Abstract
This article addresses the critical role that civil society at the urban level plays in integrating and empowering immigrants and minorities in Canadian society. From a place-based approach, it investigates how key agencies in the local community have been instrumental in including immigrants in general and refugees in particular into the fabric of Canadian society. Empirically the analysis focuses on Neighbourhood Houses in Greater Vancouver and the Privately-Sponsored Refugee program in Canada. With the interpretative lens on the urban context, the article shows how immigrants and refugees have gained agency and voice in the public arena through place-based communities. The insight into these two empirical cases provides the basis for conceptualizing the socio-political dynamics of immigrant settlement and integration in terms of the effects generated by urban governance structures.
Highlights
Place-Based Approaches to IntegrationIn public and scholarly debate, the meaning of integration is controversial with respect to both its underlying conceptual-normative understanding and its implications for policy-making
In a multi-year study focusing on Greater Vancouver,1 we investigated to what degree Neighbourhood Houses (NHs) provide the leadership role in building local community capacity for promoting integration and addressing social exclusion
Based on revisions introduced in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) in 2002, there are various tracks in Canada’s refugee policy; the two most important ones are the GovernmentAssisted Refugee (GAR) and the Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR) programs
Summary
In public and scholarly debate, the meaning of integration is controversial with respect to both its underlying conceptual-normative understanding and its implications for policy-making. The European context provides ample evidence of how the state-centred request for ‘integration’ can be employed as a vehicle for demanding assimilation and reproducing exclusion (e.g., Brubaker, 2001; Joppke & Morawska, 2014; Li, 2003) In this respect, integration is regularly based on unspecific expectations and cultural norms that immigrants deem impossible or undesirable to meet. This article starts from the theoretical assumption that successful integration of immigrants and minorities is critically dependent on providing them with opportunities to be meaningfully included in public debate and policy-making The focus of this investigation into the civil society dynamic of including refugees and migrants is guided by a place-based approach. The second investigates the dynamic generated by Canada’s privately sponsored refugee program with a focus on its broader sociopolitical implications
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