prevent border authorities from entering women’s shelters, and the implications of these strategies for how we conceptualize gendered violence and women’s human rights. I’ll also present my analysis of the CBSA’s justification for entering women’s shelters, showing how the state’s use of securitized understandings of responsibility fundamentally undermine the human rights of all women in Canada, including those without status.

March 28, 2017 at 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM

Location: A715 Loeb Building
Cost: Free
Audience: Anyone
Contact Email: soc-anthro@carleton.ca
Contact Phone: 613-520-2582

View the Event Poster

Check out the event listing

Women’s March #TO

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womens march love trumps hate

Love Trumps Hate at the Women’s March | Toronto | Pictured here with family & friends ❤

The Women’s March on Washington had me thinking about this quote by Howard Zinn…

“Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope.

An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” 

Toronto, Jan 2017, Credit Jup B
Toronto, Jan 2017, Credit Jup B

Were you able to attend?

The March in Toronto was a powerful and energizing display of collective resistance and optimism.

As far as #feministfutures go, this was a milestone moment for me, full of wit and creativity and community.

womens march

Feminist Futures ❤