Transnational Canadas marks the first sustained inquiry into the relationship between globalization and Canadian literature written in English. Tracking developments in the literature and its study from the centennial period to the present, it shows how current work in transnational studies can provide new insights for researchers and students. Arguing first that the dichotomy of Canadian nationalism and globalization is no longer valid in today’s economic climate, Transnational Canadas explores the legacy of leftist nationalism in Canadian literature. It examines the interventions of multicultural writing in the 1980s and 1990s, investigating the cultural politics of the period and how they increasingly became part of Canada’s state structure. Under globalization, the book concludes, we need to understand new forms of subjectivity and mobility as sites for cultural politics and look beyond received notions of belonging and being. An original contribution to the study of Canadian literature, Transnational Canadas seeks to invigorate discussion by challenging students and researchers to understand the national and the global simultaneously, to look at the politics of identity beyond the rubric of multiculturalism, and to rethink the slippery notion of the political for the contemporary era.

In some ways, Canadian history has always been international, comparative, and wide-ranging. However, in recent years the importance of the ties between Canadian and transnational history have become increasingly clear. Within and Without the Nation brings scholars from a range of disciplines together to examine Canada’s past in new ways through the lens of transnational scholarship. Moving beyond well-known comparisons with Britain and the United States, the fifteen essays in this collection connect Canada with Latin America, the Caribbean, and the wider Pacific world, as well as with other parts of the British Empire. Examining themes such as the dispossession of indigenous peoples, the influence of nationalism and national identity, and the impact of global migration, Within and Without the Nation is a text which will help readers rethink what constitutes Canadian history.

Italian anarchism emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century, during that country’s long and bloody unification. Often facing economic hardship and political persecution, many of Italy’s anarchists migrated to North America. Wherever Italian anarchists settled they published journals, engaged in labour and political activism, and attempted to re-create the radical culture of their homeland. Transnational Radicals examines the transnational anarchist movement that existed in Canada and the United States between 1915 and 1940. Against a backdrop of brutal and open class war—with governments calling upon militias to suppress strikes, radicals thrown in jail for publicly speaking against capitalism and the church, and those of foreign birth being deported and even executed for political activities—Italian anarchism was successfully transplanted. Transnationalism made it more difficult for states to destroy groups spread across wide geographical spaces. In Italy and abroad the strong anarchist identity informed by class, ethnicity, and gender reinforced movement values, promoted movement expansion, and assisted mobilization during times of crisis. In Transnational Radicals, Tomchuk makes use of Italian government security files and Italian-language anarchist newspapers to reconstruct a vibrant and little-studied political movement during a tumultuous period of modern North American history.

Between the 1920s and the 1940s, 10,000 traditionalist Mennonites emigrated from western Canada to isolated rural sections of Northern Mexico and the Paraguayan Chaco; over the course of the twentieth century, they became increasingly scattered through secondary migrations to East Paraguay, British Honduras, Bolivia, and elsewhere in Latin America. Despite this dispersion, these Canadian-descendant Mennonites, who now number around 250,000, developed a rich transnational culture over the years, resisting allegiance to any one nation and cultivating a strong sense of common peoplehood based on a history of migration, nonviolence, and distinct language and dress. Village among Nations recuperates a missing chapter of Canadian history: the story of these Mennonites who emigrated from Canada for cultural reasons, but then in later generations “returned” in large numbers for economic and social security. Royden Loewen analyzes a wide variety of texts, by men and women – letters, memoirs, reflections on family debates on land settlement, exchanges with curious outsiders, and deliberations on issues of citizenship. They relate the untold experience of this uniquely transnational, ethno-religious community.

With contributions from some of Canada’s leading social scientists, this collection examines the meaning and significance of transnational practices and identities of immigrant and ethnic communities in Canada. Why do members of these groups and communities maintain ties with their homelands? What meanings do attachments to real and imagined homelands have, both for individual identities and community organizations? Is the existence of homeland ties a reflection of Canada’s commitment to multiculturalism, or does the maintenance of homeland among immigrants undermine a commitment to Canada and being "Canadian"? What are the geographical, social, and ideological borders that are negotiated and/or contested? The approaches to transnationalism developed in this book help focus attention on an important, and arguably growing, dimension of Canadian social life. The chapters offer comparative and historical context as they focus on transnational identities and practices within American, Arab and Muslim, Caribbean, Chinese, Croatian, Japanese, Jewish, Latin American, South Asian, and southern European immigrant, ethnic and religious communities and groups in Canada. This is the first collection in Canada to provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of transnationalism. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in issues of immigration, multiculturalism, ethnicity, and settlement.

Engendering Transnational Voices examines the transnational practices and identities of immigrant women, youth, and children in an era of global migration and neoliberalism, addressing such topics as family relations, gender and work, schooling, remittances, cultural identities, caring for children and the elderly, inter- and multi-generational relationships, activism, and refugee determination. Expressions of power, resistance, agency, and accommodation in relation to the changing concepts of home, family, and citizenship are explored in both theoretical and empirical essays that critically analyze transnational experiences, discourses, cultural identities, and social spaces of women, youth, and children who come from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds; are either first- or second-generation transmigrants; are considered legal or undocumented; and who enter their adopted country as trafficked workers, domestic workers, skilled professionals, or students. The volume gives voice to individual experiences, and focuses on human agency as well as the social, economic, political, and cultural processes inherent in society that enable or disable immigrants to mobilize linkages across national boundaries.

Immigration and Canada provides readers with a vital introduction to the field of international migration studies. This original book presents an integrated critical perspective on Canadian immigration policies, main trends, and social, economic, and cultural impacts. It offers up-to-date information on migration patterns and examines Canada in an evolving, global-transnational system that gives rise to imagined futures and contrasting real outcomes. Key issues and debates include: nation building and the historical roots of Canadian immigration contemporary global migration the changing national and ethnic origins of immigrants immigrants, jobs, wages, and the economy "designer" immigrants and the brain gain the business of migration demographic impacts of immigration racism and prejudice facing excluded and marginalized populations transnational citizens, diasporas, emerging identities, and struggles to belong refugees, temporary workers, and foreign visa workers undocumented migration and migrant trafficking the baby bust and the future of international migration

Twice Migrated, Twice Displaced explores the lives of Gulf South Asians who arrived in the Greater Toronto Area from India and Pakistan via Persian Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Tania Das Gupta reveals the multiple migration patterns of this unique group, analyzing themes such as gender, racial, and religious discrimination; class mobility; the formation of transnational families; and identities in a post-9/11 context. Twice Migrated, Twice Displaced concludes that neoliberal economies in South Asia, the Gulf, and Canada create conditions for flexible labour by privatizing and diminishing social welfare. As migrants then search for employment, families are split across borders – making those relationships more precarious. The ambivalent, hybrid identities that result have implications for Canada in terms of community building, diaspora, citizenship, and migrants’ sense of belonging.

Papers presented at the International Conference on Canada's Global Engagements, held at New Delhi in May 2002.