Race, ethnicité, peuples autochtones et politique



L09(a) - Roundtable: History in the (Policy-)Making: Past, Present and Future in Canadian Migration Politics and Scholarship

Date: Jun 13 | Heure: 08:30am to 10:00am | Salle: 680 Sherbrooke St. West 1151

Chair/Président/Présidente : Christopher Anderson (Wilfred Laurier University)

Co-Chair/Président/Présidente : Dagmar Soennecken (York University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Dagmar Soennecken (York University)

Academics, politicians and policy-makers alike are often so focused on immediate issues, problems and crises surrounding international migration that larger historical lessons and contexts within which current events could be assessed and understood are overlooked. This is no less true for a country like Canada, despite its long and often noted - even celebrated - status as a country of immigration. This roundtable takes up the challenge for academics of identifying and understanding lessons that history has to offer in engaging current and crafting future immigration and refugee policies in Canada and beyond. On the one hand, a more thorough engagement with history can help in understanding the constraints and opportunities faced - whether the deeper structures and systems of restriction and exclusion (e.g., settler colonialism, systemic discrimination) that shape contemporary state action, or those that provide the foundation for expansion and inclusion (e.g., family reunification, refugee protection). In short, a more historically informed perspective can, for example, enable us to see where past choices restrain current options available to policy makers, offer insights into why some paths were (and are) not taken, and explain institutional inertia and openings for bigger shifts and changes. The roundtable offers an opportunity for participants to reflect on how they make connections between the past and present in their own research, and on the challenges of having an impact.

Participants:
Geoffrey Cameron (McMaster University)
Kiran Banerjee (Dalhousie University)
Laura Madokoro (Carleton University)
Krenare Recaj (Carleton University)
Caleb Duffield (McMaster University)
Christopher Anderson (Wilfrid Laurier University)