ABSTRACT This article critically explores what is meant by integration and the expectations that come with it, and how the ‘right’ kind of economic citizen (homo economicus) gets produced through social work practice with immigrants. This article engages in critical reflection on a participant’s narrative that derives from a larger study that investigated structural and individualistic factors that describe how Ethiopian immigrants living in Toronto, Canada negotiate the decision-making process to returning to their homeland. At the macro-level, the study explored the role that broader processes of social, political and economic transformation (globalization) play whilst at the micro-level exploring the aspirations, capabilities and individual agency to migrate out and how their experiences of settlement shape the return-thinking process. The participant accounting analyzed in this article probes the expansion of immigrant selection in Canada (Author), the policy of multiculturalism as Canada’s most recognized policy as it pertains to integration, and how they coalesce and shape settlement work with immigrants. This article, through the participant accounting, engages the question of what is meant by integration – and whether integration is the new assimilation – and concludes with a discussion on how to begin to address concerns that surround social work practice with immigrants.
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