Alka Kumar is a Mitacs ELEVATE Postdoctoral Fellow at Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). Prior to migrating to Canada from India 15 years ago, she used to teach Literary Studies at the University of Delhi.
Let me start with some broad strokes about the rapidly shifting migration landscape today, both globally and in Canada. Firstly, we know well that immigration trends do not exist in stand-alone ways, but are rooted within specific societal contexts and they are directly affected by prevailing socio-economic conditions and political factors. For instance, rapid technological innovations have re-shaped the meaning of geographical borders, compelling us to re-imagine physical spaces. The pandemic showed us the way to scale the potential of remote work, and now images of digital nomads sitting with their laptops on the beach or at a coffee shop in some exotic destination no longer surprise us. Their numbers are not insignificant either – one billion digital nomads quoted in both mainstream media and academic sources.
In Canada, the pandemic was also instrumental in initiating rapid and significant shifts in immigration policy, which are likely to have long-term and transformative impacts. Changes were made from the pre-2021 selection criteria and single pathway to permanent residency (PR) for economic-class immigrants to multiple ad-hoc temporary residency (TR)-to-PR pathway programs. Certainly, these changes were implemented to address urgent needs at that time, based on the curtailment of movement during the pandemic. Unfortunately, these are also the same policies that have led to confusion and exacerbated ripple effects, leading to inequity, exclusion and discrimination that international students and temporary foreign workers are facing in Canada today.
It is certainly true that in our current times, with the overwhelming rise in social media use, and increased transnational mobilities in a hyper-digitally connected world, the human aspiration to straddle boundaries and build a life in the in-between spaces has expanded exponentially, and more research and newer methodologies are needed to make sense of such migratory motivations. While established and conventional qualitative and quantitative research methods continue to be employed by researchers to gather data in migration studies, in more recent times there has also been an additional emphasis on using storytelling and visual methods, as well as other creative and arts-based approaches to explore lived experience stories to understand the dynamic ground realities pertaining to mobility.
It is no secret that one of the consistent and most significant drivers of the cross-border flows of human capital has always been economic globalization. Labour markets need workers to fuel economies, and businesses are out to headhunt for global talent. Speaking country-wise, Canada and Australia are top competitors to access the global talent pool today. With clear pathways to permanent residency being the centrepiece of immigration policies in both countries, they are trying to fix the gaps in their immigration policy systems to help recruit and retain workers who can solve their demographic and labour-market challenges. Australia recently came out with their new Migration Strategy. In the case of Canada, for example, the construction industry is currently challenged by a scarcity of tradespeople – and this situation is in turn exacerbating the already prevalent housing crisis in most Canadian cities, leading to demands for international workers to come to Canada to meet labour-market demands. Simultaneously though, when immigration targets were recently expanded, to invite almost 500,000 permanent residents every year from 2024-2026, these high numbers also created some anxiety in mainstream circles as further housing shortages were anticipated.
Sadly, we know how easy it is to both want (and utilize) migrant worker skills, for the purpose of fuelling economic growth, but simultaneously, also blame (or scapegoat) the same people for infrastructural breakdowns – such as when healthcare services are scant or when affordable housing is not available. There is a need to go beyond the blame-game and anti-immigration rhetoric if we want to search for the truth; economists and policy analysts note that the housing crisis is not about immigration, it’s about housing policy.
It is sad that the easily forgotten stories are the ones on the other side of the labour equation. These are the stories of individuals who come to Canada with aspirations and dreams for a better life. For many of these immigrants and refugees though, whatever qualifications and experiences they may travel with, their dreams don’t always come true. Each immigrant story is unique and specific though, and being a newcomer in a city is often about navigating intersecting challenges, while living in precarious socio-economic conditions. It is then understandable that individuals and families who migrate to Canada to enjoy a higher quality of life feel discouraged, leading to a proliferation of current stories in the media and posted on social media of ‘returning’ migrants.’ These are shifting sands though as they relate to developing scenarios, so it is not possible to know the real numbers or truth behind these anecdotal experiences, and more research is needed to understand this phenomenon.
More recently, international events such as wars, persecution or climate change have led to mass displacements and increased mobility of diverse population groups. According to the current global estimate from the International Organization for Migration, in 2020 there were around 281 million international migrants. And by the end of 2022, the number of forcibly displaced people globally was 108.4 million, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. To make sense of migratory movements, analytic categories like ‘push-pull factors’ have conventionally been used in migration research. Given that migration shapes the social, cultural and civic fabric in many societies today, especially in our multicultural Canadian context, this terminology is well understood in common parlance too; and it signifies the causes and motivations of migrant decision-making. One of the significant issues though is that migratory movements in current times are not straightforward or linear; rather, they are transnational, complex and multi-faceted, with migration scholars studying `return’ and `re-migration,’ `multiple destinations’ and `new beginnings.’
With individuals and populations constantly on the move – and many choosing temporariness over permanence as a way of life – migrant decision-making too has become an important research topic in migration studies. It is critical to focus on experiential stories if we want to really make sense of migratory movements. This is especially significant when multiple issues intersect and intertwine. It is also time to disrupt and problematize many of the previously established categories of seeing, and of analysis, as ground reality continues to shift radically and fast. Researchers must also ensure that interdisciplinary, collaborative and participatory research approaches are included as a way to gather data and create knowledge in migration studies; and that care is taken to democratize the research field through developing genuine research partnerships, including co-designing research projects with industry partners and with research participants who have lived experience of migration.
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