Monday, January 14, 2019 10:00am – 11:30am
Dunton 1811
A Family Matter: Citizenship, Conjugal Relationships, and Canadian Immigration Policy offers an interdisciplinary examination of the role family formation plays in both the granting and refusal of Canadian citizenship. In analyzing three different areas of Canada’s immigration law and policy, Gaucher argues that governments have adopted a strict definition of family not only to protect our borders from external threat, but also to reinforce gendered, racialized and sexualized assumptions about the ideal “Canadian family”. In doing so, migrant families are limited in their ability to develop chosen familial networks, a privilege enjoyed by most Canadian-born citizens.
Megan Gaucher is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. She has a PhD from Queen’s in Political Studies and prior to coming to Carleton, Megan was an instructor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at Trent University. Her interdisciplinary research interests focus on the intersections between citizenship, family, gender, sexuality and race in Canadian immigration and refugee law and policy. Her current research projects include an analysis of these intersections as they relate to Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs, an examination of the Canadian state’s treatment of single male migrants, and an investigation into legislative “crackdowns” on birth tourism.