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Social Science Emigration & Immigration

Home Economics

Nationalism and the Making of ‘Migrant Workers' in Canada

by (author) Nandita Sharma

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2006
Category
Emigration & Immigration
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802048837
    Publish Date
    Mar 2006
    List Price
    $54.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802038401
    Publish Date
    Mar 2006
    List Price
    $93.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442675810
    Publish Date
    Feb 2006
    List Price
    $93.00

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Description

A massive shift has taken place in Canadian immigration policy since the 1970s: the majority of migrants no longer enter as permanent residents but as temporary migrant workers. In Home Economics, Nandita Sharma shows how Canadian policies on citizenship and immigration contribute to the entrenchment of a system of apartheid where those categorized as ‘migrant workers’ live, work, pay taxes and sometimes die in Canada but are subordinated to a legal regime that renders them as perennial outsiders to nationalized Canadian society.

In calling for a ‘no borders’ policy in Canada, Sharma argues that it is the acceptance of nationalist formulations of ‘home’ informed by racialized and gendered relations that contribute to the neo-liberal restructuring of the labour market in Canada. She exposes the ideological character of Canadian border control policies which, rather than preventing people from getting in, actually work to restrict their rights once within Canada. Home Economics is an urgent and much-needed reminder that in today’s world of growing displacement and unprecedented levels of international migration, society must pay careful attention to how nationalist ideologies construct ‘homelands’ that essentially leave the vast majority of the world’s migrant peoples homeless.

About the author

 

Nandita Sharma is an activist-scholar whose work focuses on shifting border regimes under neoliberal globalization. She has been active in No Borders movements for many years, and she also teaches sociology at the University of Hawai’i. Sharma’s writing and research have focused on the politics of global labour migration and the state regulation of people’s lives through national border regimes.

 

Nandita Sharma's profile page