Immigration and Settler‐Colonies Post‐UNDRIP: Research and Policy Implications

Abstract

AbstractIt is now common to identify a policy convergence around migration which is eroding the longstanding distinction made in the migration literature between “traditional” countries of immigration (like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States) and other Western states. Taking the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as instructive, this article focusses on the case of Canada, arguing that its settler‐colonial foundation has impacted and continues to impact three areas relevant to the comparative study of migration: 1) national discourse; 2) land and forms of social power; and 3) politics and forms of solidarity. The implications of settler‐colonialism for the study of international migration are broader than the case of Canada and suggest the need to link considerations of Indigeneity systematically in migration studies, and to address the particularities of settler‐colonial states in relation to other Northern states by being attuned to “divergence within convergence.”