Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples and Politics

L19 - The Politics of Refuge and Belonging

Date: Jun 14 | Time: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Location: Zoom (see details/voir détails)

Chair/Président/Présidente : Megan Gaucher (Carleton University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Megan Gaucher (Carleton University)

Zoom Meeting Link | Meeting ID : 991 6391 0431 | Password: 982542

From Kabul to Turtle Island: Analyzing Canada’s Afghan Resettlement Programs in the Context of Settler Colonialism: Kushan Azadah (York University)
Abstract: This paper examines the politics of Canada’s Afghan resettlement programs and the extent to which they exhibit (dis-)continuities with the state’s broader histories of displacement and (re)settlement in the settler colonial context. At the end of October 2023, Canada announced that it met its commitment to resettle 40 thousand Afghan refugees in the wake of NATO withdrawal and the Taliban’s subsequent return to power in August of 2021. The resettlement efforts spanned over two years and faced many challenges including legal-administrative hurdles and slow processing and arrival speeds. The state’s response to these challenges attracted varying degrees of praise and grievance across civil society, political parties, and government actors. Many Canadians expressed a national responsibility and obligation to Afghan resettlement, especially for those at risk of Taliban reprisal for working alongside NATO troops in its nation-building efforts. This raised questions about who was deemed (un-)deserving of refugee status and resettlement based on their proximity to the settler state’s missions abroad. Drawing on a discourse-historical approach (DHA) and critical discourse policy analysis (CDPA) of press releases, speeches, committee reports, and public statements, this paper examines the complexities involved in the politics of recognition concerning Afghan refugees and the terms of their acceptance into the Canadian settler polity.

Who Is Deserving? The Coloniality of Canada’s Response to Afghan and Ukrainian Refugees: Zuhra Abawi (Niagara University)
Abstract: Two refugee crises have recently unfolded with markedly different responses by the West. The first involves the swift 2021 evacuation of U.S and allied troops in Afghanistan and resurgence of the Taliban; the second being the 2022 Russian invasion of the Ukraine. While Afghans and Ukrainians alike were forced to flee violent conflict; the collective Western response to Ukrainian refugees has been vastly different than that of Afghan refugees, with Canada being no exception (De Conick 2022; Garnier et al, 2022; Howard et al, 2022; Khan, 2022; Pardy, 2023). Canada’s immigration policies stark preferential treatment of Ukrainian refugees speaks to the historic and ongoing settler-colonial and racist undertones that privilege whiteness (Al Jazeera, 2022; Kelley & Treblicock, 2010). While Canada is often portrayed as a bastion of human rights through the eyes of the international community; the country continues to fall short on commitments to humanitarian law both abroad and at home; notably through epidemic levels of violence against Indigenous people (Human Rights Watch, 2023). The history of Canada’s immigration policies is fraught with Eurocentrism and the deliberate exclusion of people of the Global South; whilst simultaneously commissioning state-sponsored genocide against Indigenous peoples and lands. This paper seeks to explore the racialized hierarchies and coloniality undergirding the embrace of Ukrainian refugees within the Canadian context juxtaposed against the marginalization and dehumanization of Afghan refugees by employing Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2017) as a conceptual lens to frame this study.

Social Inclusion and “The Right to Have Rights”: Perspectives from Resettled Refugees: Laila Khoshkar (University of Toronto)
Abstract: Hannah Arendt’s concept “the right to have rights” is arguably the starting point for political theorists interested in human rights. This phrase is understood to express two distinct notions of ‘right’: the first is the right to belong to a political community in which one’s speech and action is meaningful (i.e. political membership), and the second indicates the civic rights one has, by virtue of political membership, that are provided and protected by the political community to which one belongs. While resettled refugees in Canada do not have full state membership (citizenship), they are entitled to a wide set of civic rights by virtue of their legal status. Resettled refugees in Canada ostensibly, therefore, have “the right to have rights”. My question is: do resettled refugees in Canada experience their right to have rights meaningfully? My theoretical framework is premised on my contention that legal status is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the right to have rights to be experienced meaningfully. In addition to legal belonging, social belonging is required. In my proposed paper, I will consider how the lived experiences of resettled refugees in Canada inform my theoretical framework. To this end, I am conducting interviews with resettled refugees, to learn from them how their sense of social belonging in Canada impacts their experience of their rights in this country. Ultimately, consideration of individuals’ phenomenological experience of their rights can bolster our understanding of the conditions required for a meaningful right to have rights.

The Uncanny Journey of Remembering between Past, Present, and Future: Generational Remembering among Turkish Cypriot Families: Beyza Hatun Kiziltepe (McMaster University)
Abstract: An unresolved state of conflict has continued in Cyprus since the 1950s. Today, there are countless accounts of memory narratives about the Cyprus ethnic conflict. Drawing on the ethnographic research conducted in the Northern Part of Cyprus with native Turkish Cypriots, this paper endeavors to understand how different generations of Turkish Cypriot families remember the ethnic conflict and make sense of their experiences regarding the politicization of memory and history-making of nation-states. In doing so, I argue that remembering becomes political through intentional, selective, and conscious acts of individuals. Accordingly, memories are grounded upon the interrelation of past experiences, present life situations, and anticipated future imaginations. To interpret the differences and similarities in memory narratives, I ask: could divergent but entangled memory narratives be considered one of the constituents of the othering formations among the Turkish Cypriot community? This paper hopes to deliver a fresh dimension to the Cyprus ethnic conflict analysis in IR by emphasizing that individuals’ memories are also inclined to function as ideological tools of some local and international political forces and hegemonic ideologies of specific eras. Concomitantly, not only the native but also the settler Turkish Cypriots should be considered the primary power forces in historiography and conflict resolution discussions.