State building is an ongoing process that first defines legitimate citizenship and then generates citizens. Political analysts and social scientists now use the concept of citizenship as a lens for considering both the evolution of states and the development of their societies. In Citizenship as a Regime leading political scientists from Canada, Europe, and Latin America use insights from comparative politics, institutionalism, and political economy to understand and analyze the dynamics of contemporary policies and politics. This book celebrates Jane Jenson’s work and many of her contributions to political science and the study of Canadian politics. Featuring Jenson’s concept of “citizenship regime”, the collected chapters consider its theoretical and methodological underpinning and presents new applications to various empirical contexts. Contributors present original research, critically assess the idea of a citizenship regime, and suggest ways to further develop Jane Jenson’s notion of a “citizenship regime” as an analytical tool. Research essays in this volume consider various social forces and dynamics such as neoliberalism, inequality, LGBTQ movements, the rise of populism amid nationalist movements in multinational societies—including Indigenous self-determination claims—and how they transform the politics of citizenship. These collected contributions—by former students, collaborators and colleagues of Jenson—highlight her lasting influence on the contemporary study of citizenship in Canada and elsewhere. Contributors include: Marcos Ancelovici (UQÀM), James Bickerton (St Francis Xavier University), Maxime Boucher (Université de Montréal), Neil Bradford (Huron University College), Alexandra Dobrowolsky (Saint Mary’s University), Pascale Dufour (Université de Montreal), Jane Jenson (Université de Montréal), Rachel Laforest (Queen’s University), Rianne Mahon (Wilfrid Laurier University), Bérengère Marques-Pereira (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Martin Papillon (Université de Montréal), Denis Saint-Martin (Université de Montréal), and Miram Smith (York University).
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.
Topics as wide-ranging as climate change, reproductive and sexual justice, Indigenous rights and decolonization, conflict and violence, and global migration – not to mention their intersections with each other, and with structures such as racism, white supremacy, colonialism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and capitalism – are creating calamities the world over. As a result, political leaders, academics, and local communities alike have found themselves grappling with a growing list of deeply complex and troubling questions. How can we protect children, women, and transgender and queer people from violence? How can we ensure that everyone has the right and capacity to make decisions about the most intimate aspects of their lives, especially concerning their reproductive and sexual health and their gender identity and expression? What alternative discourses can we propose to combat ring-wing extremist ideologies that are increasingly entering the political mainstream? Why have we so far failed to ensure global food security and access to safe drinking water? How will we bring carbon emissions to zero? What will our policy responses need to be if we continue failing in these regards? These and many other pressing local and global issues that fall into the purview of political science depend not only on our intellectual attention, but also on our capacity to collaborate within, across, and beyond disciplinary and sectoral boundaries to move towards just solutions.
The question of how immigrants fare when their relationships break down and when they enter new relationships remains an under-studied issue in the wider literature on family immigration. I analyze the narratives shared with me by four Filipino immigrants to Saskatchewan, each of whom discussed their experiences settling into Canada, separating from their partners, rebuilding their lives, and eventually forming new families with new partners. These narratives highlight how a long-term assessment of immigrants’ settlement trajectories invariably shows shifts in relationship and family composition. To probe deeper into these narratives, I use a feminist, multi-scalar intersectional approach that discusses the race, gender, and class hierarchies created by Canadian immigration policies. This approach also examines race, gender, and class processes at the micro-level, meso-level, and macro-level to illustrate the complex workings of power in the lives of the immigrants in this study.
Verge: Studies in Global Asias showcases scholarship on “Asian” topics from across the humanities and humanistic social sciences, while recognizing that the changing scope of “Asia” as a concept and method is today an object of vital critical concern. Deeply transnational and transhistorical in scope, Verge emphasizes thematic and conceptual links among the disciplines and regional/area studies formations that address Asia in a variety of particularist (national, subnational, individual) and generalist (national, regional, global) modes. Responding to the ways in which large-scale social, cultural, and economic concepts like the world, the globe, or the universal (not to mention East Asian cousins like tianxia or datong) are reshaping the ways we think about the present, the past and the future, the journal publishes scholarship that occupies and enlarges the proximities among disciplinary and historical fields, from the ancient to the modern periods. The journal emphasizes multidisciplinary engagement—a crossing and dialogue of the disciplines that does not erase disciplinary differences, but uses them to make possible new conversations and new models of critical thought.
In this article, we explore the possibilities of Participatory Action Research (PAR) producing ethical and nuanced knowledge that contributes to developing Filipino migrant workers’ capacity for sustainable political organizing. We discuss our projects with Filipino migrant organizations in the U.S. and Canada. We theorize on the potential of PAR with migrants who are part of highly precarious workforces in global cities. Additionally, we, as immigrant women of colour and scholars, highlight the tensions between academic ethos that prioritizes a rapid ‘publish-or-perish’ culture and the ethos of PAR, which puts into place collaborative processes that can be at odds with the ‘tempo’ of academic work. We highlight the tensions between the academic and reproductive labour of PAR, with the latter being seen by many academic institutions as an ‘inconvenience’ impeding productivity.
As a scholar-activist whose advocacy and research goals involve understanding the complexities of Filipino migrants’ lives, I have oftentimes contemplated how to advance socially engaged research projects that enable academic theorizing and social justice. As a member of the Filipino diaspora, I am an “insider” researcher. I am inspired by projects that synthesize research and community agendas. Although I do not think that researchers have to be insiders to undertake socially engaged research, my personal stakes in these projects are higher because I can see that such projects have the potential to improve the situations of underrepresented communities – in this case, Filipino migrant communities.
In this article, I reflect on two previous collaborative projects with Filipino migrant organizations in Canada. By comparing both projects, my goal is show two vastly different approaches to socially engaged research, ultimately arguing that different understandings of social engagement led to disparate outcomes. The first project best exemplifies the use of socially engaged research as a tool for social justice whereas the second project highlights a hierarchical approach where academic knowledge-creation was prioritized above community needs. When comparing the two, project one offers a better model for socially engaged research that equally prioritizes academic and community priorities compared to project two. In the ensuing discussion, I provide a brief review of previous socially engaged research on diasporic Filipina migrant communities. Then, I compare two projects where my collaborators and I used socially engaged research as the basis for a short discussion of possible best practices.
Topics as wide-ranging as climate change, reproductive and sexual justice, Indigenous rights and decolonization, conflict and violence, and global migration – not to mention their intersections with each other, and with structures such as racism, white supremacy, colonialism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and capitalism – are creating calamities the world over. As a result, political leaders, academics, and local communities alike have found themselves grappling with a growing list of deeply complex and troubling questions. How can we protect children, women, and transgender and queer people from violence? How can we ensure that everyone has the right and capacity to make decisions about the most intimate aspects of their lives, especially concerning their reproductive and sexual health and their gender identity and expression? What alternative discourses can we propose to combat ring-wing extremist ideologies that are increasingly entering the political mainstream? Why have we so far failed to ensure global food security and access to safe drinking water? How will we bring carbon emissions to zero? What will our policy responses need to be if we continue failing in these regards? These and many other pressing local and global issues that fall into the purview of political science depend not only on our intellectual attention, but also on our capacity to collaborate within, across, and beyond disciplinary and sectoral boundaries to move towards just solutions.
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.
The absence of institutional support for widely available and accessible care, the insufficient numbers of care workers, and many other factors have led to a worldwide care deficit. Indeed, the International Labour Organization (ILO) argues that there will be a ‘severe and unsustainable global care crisis’ unless new policy solutions are proposed (Addati et al, 2018: xxvii).
