In their latest publication in Urban Geography, Ranu Basu (Associate Professor, Geography, York University) and Robert S. Fiedler explore “integration” as a concept from the perspective of displaced migrants in the context of public spaces in Scarborough. The authors shift discussions on integration beyond a framework of multiculturalism and settlement and conceptualize the idea of “integrative multiplicity” to account for experiences and memories of trauma, anxiety, pain, and longing.
The findings reveal how recent migrants not only understand and use the city but also how they reflect upon and envision the city-building process, through their own individual subjectivities of inclusion/place-making and exclusion/displacement. Through such complex spaces of encounter, civic engagement and grounded experiences, the participants frame Scarborough in multiple and metaphorical forms: from a City of Refuge and Peace; City of Memory, Desire, and Imagination; City of Multifariousness; to a City of Civic Engagement and Fluid Resistance. This stands in stark contrast from how the city is framed in dominant discourse and the unsettling debates on how to reform it.
Read the full article at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2016.1139864
Basu, R. and R.S. Fiedler. 2016. “Integrative Multiplicity through Suburban Realities: Exploring diversity through public spaces in Scarborough.” Urban Geography.