The Bell Chair in Canadian Parliamentary Democracy Presents:
"Temporary Migrants’ Journey into Permanent Residency in the Prairies: ‘Inter-Provincial’ Legal Consciousness and the Importance of Family Networks"
Ethel Tungohan
Canada Research Chair (Tier 2)
Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activism
York University

The evolving nature of Canadian immigration policy towards temporary foreign workers has merited much scholarly attention, with many important works mapping out how the evolving policy landscape points to the entrenchment of more employer-driven and market-oriented forms of migration management (see, e.g., Liew and Hari, 2018; Gabriel, 2013; Vosko, 2020). Less theorized are how migrants themselves respond to evolving policies. The purpose of this presentation is to ask whether and how migrants make sense of immigration policies, delving into the strategies that they have developed in order to understand their legal entitlements and their opportunities for permanent settlement. By assessing the results of her field work in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Dr. Tungohan highlights the ‘politics of the everyday’ practiced by different sets of migrants. Ultimately, she argues that migrants’ strategizing are anchored in the development of what she terms “inter-provincial legal consciousness” and in family and social networks.

Ethel Tungohan is the Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activism, and Assistant Professor of Politics and Social Science at York University. Her research looks at migrant labor, specifically assessing migrant activism and she is actively involved in grassroots migrant organizations such as Gabriela-Ontario and Migrante-Canada. Her forthcoming book, “From the Politics of Everyday Resistance to the Politics from Below” (University of Illinois Press), won the 2014 National Women’s Studies Association First Book Prize. Her work has been published in academic journals such as the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Politics, Groups, and Identities, and Canadian Ethnic Studies. She is also one of the editors of “Filipinos in Canada: Disturbing Invisibility,” which was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2012.