Re-settler society: Refugee sponsorship as Canadian narrative
An online talk by:
Audrey Macklin
Professor & Rebecca Cook Chair in Human Rights Law
University of Toronto
Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy
Monday, March 8, 2021
12:30 PM – 2:00 PM (PST)
[ Abstract ]
In late 2015, Canada launched its most ambitious refugee resettlement program since the Indochinese Resettlement of 1979-80. By late 2020, over 45,000 Syrian refugees were resettled to Canada. About half were sponsored by groups of Canadians who pooled their own financial resources, and undertook responsibility for material, moral and social support in the first year. My research focuses on sponsors: who sponsors and why, their perception and experience of sponsorship, and the impact of sponsorship on them and their communities. I ask the question: how does the project of making refugees into citizens remake the citizenship of sponsors? I am interested in how the quotidian practices of sponsorship embody or challenge models of privatisation, inequality, humanitarianism and hospitality, and citizenship. My presentation will present preliminary findings from research that involved over 500 online surveys and 85 in-person interviews with sponsors.