Immigration and Settler‐Colonies Post‐UNDRIP: Research and Policy Implications
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Author | Yasmeen Abu‐Laban |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12685 |
Immigration and Settler-Colonies
Post-UNDRIP: Research and Policy
Implications
Yasmeen Abu-Laban*
ABSTRACT
It is now common to identify a policy convergence around migration which is eroding the
longstanding distinction made in the migration literature between “traditional”countries of
immigration (like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States) and other Western
states. Taking the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as instruc-
tive, this article focusses on the case of Canada, arguing that its settler-colonial foundation has
impacted and continues to impact three areas relevant to the comparative study of migration:
1) national discourse; 2) land and forms of social power; and 3) politics and forms of solidar-
ity. The implications of settler-colonialism for the study of international migration are broader
than the case of Canada and suggest the need to link considerations of Indigeneity systemati-
cally in migration studies, and to address the particularities of settler-colonial states in relation
to other Northern states by being attuned to “divergence within convergence.”
INTRODUCTION
An important year in the global expansion of Indigenous rights came with the 2007 passage of the
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Ever since this time,
political as well as scholarly attention to Indigenous peoples has been growing (see Asch, Borrows
and Tully, 2018). This is particularly evident in contemporary Canada where in 2015 the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission of Canada reported on how historically state-run residential schools for
Indigenous childrent supported “cultural genocide,”and issued Calls to Action to major insitutions
and all Canadians (MacDonald 2015; Truth and Reconciliation Commmission 2015a, 2015b). The
TRC’s stark diagnosis of “cultural genocide”was further amplified in June of 2019, when the final
report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls squarely
labelled the violence directed at Indigenous women and girls a “genocide”and called for the dis-
mantling of colonial structures (National Inquiry, 2019). In this context, scholars of political science
and related disciplines have been challenged to incorporate Indigenous experiences and Indigenous
knowledges into the academy, and to have more equitable representation of Indigenous scholars
(Abu-Laban, 2016a). However, it is also the case that attention to Indigenous Peoples and Indige-
nous knowledges challenges reigning orthodoxies across disciplines, and therefore requires new
kinds of conversations (Kuokkanen, 2007). This includes in the multidisciplinary area of migration
* University of Alberta
doi: 10.1111/imig.12685
©2019 The Author
International Migration ©2019 IOM
International Migration Vol. 58 (6) 2020
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
studies, and by extension in the perspective taken by migration scholars and practitioners to think-
ing about research and policy.
On the face of it, centring settler-colonies in migration research should be easy. After all, there is
a longstanding distinction in the literature between the “new countries of immigration”(i.e. Europe)
and the “traditional countries of immigration”(such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the
United States) (see e.g., Cornelius et al., 2004). However, for the most part, the term “settler-
colony”is not used widely by migration researchers. Moreover, although there are notable and
important exceptions, such as a 2012 special issue of Canadian Issues devoted to the theme “Abo-
riginal Immigrant Relations Today”(see Kasparian, 2012; Madariaga-Vignudo, 2012; Sutherland,
2012; Traisnel, 2012; Wong and Fong, 2012), for the most part there has been very limited atten-
tion to Indigenous peoples in migration studies. Migration researchers approaching “traditional
countries”(i.e. settler- colonies) have instead tended to focus on immigrants and their descendants
in relation to the sending or receiving state, civil society broadly conceived, or the majority ethnic
group(s) in the destination country, as opposed to the implications of immigration for Indigenous
peoples, and the relationship between immigrants and their interface with Indigenous peoples.
In dramatic contrast to the way in which settler-colonial formations are typically not explicitly
identified as such in migration studies, generally speaking, Indigenous scholars have centred settler-
colonial state formations in their research (see e.g., Coulthard, 2014; Green, 2019). Consequently,
notwithstanding historic migrations or nomadic traditions amongst certain Indigenous cultures, they
also draw a firm distinction between Indigenous peoples and settlers/immigrants (Voyageur and
Calliou, 2000/2001). One implication of migration scholars not centring settler-colonies (and
thereby systematically engaging with issues of Indigeneity) may be seen in the ease with which
tenets associated with what has been referred to as the “convergence hypothesis”have also grown
over the course of the twenty-first century. Specifically, this hypothesis holds that all labour import-
ing countries—whether European, North American, or Australasian—are increasingly guided by
parallel practices and policies which override difference (Cornelius and Tsuda, 2004: 4; Abu-Laban,
2007: 9; Geddes, 2013; de Jong, 2016). Amongst the most compellingly argued and original of
accounts reflecting the convergence hypothesis would be Catherine Dauvergne’s important 2016
book The New Politics of immigration and the End of Settler Societies. Dauvergne’s main thesis is
that there is no longer any logical reason to separate the immigration policies and practices of set-
tler states (like Canada, Australia and the United States) from those of other Western countries.
This is because “a global convergence in migration policies has emerged, bringing with it a new,
mean-spirited politics of immigration”(Dauvergne, 2016: 2). The result of this convergence, she
goes on to suggest, is that “the end of settler societies belongs to the twenty-first century”
(Dauvergne, 2016: 35).
The events in June 2018, when American and global audiences became privy to the sounds and
images of undocumented detained children, an uncharacteristically passive President Trump and a
First Lady whose clothing literally proclaimed she did not care (Gambino and Laughland, 2018)
may be seen to reflect on such a mean-spirited politics. Moreover, there are identifiable and pat-
terned trends evident across countries of the West over the course of the twenty-first century when
it comes to policies and practices. These trends include a criminalization of immigrants and refu-
gees, the growing use of detention and deportation, as well as an embrace of a plethora of tempo-
rary labour migration schemas that aim to avoid permanent settlement and the extension of
citizenship to migrant workers (See Kresedmas and Brotherton, 2017 and Vosko, Preston and
Latham, 2014). The vindictiveness underlying such developments (Brotherton and Tosh, 2017) sup-
ports the idea that immigration policies and practices in Western states may be seen to also exhibit
meanness. Moreover, developments in artificial intelligence and forms of automated decision-mak-
ing based on algorithms threaten to replicate and amplify these trends, with negative implications
for the human rights of refugees and migrants (Molnar and Gill, 2018).
Immigration and settler-colonies13
©2019 The Author. International Migration ©2019 IOM
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