‘What is to be Done?’: The Hegemony of Solutions in Immigrants’ Labour Market Integration

Authors

  • Soma Chatterjee Assistant Professor. York University. Canada

Keywords:

immigration, labour market integration, training/learning, nation state, ideology

Abstract

The logic of remedial training as the panacea to immigrants’ labour market integration is strongly entrenched in Canadian state policies and practices of integration. I envision this paper as a response to and refusal of this powerful stasis. I suggest integration has been enthralled by a dogged appeal to solutions that needs to be disrupted to engage with another important but neglected analytical consideration, i.e., how the hierarchy between trainee immigrant and competent Canadian worker subjects produces Canada as a nation of superior standards, and yet also, as one which offers benevolent support for those struggling to meet these standards. The dual claims of epistemic superiority and benevolent care is in sync with older Canadian nationalist narratives of recruiting immigrants for labour and expelling them from citizenship. However, we start to notice this dynamic only if/when we move beyond solution orientation and start attending to the kind of nation formation that training remedial interventions effectuate.   

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Published

2019-02-15

How to Cite

Chatterjee, S. (2019). ‘What is to be Done?’: The Hegemony of Solutions in Immigrants’ Labour Market Integration. Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, 31(01). Retrieved from https://cjsae.library.dal.ca/cjsae/article/view/5421

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Articles