Asia
Often left out of research projects on key migration flows, Asia is the hub of great migration activities. It is also a continent where many migrant workers live in precarious situations. In that respect, the Chair is carrying out projects as part of its participation in Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care: comparative perspectives, a SSHRC-funded project led by Ito Peng from the University of Toronto. She also leads the project Care needs, migration and household strategies in Vietnam carried out by Rachel Silvey’s University of Toronto team, which studies the impact of migration on countries of origin. Recipient of a SSHRC and a FRQSC grant, Guillaume Haemmerli, a master’s student in Geographical Sciences, is focussing his thesis on this subject. Moreover, Naoko Sunai, a recent partnership addition from Japan, will start a PhD in Geographical Sciences at Université Laval in 2017, studying Vietnamese female migrant workers in East Asia. Finally, thanks to the financial support of the SSHRC Connection Grant, August 2016 saw the organization of an international seminar on Immobilities and Care Work at the University of Toronto.
The Americas
The Americas are host to many migration flows, including permanent and temporary immigration flows, irregular migrations and transit migrations. Dr. Danièle Bélanger leads a SSRHC-funded project entitled Mobilités et trajectoires migratoires au Canada, looking at immigrants paths in relation to other areas of their lives, the institutional context, and migration policies from a quantitative and qualitative point of view. Dr. Charles Fleury, from the Department of Sociology, is the project co-researcher. Mamadou Oury Sow doctoral thesis in Sociology falls within this project’s scope. Furthermore, Guillermo Candiz, recipient of the IDRC, the SSHRC and the FRQSC grants, is focussing his doctoral thesis work on transit migrations, precarity sources and migration routes in the Americas (Central America, Mexico, the United States). For the purposes of the Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care project, Dr. Bélanger is studying the Canadian policy on family reunification and its impact on families.
The Mediterranean Region
A transit situation is a situation in which populations are displaced by armed conflicts and waiting in various regions. And, as such, the Mediterranean Region is a key territory. At the very centre of this crisis, Turkey opened its borders to Syrian refugees in October 2011, granting them temporary legal protection. Then, with the escalation and the increasing complexity of the conflict, Turkey became a waiting territory, recording more than 3 million refugees within its borders. The Chair received a first grant (Surviving Immobility) then a second one in June 2017 (the Insight Development Grant) for a project in partnership with Cenk Saracoglu from the Ankara University. During the Fall 2017 semester, Myriam Ouellet, a SSRHC-funded master’s student in Geographical Sciences, completed a field-work project in Lebanon as part of her thesis on Syrian refugees resettled in Quebec City. Finally, Guillermo Candiz doctoral thesis on migrants trying to reach Europe from Morocco also falls within the scope of this region academic work.
The Transatlantic Region
The Transatlantic Region is a territory where people who are migrating for economical, familial and humanitarian purposes are dealing with complex migration systems. With this in mind, the Chair is studying migration to Canada. On the one hand, the research program will give special consideration to the paths taken by people coming from the Mediterranean region and granted refugee status by Canada. Myriam Ouellet master’s thesis on Syrian refugees in Quebec is also of interest for this migration region. On the other hand, as part of her collaboration with l’Observatoire démographique et statistique de l’espace francophone (ODSEF), Dr. Bélanger will initiate new research projects on migration processes between France, Canada and Africa.