Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 94-98). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Acadia University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-123). Also available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

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Through an in-depth study of the Canadian case, this thesis demonstrates how a loss of control over national borders can result from liberal-democratic state efforts to restrict the rights of non-citizens. It argues that the gaps created between certain fundamental due process and equality rights and state control practice increase the risk of policy failure by opening up avenues along which the authority and capacity of the state can be challenged effectively---by encouraging rights-based politics, irregular migration, and administrative inefficiencies. Part I provides an overview of recent international migration trends, followed by a detailed examination of the liberal-democratic control literature, identifying three biases---restrictionist, domestic-statist, and historical---that obscure the state's role in the creation and perpetuation of control problems. In response, this thesis employs an analytic framework rooted in the concept of the universe of political discourse to trace the evolution and interaction of two competing perspectives that have defined Canadian control policy debates and developments since Confederation, Liberal Internationalism and Liberal Nationalism, each of which posits a different relationship between the rights of non-citizens and the state. Part II presents a thorough account of Canadian control policies towards immigrants and refugees from 1867 to 1965, and reveals that the proposed link between rights-restrictive policies and control problems has deep liberal-democratic roots in Canada. Part III focuses on Canadian policies towards asylum seekers from 1965 to 1988, and demonstrates the central role that the state's rights-restrictive approach played in the creation, breakdown, and replacement of the country's first inland refugee status determination system. Parts II and III are based on an extensive examination of published Canadian government documents, and secondary materials from the fields of history, legal studies, and politics, among other sources. In a concluding chapter, it is argued that by giving greater conceptual and empirical clarity to control, the findings presented in this thesis are of continued relevance to the study of control policies---contemporary or historical---in Canada and other liberal democracies.

That refugeeness is a socially constructed subjectivity produced by immigration and refugee policy is the main argument of this thesis. Departing from the functionalist approach characterizing previous work on migrants, refugees in this study are defined as developing a particular migrant subjectivity, characterized by uprootedness and the crossing of borders. As well, this study argues that refugeeness is an addition to the general refugee experience. Immigration and refugee policy at the international and Canadian levels is defined as the main discourse in the production of refugeeness . How this state intersects with individual refugees' lives is the focus of this study which seeks to analyze the impact of immigration and refugee policy on refugee claimants in Canada. Deconstruction of immigration and refugee policy discourse provides core elements in understanding the construction of the refugee as an object defined by international law. Further, it is shown that increasingly restrictive policies, arising out of western nations' concerns over sovereignty of their borders have had an impact on the migratory trajectory of refugee claimants and on their pre-refugee subjectivities. It is argued that the process constituting the refugee claimant subjectivity is one of otherization where refugees are dispossessed of their pre-migratory subjectivity, creating a profound rupture with their past and present subjectivities. A qualitative approach is used to determine the subjective experience of claimants in Canada as it relates to three major areas of their lives: work, family and state which constitute the core areas of study in the construction of the refugee claimant subjectivity, as conceptualized by a materialist theoretical model. Conclusions raise issues for policy practices and social work practice.

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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."

A majority of refugee-immigrants experience a variety of psychological difficulties during their resettlement in a new country. Using a sentence completion method, this study tested a hypothesis that in a majority of refugee-immigrants the manifested difficulties were of temporary and transitional character. Eighty subjects completed 51-item Incomplete Sentence Blank questionnaires: 20 Canadian-born individuals, 20 refugee-immigrants living 1-3 years in Canada, 20 refugee-immigrants living 5-7 years in Canada, and 20 refugee-immigrants living in Canada over 8 years. All refugee-immigrants were of Czechoslovakian origin. Sample groups were matched in sex, age, and education of subjects. The questionnaire was designed to reflect different levels of satisfaction with self, others, and the whole environment. The responses were quantified and evaluated blindly by three independent judges; the higher score was expressing the higher subject's dissatisfaction. Analysis of variance and consequent multiple comparisons showed that the mean score of the sample of refugee-immigrants living in Canada 1-3 years was significantly higher than the mean scores of all other investigated samples; the differences in mean scores between other samples were not significant. In all sample groups, t-tests did not indicate significant differences in scoring between females and males. Fifty-one analyses of variance and multiple comparisons identified separate questionnaire items on which "new" immigrants scored significantly higher than all or some of other sample groups. These items highlighted the adaptive nature of difficulties experienced by the majority of "new" immigrants. Three brief case studies supported these results. Other related findings included suspicious attitudes found mainly in new immigrants, comments on questionnaire forms differentiating between samples, and the topic of "refugee dreams". All findings seem to indicate that for the majority of new refugee-immigrants the psychological difficulties experienced during their resettlement are of temporary and transitional character, a natural expression of their coping adaptive struggles in a new environment. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that communication involves more than just language. Culture is central in the process and must be taken into account in order for effective communication to be achieved. The emphasis is on translation and how it is actually a form of intercultural communication. A host of examples are provided to show how translation is severely limited and at times nonsensical when cultural factors are ignored. / Intercultural communications is also discussed in detail to shed light on what is involved. The resulting arguments pertaining to the limitations inherent in translation and intercultural communication are then put into the context of refugee hearings in order to provide some practical applications and point to areas where communication may be deficient.