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Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on an instance of a group of Indian international students who sat on an 18 day protest in Toronto to refute their deportation orders, to reflect on how the migrant student movement in Canada is characterised by- in the context of ongoing collective action— a seeming nothingness.

Paper long abstract:

In the popular cultural imaginary, the term movement indicates an ontological orientation toward motion, a future horizon, and a goal imagined to be ahead of us. Instead, and in practice, what precisely constitutes a social movement and transformative political action is often borne out of vacillations and backsliding. This paper draws on an instance of a group of Indian international students who sat on an 18 day protest outside Pearson International Airport, Toronto to refute their deportation orders to reflect how the migrant student movement in Canada is characterised by- in the context of ongoing collective action— a seeming nothingness. Canada's higher education system is devised by a quicksand like policyscape that at once imagines international students as immigrants who will ease the country's ageing labour force and also casts them as "cheating actors" in the immigration regime. This paper will use ethnographic instances from the 18 day protest to locate how political outcomes don't always come from signature events associated with movements and struggles. Rather, in a policy regime that imagines international migrant students in constant flux between categories and migrant timelines, an exploration of possibilities is afforded by untimely adjacency through "unmovement". As a methodological intervention in the study of resistance, analytic attention where there is quiet, calm, and ostensibly little movement, pose a series of questions about how "unmovement" may in fact reveal the complexities of the political ecologies of activism and transformative social action.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper describes the making of a collaborative museum display by a Brazilian supplementary school set up to help children retrieve their ‘cultural roots’ in the UK. It considers how children's heritage can find new roots in migration through collaborative and creative interventions.

Paper long abstract:

As part of a larger museum-and-migrations PhD study, this paper recounts the making of a collaborative museum display entitled ‘The Whispering Forest’, made by Brazilian supplementary school children, their parents and teachers, in which ‘Portuguese-speaking trees’ tell folk stories of landscapes disturbed by humans and protected by mythical child-heroes.

In a Brazilian supplementary school set up to help children retrieve their ‘cultural roots’ in diaspora,

children sing ‘the Golden Rosemary’, a folk song that describes migration as natural. Across the school, tree symbolism is used to recall Brazil and describe children’s connection to it. Children are seen as little beans with potential for their latent Brazilian heritage to be recovered through the school. Planting real Brazilian bean proves a challenge, and alternative methods are used to emplace children of Brazilian heritage growing up in the UK, and teach them their heritage.

This paper recounts how the display of a tree sound display was transported from school to the Museum of London and back again, and considers the spaces supplementary schools create to let their children’s cultural heritage grow in diaspora. I consider how heritage can find new roots in migration through creative intervention, and collaborations between museums and supplementary school communities.

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Paper short abstract:

Algorithmic policing is the latest frontier of colonial aggression in Canada, and the Canadian state is invested. An analysis of Canada’s AI policy funding police departments in their technological integration is necessary to analyze the data economy as the new modality of Canadian imperialism.

Paper long abstract:

Algorithmic policing is one of the latest frontiers of colonial aggression in Canada, and the Canadian state is invested. My analysis engages both the literature on critical data studies with abolitionist epistemologies. I also want to advance a discussion on the next frontier of abolitionist concern in Canada as it concerns the carceral technologies of settler colonial states. The primary research questions animating my work are as follows: How do data and algorithmic technologies act as the carceral modality through which white supremacy is advanced, with policing as the apparatus affirming consolidating Canadian settler colonialism? How are the developments in predictive analytics in Canadian police departments extending the coloniality of the nation state through data surveillance into private life? My investigation aims to first evaluate the development of predictive policing in Canada in various Canadian cities. Second, interpret and theorize the legal conditions that facilitate a data market climate favorable for private firms to privatize, and profit from public data for private profit, something theorized as a new “data enclosures” by authors such as Mark Andrejovic. Third, to theorize how these data enclosures that presume data to be a free resource for monetization might reconstitute subjectivity of users by extracted from their labour and content of their intimate life. Lastly, to provide theoretical generalizations on how these case studies my points to a new extended form of coloniality by the Canadian nation state through algorithmic policing in the goal of securing national sovereignty.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper delves into challenges faced by international students in Canadian higher education. Drawing from the experiences of the 2022 TA strike at McMaster University, it is revealed the need to reconsider the role of international students in the struggle against neoliberal higher education.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the intricate challenges confronted by international students in Canadian higher education, drawing from my experience participating in the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) at McMaster University. Focused on integrating them into collective efforts for fair wages, it addresses neglect impacting academic pursuits, mental health, and financial stability. Exploring the profit-driven realities of universities, particularly McMaster, questions arise about gains for international students, the gap between institutional recruiting interest and support once students are in campus, and the need for non-institutional solidarity.

The discussion begins with a recent critical policy shift imposing higher financial requirements on international students, revealing discrepancies in institutional claims versus living expenses. Media portrayal as immigration pathways and xenophobia add a political dimension. Unregulated tuition, exemplified by McMaster's fees, highlights the exploitation of international students. McMaster recently started participating in the housing market; their exploitative rental rates, rather than ameliorating both crises, accentuates the precarious financial position of the students in a novel dimension.

Drawing from the 2022 TA strike, the paper emphasizes international students' pivotal role and acknowledges vulnerabilities to enhance collective participation. Their unique experiences need to be understood as a resource for broader social struggles, aligning with CUPE's interests.

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Paper short abstract:

Universities are important centres for international student-migration and "success". They have also been accused of taking advantage of students; becoming "bad actors" in Canada's higher education system. This paper looks at the overdetermined narrative of "success" and accompanying stereotypes.

Paper long abstract:

With a global reputation the University of Toronto (UofT) is an important centre for international student-migration, student life, and discourses of diversity and educational “success”. Being known as an “immigrant-friendly” country, Canada, and UofT specifically, promise international students a pathway to "success" in a welcoming environment. More recently, however, international students have been "scapegoated" or blamed for contributing to the country's worsening "housing crisis." Some private colleges and public universities have also been accused of taking advantage of rising international student fees, while providing under-resourced infrastructures and "fake" degrees, to exploit students - becoming "bad actors" in Canada's higher education system. With a stated goal of targeting these "bad actors" — and amid concern about the impact growing numbers of international students are having on the housing market so close to federal elections — Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced that the federal government will cap the number of international student permits over the next two years. This paper will take a closer look at the overdetermined narratives of "success/failure" and "good actors/bad actors," how they limit the experiences of international students, as well as ignore the university as a place of refusing single narratives and stereotypes.