Gender equality has been a policy goal of EU and other government institutions for over 30 years. Yet the gains in gender equality and women’s rights have been tenuous at best, with the COVID-19 pandemic only making things worse – particularly for migrant women. In fact, socio-economic outcomes for migrant women in the EU have lagged significantly behind those of men and of native-born populations since long before the pandemic. As Dr. Rachel Minto and Dr. Jasmijn Slootjes explain, the intersections of sex, gender, and migration are critical for understanding why these inequalities persist. How do policies of gender equality and migrant integration interact, and how can the unrealized revolutionary approach of gender mainstreaming be activated within institutional policy approaches? With guest host and CMS affiliate, Thea Bracewell.

Canada is lauded for its multiculturalism and being a welcoming host society to migrant newcomers. But discourses around settlement and integration tend to ignore the realities of Canada’s status as a settler colonial state. What would it mean to take seriously the fact that these are Indigenous lands – in some cases, unceded lands – to which Canada has no right to offer welcome? Can practices of immigration and settlement be reconciled with the possibility of decolonization? These are the questions that brought together partners in Coast Salish territories – or, Vancouver, BC – for a multi-year research collaboration called “Belonging in Unceded Territory.” With newcomer and Indigenous community members from Frog Hollow Neighborhood House, migration scholars from UBC, and staff from Immigrant Services Society of BC and the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of BC, space is being made for new narratives of belonging. What will they be?  Hosted and produced by CMS Research Manager, Gabriele Dumpys Woolever. 

Argentina is known for its history of European immigration in the 20th century. It’s also been critiqued for the accompanying violence it wrought against Indigenous and other non-white people as it tried to establish itself as a white nation. But a UBC historian has found that in the 1910’s, Argentina used additional mechanisms to keep Asian migrants out of the country, without ever putting an exclusionary law on the books. That’s one reason these racial exclusions have been largely invisible in the historiographic record, until now. They are what historian Ben Bryce calls, ‘a story of absence.’ What can the account of one boatful of Punjabi laborers, stranded in the port of Buenos Aires in 1912, tell us about Argentina’s efforts to transform itself through immigration? And how might this relate to present-day Argentina and the enduring myth of whiteness?

Arrest without charge, indefinite detention, traumatizing conditions: Canada has long used immigration practices akin to its more infamous neighbor to the south. But when COVID-19 drew attention to the extra vulnerability faced by incarcerated people, something began to change. UBC legal scholars Efrat Arbel and Molly Joeck found that more migrants in Canada were being released and fewer were being detained. It signaled an important shift in how immigration detention was adjudicated, and who was taken to be at risk when people crossed borders. A new progressive window was finally opening – or so it seemed. How was this shift justified and could it be maintained when COVID was no longer a main concern?

What key trends can we expect to see in Canadian migration policy during the post-Covid recovery phase, and how do these compare with developments in other major migration destination countries?  Moderated by Daniel Hiebert (Professor of Geography, University of British Columbia), with Catrina Tapley, Deputy Minister, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Convener, Transatlantic Council on Migration (TCM) and Co-founder and President Emeritus, Migration Policy Institute. This armchair discussion was part of the Symposium on the Migration Dynamics of North America Before, During, and After Covid-19.

She’s lost three jobs in a row and might have to leave Canada if it happens again. But after a few weeks out sick, a nanny in Kelowna gets an angry call from her employer threatening to fire her for being unreliable and worried about COVID. What she does next isn’t in the script for temporary foreign workers. This episode was created as part of a research project on Temporary Foreign Workers during the Time of COVID-19, a collaboration between UBC researchers (Vanessa Banta, Gabriele Dumpys Woolever, and Geraldine Pratt) and the Migrant Workers Centre in Vancouver, BC (www.mwcbc.ca). We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.

After being exploited out of his job, a highly trained caregiver in Surrey seeks employment as an essential worker in the COVID economy. Yet he faces fake jobs, demands for bribes, and months of unemployment while waiting for the government to process his new work permit, and now he’s running out of options to support his wife and two teenagers. This episode was created as part of a research project on Temporary Foreign Workers during the Time of COVID-19, a collaboration between UBC researchers (Vanessa Banta, Gabriele Dumpys Woolever, and Geraldine Pratt) and the Migrant Workers Centre in Vancouver, BC (www.mwcbc.ca). We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.  

A woman in Surrey is trapped between two forces: the controlling roommate that wouldn’t let her leave their apartment for months because of COVID, and the government that will keep her unemployed if she moves out. How much can she do to make life bearable until either force lets up? This episode was created as part of a research project on Temporary Foreign Workers during the Time of COVID-19, a collaboration between UBC researchers (Vanessa Banta, Gabriele Dumpys Woolever, and Geraldine Pratt) and the Migrant Workers Centre in Vancouver, BC (www.mwcbc.ca). We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.

Mohammed Alsaleh, host of Season 2, returns to welcome Gabriele Dumpys Woolever, our new host for Season 3. Listen to find out what’s in store for this season of the podcast.

In the eighth and final episode of the Global Migration podcast “Geographies from the Heart: Life-writing from Newcomers to Canada,” host Mohammed Alsaleh speaks to the co-founder of the Syrian Civil Defense (also known as the White Helmets), Nedal Izdden. Nedal was a young dentist and basketball coach in the city of Homs when the Syrian revolution began in 2011. Together, host Mohammed Alsaleh and Nedal Izdden reflect on exactly 10 years of the conflict. Nedal commemorates changes in both his home country and in himself over an emotional decade-long journey on this very special episode recorded on the 10th anniversary of the Syrian Revolution. 

In the seventh episode of the Global Migration podcast “Geographies from the Heart: Life-writing from Newcomers to Canada,” host Mohammed Alsaleh speaks to Nuria Sefchovich from Mexico. Nuria shares her experience as a mature international student and of learning to navigate a system that determines her identity based on the social construction of immigration. 

In the sixth episode of the Global Migration podcast “Geographies from the Heart: Life-writing from Newcomers to Canada,” host Mohammed Alsaleh speaks to Camille McMillan-Rambharat, from Trinidad and Tobago, who combines her unique Afro-Caribbean heritage with the stories learnt from her grandmother and father and her marriage to an Indo-Caribbean Member of Parliament. Camille is a mother and has fought battles with racism here in Canada. She continues to stand tall and stand proud.

In the fifth episode of the Global Migration podcast “Geographies from the Heart: Life-writing from Newcomers to Canada,” host Mohammed Alsaleh speaks to Malena Mokhovikova who shares her family’s journey leaving Russia as asylum seekers. In 2012, Malena, with her mother and younger sister, stepped off a cruise ship temporarily docked in Quebec City and decided to claim asylum in Canada. They knew no one and spoke no English. However, the racially motivated attacks on the family’s Jewish and Afghan heritage in Russia were becoming too dangerous. Malena speaks of their journey to Canada, experiences of settling, family separation, and starting over in this touching episode of one family’s brave story. 

In the fourth episode of the Global Migration podcast “Geographies from the Heart: Life-writing from Newcomers to Canada,” host Mohammed Alsaleh speaks to journalists Diary Xalid Marif, from Iraqi Kurdistan, and Akberet Beyene, an exiled Eritrean journalist, who speak of the escape from their homes and the struggle to be heard. 

In the third episode of the Global Migration podcast “Geographies from the Heart: Life-writing from Newcomers to Canada,” host Mohammed Alsaleh speaks to Muhialdin Nyera Bakini and Albino Nyuol who share their stories of exile from South Sudan. Albino will share his journey as a child soldier to a settlement worker here in Canada. Muhialdin will speak of his journey as an asylum seeker from Sudan to Israel and then eventually to Canada as a student at UBC. 

In the second episode of the Global Migration podcast “Geographies from the Heart: Life-writing from Newcomers to Canada,” host Mohammed Alsaleh speaks to acclaimed Kurdish-Canadian and recently published (2020) novelist, Ava Homa and Kurdish journalist, Shanga Karim who join us to share their experiences as newcomer women writers. Shanga came to Canada as a refugee claimant from Kurdistan in 2015, where she was a journalist and women’s rights activist. Shanga is currently writing a chapter about her experience in the Stories from Newcomers to Canada book, and author Ava Homa joined the SNtC life-writing project as a guest speaker supporting other new writers. As well as exploring the complexities of minority representation in their work, the two also explore the forms and importance of newcomers mentoring other newcomers in the field of writing, life-writing, and literature.

In the first episode of the second season of the Global Migration podcast "Geographies from the Heart: Life-writing from Newcomers to Canada," host Mohammed Alsaleh speaks to Dr. Amea Wilbur (University of the Fraser Valley), Raymonde Tickner, and Zahida Rahemtulla. They discuss the power of migration stories and the impact of multiple narratives that emerged through a year-long writing project with newcomers to Canada. Raymonde, Zahida and Amea discuss how life writing can inform teaching and learning and provide a context for trauma-informed practice. They also touch on the power of mentorship, as an educational framework, to support embarking on life-writing projects.  In the upcoming episodes this season, you will hear from several of the writers involved in the project about their own experiences. This will provide a brief reflection into the uniqueness, overlapping and diverse stories of newcomers to Canada.

Amea Wilbur (UFV) and Suzanne Smythe (SFU) speak with Laura Mannix, (DIVERSEcity). They discuss everything from digital inequities, gender-based violence, and racialized work to how the pandemic has also brought forth many unexpected positives in community outreach.

 In this episode, Dr. Dan Hiebert, Professor of Geography at UBC explores the refugee and settlement experience with Saleem Spindari, Senior Manager of Refugees and Migrant Workers Programs at MOSAIC, one of the largest settlement organizations in Canada, and with Dr. Nancy Clark, Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Victoria. 

In this episode, Dr. Antje Ellermann, Associate Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of UBC Migration speaks with two legal scholars, Dr. Efrat Arbel, Associate Professor in the Allard School of Law, and Dr. Ben Goold, Professor in the Allard School of Law. They discuss how the public health crisis is changing immigration procedures at the US-Canadian border and putting additional strain on the rights of refugees and refugee claimants attempting to enter Canada, as well as on other border crossers whose right to privacy is being challenged. They assess the troubled legacy of the Safe Third Country Agreement signed by the US and Canada, the role of contact tracing apps, immigration detention and why the pandemic raises serious concerns about the place of human rights in Canada and beyond. Recorded on June 9 on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musequeam people. With music by the Mini Vandals featuring Mamadou Koïta and Lasso.