Two research projects get start-up support from SSHRC Insight Development Grants
The Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program has received funding through two Insight Development Grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The funding makes possible field studies and data collection that will help researchers improve our understanding of some of the systemic challenges that affect outcomes for different migrant groups.
With co-applicants Jill Hanley (McGill School of Social Work) and CERC Migration chair Anna Triandafyllidou, Marshia Akbar, the research lead in labour migration at CERC Migration, is the principal investigator of one of these studies, investigating the transition of international students from study-to-work and temporary-to-permanent residency in Canada.
International students are a vital source of highly skilled workers. They have Canadian education, work experience and language proficiency, yet they have low rates of transition to permanent residency and are often underemployed and earn a lower income than their Canadian-born counterparts. Too often, we are learning that many encounter high levels of distress or persist in difficult conditions of poverty during their time in Canada.
The study Migrant lives beyond policy categories: International students’ lived experiences of temporariness and transition in Canada aims to develop a holistic understanding of the international student experience. Surveys and qualitative interviews will uncover the life stories of three categories of students: current study permit holders, post-graduate work permit holders and those who have obtained permanent residence.
“By learning the nuances of how international students experience the various stages of status in Canada,” explains Akbar, “we will have a clearer understanding of the role that policies, educational institutions and potential barriers in the labour market have in impacting their potential for success.”
--
Craig Damian Smith, a senior researcher with CERC Migration, is the principal investigator of the study Regimes of closure and mobility aspirations: Investigating the effects of Global North visa, asylum, and resettlement policies on intercontinental mixed migration to Latin America. His co-applicant, Olga Odgers Ortiz (Colegio de la Frontera Norte), has taken on a coordinating role for the field research to be conducted in Tijuana, Mexico.
Smith’s inspiration for this project comes from the contradictions between the growing need for both economic and humanitarian migration over the past decade as well as the increasingly more restrictive visa and asylum policies implemented by rich destination countries. According to Smith, these trends are causing more people to turn to longer and often more dangerous routes, evidenced by the increase in irregular or mixed migration from Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and Europe to established routes through Latin America to Mexico.
This two-year study will explore the causal relationship between legal pathways, migrant aspirations and the development and expansion of new mixed migration routes. The project aims to build a first-of-its-kind global dataset to explore relationships between bilateral visa acceptance rates and to understand how changing migration and asylum control policies affect migrant destination and route choices. The quantitative work will be paired with large-scale surveys and interviews with intercontinental migrants trapped at the Mexico/US border to understand motivations, route choices and previous attempts at regular and irregular migration.
“Irregular migration is a global issue with huge ethical and political consequences, and the discourse around it is often deeply problematic,” says Craig Damian Smith. “Understanding relationships between global mobility regimes and mixed migration flows will help us test hypotheses that stricter migration controls do not affect mobility aspirations but instead divert people to irregular routes.”
