Based on the Waterloo Region Immigration Partnership Community Action Plan, this study contributed towards understanding, maintaining, and developing responsive settlement programs and strategies that effectively serve all members of the KW community, including those with a precarious legal status and impacted by the intersection of different social identities (Cho et al, 2013). This project responded to the three core areas identified in the Community Action Plan: settle, work, and belong.
What was our approach?
We emphasized temporary migrants including caregivers, high and low-skill migrant workers, international students and those without status, or those who have refugee claims (and have had temporary work status prior to making the claim). We examined the nexus of gender, precarity and resilience (both social and institutional) to explore how newcomers to KW with a temporary status cope with and increase their resilience. This project examined the resilience of community organizations supporting newcomers and considers the impacts of gender, the levels of precarity and the category of entry.
- Created a Gender and Resilience Capacity Building and visual representation tool- which we aimed to pilot in the KW region and then adapt and localize for all city networks tied to the partnership. This tool was an important knowledge mobilization initiative, which enhanced the relevance of project outputs with immigrant service providers and newcomers. To date we have only gathered some of the information needed for this initiative, and further funding is now required to develop this online resource and capacity-building tool in collaboration with the LIP(s) and the other city networks. While data gathered thus far on resources/obstacles and strategies for supporting resiliency among temporary newcomers, there remained a gap in our understanding of how such newcomers navigate their migration trajectory, particularly among those who aim to transition to permanent residency. As the Region is often welcoming temporary migrants and internal migrants from other regions, it was important to understand how these two (or even three-step) trajectories might impact integration –and to understand what structural and individual strategies and resources might strengthen migrant and community resiliency along such multi-staged trajectories.
- Designed a Longitudinal Panel Study- consisting of in-depth qualitative interviews with temporary migrants with selected participants from the focus groups with the purpose of giving nuance to the migration trajectories among migrants with temporary status or without status.
- Conducted a Telephone Survey – that was statistically significant to the region and allowed us to make more reliable claims that supported the case for more resources and focus aimed at strengthening supports for temporary migrants in the region and beyond. It was also our hope that this survey would serve as a pilot that could be replicated across other city networks (this was the focus of a future collaborative proposal with at least one other second-tier city, such as Ottawa and Windsor).
- Drafted a Preliminary report of our findings, wrote two academic articles, and proposed at least one conference paper/panel in 2018-2019.
Principal Investigators:
- Jenna L. Hennebry, jhennebry@wlu.ca
Co-investigators:
- Margaret Walton-Roberts (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Community Partners:
- Tara Bedard (LIP) (Community Co-Chair)
- Lucia Harrison & Ana Luz Martinez(KW Multicultural Centre)
- Shelly Campagnola (Mennonite Coalition for Refugee Support)
- Fauzia Mazhar (Coordinator, The Family Centre, Founding Member and Chair of the Coalition of Muslim Women in KW)
- Diana Palmerin Velasco, Immigration Partnership Belong Steering Committee.
- Gender and Resilience Among Temporary Migrants in Waterloo Region
- Genre et résilience chez des migrants temporaires dans la région de Waterloo
- Hennebry, J., Piper, N., KC, H., & Williams, K. (2022). Bilateral Labor Agreements as Migration Governance Tools: An Analysis from a Gender Lens. Theoretical Inquiries in Law, vol. 23(2): 184-204.
- Hennebry, J., KC, H. & Williams, K. (2021.) Gender and Migration Data: A Guide for Evidence-Based, Gender-Responsive Migration Governance. International Organization for Migration (IOM). Geneva.
- *Shirkhodaee, A., and Walton-Roberts, M. (2023) ‘Gender’. Encyclopedia of Human Geography, edited by D. Demeritt and L. Lees. Edward Elgar. 163-168.
- Amber-Judge, N., and Walton-Roberts, M. (2023) “Shifting gender and power relations in marriage migration practices: The north India-Canada case.” Handbook of Migration and Family, edited by J. Waters and B. Yeoh. Edward Elgar Publishing 33-50.
