Canadian politicians have stated that India-Canada relations are grounded in
"people-to-people links". These links have been formed over the last century through a
process of immigration that articulates specific regions of India—Doaba in Punjab—with
particular regions of Canada—initially British Columbia, and now the metropolitan areas
of Toronto and Vancouver. Employing the theoretical lens of transnationalism and a
methodological approach based on networks, this thesis argues that the presence of
extensive transnational linkages connecting immigrants to their sites of origin, rather than
limit national Canadian citizenship practice, can actually enhance it. I examine how
Punjabi immigrants activate linkages that span borders and fuse distant communities and
localities, as well as highlighting how the state is involved in the regulation and
monitoring of such connections. My findings indicate that the operation of state officials
varies according to the nature of the exchange. Whereas immigration is differentially
controlled at the micro-scale of the individual according to a range of factors such as
race, class and gender; inanimate objects such as goods and capital are less regulated,
despite the significant material effects associated with their transmission. Indian
immigrants are not however, passive recipients of state regulation at the scale of the
individual, and instead emerge as active participants in a Canadian democratic system
that enables the individual to challenge certain bureaucratic decisions and hold federal
departments accountable. In addition, contrary to ideas of transnational immigrant actors
possessing new forms of transnational or "post-national" citizenship, this research
suggests that immigrants value the traditional right of citizenship to protect national
borders and determine who may gain access.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/13825 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Walton-Roberts, Margaret |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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