Borders and boundaries in the lives of migrant agricultural workers

In 2018, roughly 72%of the 69,775 temporary migrant agricultural labourers arriving in Canada participated in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Despite having legal status in Canada, these individuals are often systematically excluded from community life and face barriers when accessing health and social services. SAWP workers’ exclusion from many public spaces and their incomplete access to the benefits of Canadian citizenship or residency provide us a unique opportunity to examine social and political mechanisms that construct(in)eligibility for health and protection in society.As individuals seeking to care for the sick and most marginalized, it is important for nurses to understand how migrant agricultural workers are positioned and imagined in society. We argue that the structural exclusion faced by this population can be uncovered by examining:(1)border politics that inscribe inferior status onto migrant agricultural workers;(2) nation-state borders that promote racialized surveillance, and;(3) everyday normalization of exclusionary public service practices. We discuss how awareness of these contextual factors can be mobilized by nurses to work towards a more equitable health services approach for this population

Race states of concern : juridical publics and the localization of race in Vancouver and Chicago

In post-industrial cities, race mediates the administration of law, shaping how certain behaviors, places, and populations are regulated by state and public actors. Yet, race does not have a single juridical guise across these cities, having acquired multiple forms across urban spaces in different regional and national contexts. This dissertation examines how racial relations of power are recreated through localized discourses of crime that govern minority groups in two urban centres: African American populations in Chicago and South Asian populations in Vancouver. Through a comparative analysis of legal and media texts published on each of these populations, I illuminate the disparate racial logics, sentiments and practices that mutate through these cities’ divergent histories of urbanization, industrialization, and empire. The historical, social and political differences between Chicago and Vancouver pose methodological problems for comparisons intent on causal explanation. To consider the mutability of race across geography and population, I formulate an “awkward” mode of comparison that offers new insights into how race is materialized through the unique socio-historical conditions of urban centres. This awkward comparison reveals how racial knowledges of blackness travel across regional and national contexts, shaping how African American and South Asian populations are intelligible to legal and public actors. By examining how the homes of these populations are subject to racial practices of scrutiny and surveillance, this dissertation also highlights the gendered configurations of the family that warrant the racial exercise of law. Finally, this dissertation considers the public inquiries into police torture in Chicago and the Air India Bombing in Vancouver to illustrate how the inaction of state officials can manifest racial conditions of violence. Through each aspect of this comparison, this dissertation demonstrates how public concerns about crime can extend and intensify the racial force of law.Arts, Faculty ofSociology, Department ofGraduat

Borders and boundaries in the lives of migrant agricultural workers: Towards a more equitable health services approach.

In 2018, over 70% of the 69,775 temporary migrant agricultural labourers arriving in Canada participated in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Despite having legal status in Canada, these individuals are often systematically excluded from community life and face barriers when accessing health and social services. SAWP workers’ exclusion from many public spaces and their incomplete access to the benefits of Canadian citizenship or residency provide us a unique opportunity to examine social and political mechanisms that construct (in)eligibility for health and protection in society.  As individuals seeking to care for the sick and most marginalized, it is important for nurses to understand how migrant agricultural workers are positioned and imagined in society. We argue that the structural exclusion faced by this population can be uncovered by examining (1) border politics that inscribe inferior status onto migrant agricultural workers (2) nation-state borders that promote racialized surveillance and; (3) everyday normalization of exclusionary public service practices. We discuss how awareness of these contextual factors can be mobilized by nurses to work towards a more equitable health services approach for this population