There is a growing need for public buy-in if democratic processes are to run smoothly. But who exactly is “the public”? What does their engagement in policy-making processes look like? How can our understanding of “the public” be expanded to include – or be led by – diverse voices and experiences, particularly of those who have been historically marginalized? And what does this expansion mean not only for public policies and their development, but for how we teach policy? Drawing upon public engagement case studies, sites of inquiry, and vignettes, this volume raises and responds to these and other questions while advancing policy justice as a framework for public engagement and public policy. Stretching the boundaries of deliberative democracy in theory and practice, Creating Spaces of Engagement offers critical reflections on how diverse publics are engaged in policy processes.
A long and ongoing challenge for social justice movements has been how to address difference. Traditional strategies have often emphasized universalizing messages and common identities as means of facilitating collective action. Feminist movements, gay liberation movements, racial justice movements, and even labour movements, have all focused predominantly on respective singular dimensions of oppression. Each has called on diverse groups of people to mobilize, but without necessarily acknowledging or grappling with other relevant dimensions of identity and oppression. While focusing on commonality can be an effective means of mobilization, universalist messages can also obscure difference and can serve to exclude and marginalize groups in already precarious positions. Scholars and activists, particularly those located at the intersection of these movements, have long advocated for more inclusive approaches that acknowledge the significance and complexity of different social locations, with mixed success.
International organizations are increasingly involved in attempts to address the growing global problem of the mistreatment of migrant workers, with a view to better managing migration flows, so as to achieve the economic benefits of migration without generating conflict. Many states view migrants as a source of illegality or cultural tension, and hence emphasize border control and law and order. Activists and advocates for migrants have tried to introduce more progressive ideas at the United Nations and the International Labour Organisation, emphasizing the role that states play in generating migration. This chapter compares how migrants’ rights are conceptualized in ‘mainstream’ international organizations, such as the UN Committee on Migrant Workers and their Families and the International Labour Organization, and in grassroots organizations such as the International Migrants Alliance. Ultimately, this chapter argues that for migrant activists, participating in all three forums is important because doing so allows them to voice their concerns.
Prevalent conversations in Canadian media, academic, and politicized public spheres tend to represent and account for Filipina/os living in Canada within the tropes of victimized nanny, sel?ess nurse, and problematic gangster youth. These images render hypervisible in social and academic spaces certain problems facing Filipina/o communities, which are then calci?ed as Filipina/o stereotypes. These spectral ?gures on the one hand enable the visibility of Filipina/o lives in Canada within a narrow purview and on the other hand contribute to the misrecognition and alienation of the diverse experiences and histories of Filipina/os in Canada. Filipina/o communities are therefore put into the paradoxical position of being invisible and hypervisible: invisible because numerous kinds of people, problems, and achievements are ignored, and hypervisible because only the stereotypes are deemed relevant and signi?cant for public circulation. In this landmark volume, the ?rst wide-ranging edited collection of academic writings on Filipina/os in Canada, we ask how the contours of Canadian political, academic, and social institutions, both historical and contemporary, shape the politics of Filipina/o invisibility, visibility, and hypervisibility, how Filipina/o spectral ?gures ‘haunt’ processes, representations, and agentive experiences of being and becoming Filipina/o Canadians, and how we can disrupt and intervene in the prevailing themes of the spectral ?gures that have come to de?ne the lives of Filipina/os in Canada
Immigration and Settlement: Challenges, Experiences, and Opportunities draws on a selection of papers that were presented at the international Migration and the Global City conference at Ryerson University, Toronto, in October of 2010. Through the use of international and Canadian perspectives, this book examines the contemporary challenges, experiences, and opportunities of immigration and settlement in global, Canadian, and Torontonian contexts. In seventeen comprehensive chapters, this text approaches immigration and settlement from various thematic angles, including: rights, state, and citizenship; immigrants as labour; communities and identities; housing and residential contexts; and emerging opportunities. Immigration and Settlement will be of interest to academics, researchers and students, policy-makers, NGOs and settlement practitioners, and activists and community organizers.
Temporary labour migration is increasing globally. Statistics from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) indicate that 2.5 million legal temporary labour migrants resided in developed countries in 2006, three times the number of permanent migrants residing in these states (Abella 2006). The same numbers also show that temporary labour migrants’ entry into developed countries has increased by 4 to 5 per cent annually since 2000.
