This thesis is a description of the process of constructing a productive Other for the purpose of being admitted into Canada as a Convention refugee. The manuscript is divided into two parts: in Part One, The Claimant, the process of claiming refugee status is analyzed with respect to two actual cases which were transcribed in Montreal in 1987, and contextualized by reference to the laws and jurisprudence that underlie it. In Part Two, The Other, I re-examine the entire process with reference to methodologies from the realm of discourse analysis and interaction theory, paying special attention to the works of Marc Angenot, M. M. Bakhtin, Pierre Bourdieu, Erving Goffman, Jurgen Habermas, Jean-Francois Lyotard and Teun Van Dijk, in order to illustrate the movement from Refugee claimant to claimant as "diminished Other."

This thesis considers the apparent shift in Canadian refugee policy between the more liberal refugee programs of the 1980s to the more restrictive contemporary orientation. We provide an explanation for the nature and content of policy pronouncements made in the period following the events of September 11, 2001. In order to put contemporary policy in context, we begin our investigation post-World War II when Canada first entered the international arena as a fully independent state. What follows is an examination of why the Canadian government has preferred its choice of refugee policies, and a consideration of forces and institutions that have shaped policy in the postwar period. At the same time, we reflect on the tension between Canada's refugee policy choices and its stated commitment to humanitarian values and international agreements.

No description available.

The twentieth century has aptly been referred to the century of the refugee.1 In the twentieth century, refugees became an important international problem which seriously affected relations between states and refugee issues continue to play an important part in international relations in the twenty-first century. The refugee crisis created by the Nazis in the 1930s was without precedent and the British government was unsure how to respond. British refugee policy was still in a formative stage and was therefore susceptible to outside influences. This dissertation aims to explain the key factors that drove British refugee policy in the period March 1938 to July 1940, and to evaluate their relative significance over time. I divided the period of study into three phases (March-September 1938, October 1938 to August 1939, September 1939 to July 1940), in order to explore how a range of factors varied in importance in a political and international environment that was rapidly changing. In considering how to respond to the refugee crisis, the British government was hugely influenced by concerns over its relations with other countries, especially Germany. There is little doubt that, during the entire period of this study, the primary influence on the formation and implementation of British refugee policy was the international situation. However, foreign policy did not by itself dictate the precise form taken by British refugee policy. The response of the British government was modulated by economic concerns, domestic political factors, humanitarianism, and by the habits, traditions and assumptions of British political culture. Some factors, like anti-Semitism became less important during the period of this study, while others like humanitarianism increased in importance.

Recent scholarship has focused on the response of Jews in the free world to the plight of European Jewry in Nazi-occupied Europe. The work of Anglo- Jewish refugee organisations in facilitating the arrival of over 50,000 refugees in Britain between 1933-1939 has been variously chronicled as a model of charitable endeavour and a half-hearted effort cramped by insecurity and self- interest. More consistently, scholars argue that Anglo-Jewry failed to respond to the catastrophe of the war years with the resolution and vigour that might have saved more lives. This thesis takes issue with the current consensus on both the pre-war and war periods. Anglo-Jewry was a confident, well-integrated community which tackled the escalating problems of refugee immigration in the 1930s with common sense and administrative expertise born of a long tradition of communal charity. Its achievement is all the more remarkable measured against the scale of the disaster, the constraints of government immigration policy regulations and the organisations' own chronic lack of funds. By contrast, the Anglo-Jewish organisations were hamstrung during the war years by their political naivete and inexperience in dealing with government officials. Although their administrative skills remained valuable in areas of relief work such as internment and parcel schemes, their preoccupation with the Jewish humanitarian issue prevented them from grasping the military and logistical implications of their proposals. Misreading the language of diplomacy, they doggedly pursued aims which were in practice, if not in theory, unrealistic. Unlike most previous literature on the record of Anglo-Jewry during this period, this thesis eschews both the didactic and speculative approaches to historical interpretation. Instead of attempting to apportion blame, or to answer hypothetical questions of responsibility, it offers an evaluation based on the evidence available. The thesis examines the quality and scope of rescue and relief work, both of organisations and individuals. What was done, rather than what should have been done, is the focus of attention.

During the civil war in El Salvador, approximately 38,000 Salvadorans came to Canada, making them the largest group of Latin American migrants to Canada in that era. The arrival of these Salvadoran refugees has received limited academic attention. My thesis examines how Salvadoran refugees to Canada were portrayed in Canadian newspapers. I specifically examine how Salvadorans were written about in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and Montreal’s Gazette; I focus on three eras: 1980 to 1982, 1986 to 1987, and 1991 to 1992. I argue that, throughout these years, Canadian newspapers acted as discursive gatekeepers to the “imagined community” of Canada. Salvadoran refugees moved closer to this community, but were not granted full admittance.

This study explores the perceptions, and life experiences of formerly gang-involved young adult refugee men living in Winnipeg. In doing so, this study examines both the negative experiences and challenges of these young men that led to their involvement with gangs, and the positive and life changing events that provided the catalyst for these young men to leave their gangs. If positive support mechanisms are insufficient, and if their basic human needs cannot be satisfied, refugee young people become at-risk of involvement in antisocial behavior and criminal activity. In order to assist refugee young people in their successful transition into a foreign culture and society it is essential to understand how their perceptions and experiences inform their identity and behavior. This study contributes to this understanding, which will inform policy and future approaches by government and community-based organizations to assist them in their transition.

This thesis explores the history of one German family during World War II, using the inspiration and background knowledge gained from historic scholarship and literature to create narrative closely following actual experiences and memories to help understand the peculiarities of war narrative and war memory. The sources are interviews with relatives, existing literature on the subject matter, and the writer’s imagination.

The twentieth century has been called the century of the refugee. The sheer size, scope and persistence of refugee movements was a defining feature of that century because at no other time in history have people so regularly been forced to flee their homes in search of safety. The plight of refugees - both in their flight from home and in their search for a place of exile - is suggestive of the power of ideas about identity in deciding who belongs and who is displaced, stateless and alien. This study explores the significance of these ideas about identity through a case study of the arrival, settlement and experiences of two groups of Spanish and central European refugee children in Britain between 1937 and 1945. It begins by tracing a discourse on Englishness that betrays a contemporary concern for the future survival of the English nation and goes on to investigate how these concerns shaped negotiations for the arrival of refugee children. The principal aim of these negotiations, it is argued, was to ensure the protection of English national identity. The specific form of protection required varied according to the specific group of children under discussion and was based on stereotypical representations of the two groups of children. These representations of the children inscribed them with identities, measured them against the qualities of Englishness and justified the intervention of government in order to guarantee the continued health, peace and prosperity of England. For the Spanish/Basque children the government priority was to protect national health and the political stability of national life. For the Jewish children the aim of government policy was not to stimulate anti-Semitism by exceeding the national 'absorptive capacity'. The resulting carefully controlled settlement of the children, drawn up with various refugee agencies and covering housing, health and education, is analysed in detail throughout this study. In this study attention is also given to the role that the children's cultural and educational capital played in their adaptation to exile. It analyses how children were able to adapt to their experiences in exile by drawing on their own cultural and educational agency. In doing so it questions accounts of migration that focus on assimilation and explores instead the hybrid identities that were developed by refugee children who became adept at negotiating with the culture of Englishness.

Bibliography: leaves 385-420. / vi, 420 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / An exploration of the Australian refugee detention policy, which argues that the resort to detention is discriminatory and founded in the fear of Australia's "significant other" - the Asian. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Politics, 1999