Explore how Canada’s global image as a ‘queer utopia’ is shaped and challenged through borders, immigration, and popular culture.
Join us for a panel discussion that uses the popular Canadian-produced TV show Heated Rivalry as a cultural entry point to critically examine the image of Canada as a “queer utopia” for refugees, immigrants, and newcomers. Focusing on Canada’s increasingly restrictive border and immigration policies, the discussion will examine how narratives of safety, belonging, and nationhood are constructed, reinforced, and contested through popular culture. Drawing connections between the show, related critical scholarship, and the changing realities of Immigration policy, the panel explores how borders function not only as legal and geographic regimes, but as cultural and affective forces that shape queer intimacy, mobility, and belonging.
Moderator
Dr. Lisa Brunner, Research Associate, UBC Centre for Migration Studies
Panelists
Dr. JP Catungal – Assistant Professor, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, UBC
Dr. Ali Bhagat – Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy, SFU
Aleks Dughman Manzur – Co-Executive Director of Programming & Advocacy, Rainbow Refugee
Moderator biography
Dr. Lisa Ruth Brunner is an interdisciplinary scholar-practitioner specializing in immigration, citizenship and education in Global North settler-colonial contexts. She has 15 years of professional experience in international education, including a decade as an international student adviser. She is currently a Research Associate at the University of British Columbia Centre for Migration Studies and a Public Policy Consultant with the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of British Columbia (AMSSA).
Speaker biographies
Dr. Ali Bhagat is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Minor in Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University’s Vancouver Campus. His research investigates refugee/migration policy and racial equity in Europe, Africa, and North America. His recent book Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism (Cornell University Press, 2024) examines urban refugee survival in Paris, France and Nairobi, Kenya. As an international political economist, he is interested in the intersections of race, class, and sexuality and has worked on issues pertaining to LGBTQ+ refugees in particular. His work is based on qualitative methods drawing from interviews, policy analysis, and other ethnographic techniques.
Aleks Selim Dughman Manzur (J.D., LL.M.) (They/Them) is a transgender Palestinian lawyer from Santiago, Chile, fluent in English and Spanish. With an LL.M. from the University of Toronto, they specialize in human rights, LGBTQI+ rights, refugee rights, and reproductive and sexual health law. As Co-Executive Director of Rainbow Refugee, Aleks advocates for LGBTQI+ refugees, co-chairs From Borders to Belonging, and serves on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Council for Refugees. They design programs for LGBTQI+ asylum seekers, engage in policy advocacy, and provide expert opinions at national and international forums.
