Migration and Racialization in Times of Crisis: The Making of Crises and Their Effects

The health crisis, the migration crisis, the humanitarian crisis, and the climate crisis. The repeating reference to the idea of crisis to label numerous social upheavals suggests that we now live in a world defined by crisis.

Yet the urgency inherent in a crisis often leads to the normalization of rights violations and increased surveillance, profiling and arbitrary arrests, making visible the state’s control over bodies, and certain bodies, in particular.

Migration and Racialization in Times of “Crisis” explores the colonial, racist and sexist underpinnings of various declarations of crisis, as well as their effects. Taken together, these contributions show that the state of crisis manifests as a condition for the maintenance of racial and patriarchal capitalism.

The English and French version of this title, though distinct, complement each other to offer a more comprehensive and critical look at this approach of “governing through crisis”.

Leila Benhadjoudja is Associate Professor in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies and at the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her research focuses on Political sociology, Feminist and Gender Theory, Race and Ethnicity as well as Postcolonialism and Cultural Studies.

Christina Clark-Kazak is Full Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, President of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration and outgoing Editor-in-Chief of Refuge: Canadian Journal on Refugees. She has previously worked for York University, Saint Paul University, the Canadian government and the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. She has also served as President of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Director of York University's Refugee Studies Centre and Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) of York University's bilingual Glendon Campus. Her research interests include age discrimination in migration and development; the political participation of young refugees; and interdisciplinary methodology.

Stéphanie Garneau is Full professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Ottawa and was director of the Research Collective on Migration and Racism (COMIR). Her areas of research are migration, border studies, racism and anti-racism, social classes, ethics and solidarity, and research methodologies. In addition to articles in sociology, social work, and education journals, she has published the book Migration et classement social. Enquête auprès de migrants marocains au Québec (PUM, 2022) and co-edited several thematic issues and books, including Erving Goffman et le travail social (PUO, 2017).