U of T sociologist researches the effects of racialized border practices on Canadian Muslims

ullahnor — Mon, 01 May 2017 20:49:29 +0000

ullahnor Mon, 05/01/2017 - 16:49

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U of T Mississauga's Paula Maurutto is following up on previous research on travel and Muslim identity (photo by Paula Maurutto)

Blake Eligh

Author legacy

Blake Eligh

Topic

City & Culture

U of T Mississauga

Muslims

C-51

Canada Border Services

Sociology

Diversity

Racialized

A U of T sociologist is investigating the effects of racialized border practices on identity and citizenship of Canadian Muslims.

U of T Mississauga Professor Paula Maurutto and co-researcher Baljit Nagra of the University of Ottawa are following up on their previous research on travel and Muslim identity.

Back in 2016, Maurutto and Nagra published a study in the Canadian Journal of Sociology in which they interviewed 50 young Canadians who are Muslim between the ages of 18 and 31 living in Vancouver and Toronto. At the time, interviewees reported that they felt fearful they would be stripped of their rights and said they felt a lack of ability to freely assert their religious identities when travelling.

“Our interviewees referred to being repeatedly stopped, questioned, detained and harassed by security personnel,” Maurutto says. “They felt that any evidence of their Muslim identity – name, country of birth, appearance or clothing – made them a target for extra surveillance.”

Researchers found that respondents made a point of moderating their religious or cultural identities when travelling. In some cases, this meant trimming beards for men, and forgoing a hijab or choosing a colourful scarf instead of a black one for women, as well as adopting a more “North American” style of dress. Respondents said the negative border experiences often served to reinforce their religious and cultural identities. About 30 per cent of interviewees said their Muslim identity had been a focal point of their identity before 9/11, but 68 per cent reported identifying more strongly as Muslim and feeling a deeper connection to their faith after 9/11, due to feelings about needing to protect their faith.

“They reported taking on more of an identity to counteract perceptions and human rights complaints. Women who had not worn headscarves became politicized and began wearing them as a political statement,” Maurutto says.

The researchers are taking another look at the effects of racialized border practices. Currently, they are looking at the effect of C-51 on Muslim travellers. Passed in 2007, the legislation expanded the Canadian Passenger Protect Program so the government could add anyone to the no-fly list who they suspected might engage in terrorism.

“At the time, it was estimated that there were between 500 and 2,000 names on that list,” Maurutto says. “We don’t have current data on who has been added to or removed from the list since then.

“It’s very difficult to get information about the list – people only find out that they’re on it when they are denied a boarding pass, and there’s very little recourse to get one’s name removed from the list. It has real implications – it affects whether people can leave the country for business, to visit family, accompany their children or go abroad for university.

“The government has created legislation and practices with a serious impact that hasn’t been thought out carefully. Their freedoms are being restricted because they are part of a group. But these are human rights and civil rights violations of people who have legitimate Canadian status. We have to understand how human rights are being violated, and why certain groups are targeted.”

Why this U of T doctor is speaking out about kids in detention and migrants in prison

krisha — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 14:48:00 +0000

Why this U of T doctor is speaking out about kids in detention and migrants in prison krisha Fri, 06/10/2016 - 10:48

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photo by GRC-RCMP via Flickr)

Carolyn Morris

Author legacy

Carolyn Morris

Topic

Canada Border Services

Refugees

Subheadline

“We’re going to keep advocating against these transfers to prisons, and also against keeping people, including children, in indefinite detention”

Doctors have a long tradition of speaking out for society’s most vulnerable – using research and activism to improve the social determinants of health in disadvantaged communities.

Following this tradition, department of psychiatry lecturers Drs. Michaela Beder and Rachel Kronick, and department of community and family medicine lecturer Dr. Ritika Goel, are speaking out against unhealthy conditions and practices in Canadian detention centres.

Faculty of Medicine writer Carolyn Morris spoke to Dr. Beder about advocacy in health care.

How did you first get involved in advocacy?

I grew up learning about social justice and always felt that I had an obligation to address systemic injustices. And that’s actually the reason I went to medical school. I wanted to use the privilege, use my training, to effect change and work in solidarity with people who are marginalized.

We’re definitely just part of the equation – there are so many community groups involved in advocacy and doing the groundwork that leads to change. As physicians we can bring an evidence-based, health-care informed lens to broader political issues that impact health.

You’ve recently spoken out about immigration detention centres — how people are being transferred to prisons, ostensibly to get health care, and how children are being detained. How did you find out about these issues?

When I was doing my residency at the University of Toronto I was involved in a research project in which I interviewed adults being held in the Toronto Immigration Detention Centre out in Rexdale. It was unbelievable to see and hear about the conditions, and the despair of these people, who were detained for administrative reasons.

Because they didn’t have proper documentation, or had overstayed their temporary work visas they were thrown into what is essentially a jail. I interviewed adults, and my colleague Rachel Kronick focused on children in detention – what many people don’t know is that several hundred kids are held in detention every year. We are both psychiatrists, and the mental health impacts of this indefinite detention are shocking. Being in detention, even for a short while, can have a huge impact on mental health — anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are common.

More recently we’ve found out from community and legal groups about the transfer of detainees to provincial jails — so if you’re in a detention centre and become suicidal, or have severe mental illness, or you get cancer, you are sent to jail. And it’s come out that there have been deaths among immigration detainees – 15 that we know of since 2000, and eight of them in provincial jails, including several suicides. As health care providers — and as human beings, frankly — we’re extremely concerned.

Do you feel like physician and advocate make for a natural combination, or do you feel tension between those two roles?

This is something I think about a lot. Some people see advocacy as something separate from their work as a physician. But I think that advocacy work is integral to my role as a doctor. It’s what brought me into medicine, and it’s what inspires me.

Do you think physicians are well placed to be advocates? Because you see some of the most vulnerable in your practice?

I would say yes we are. As clinicians we see the on-the-ground lack of access. We can see how things like homelessness, poverty, racism, lack of immigration status, and other systemic injustices negatively impact the health of our patients. So we can play an important role as allies in the fight for social justice.

For example, I’m also involved in a group called Health Providers Against Poverty, which focuses on the detrimental impact of poverty on health. This is something I see daily in my clinical work with people experiencing homelessness.

What are your next steps in terms of advocacy?

We’re going to keep advocating against these transfers to prisons, and also against keeping people, including children, in indefinite detention. In addition, healthcare providers have also been calling for access to health care more generally for all people living in Ontario. There are around 500,000 people across Canada who don’t have access to health insurance coverage because of their immigration status. We’ve argued that healthcare should be tied to clinical need, not to immigration status.

In fact, on June 28, we’re launching a campaign called OHIP For All, starting with a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Health at 900 Bay Street at noon. As physicians, we believe that everyone living in Ontario should have the care that they need.

(Pictured below: Drs Michaela Beder and Ritika Goel)

(Visit Flickr to see the original of the photo used at top)