Diaspora and Transnational Studies: Topic Courses

2024–2025 Fall/Winter

 

DTS401H5S - Advanced Topics in Diaspora and Transnational Studies: Undocumented Migration: Rights, Refuge, and Resistance in the Borderlands (Instructor: E. Toffoli)

This seminar explores historical and contemporary undocumented migration in the American, European, African, and Asian borderlands through a comparative framework, concentrating on the period between the late-nineteenth century and the present. Via a range of primary sources (e.g. memoirs, fiction, art, photography, film, music, oral testimony, historical records, etc.) and interdisciplinary secondary literature, we will investigate the roots of clandestine mobility, nation-states’ responses to unauthorized migration, the lived experiences of the undocumented, and the political strategies and cultural forms that migrants mobilize to represent their lifeways, demand rights, and reimagine citizenship and belonging. Major topics of discussion include: the political, social, economic, and environmental causes of unauthorized migration; the evolution of “illegality” as a socio-legal category; the rise of deportation and detention; refuge, asylum, and sanctuary; immigrant rights activism; and labour, gender, the family, and religion within undocumented communities. Case studies will be drawn from: Canada, China, France, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States. Throughout, we will highlight the diversity of undocumented migrants’ experiences and the ways in which race, gender, class, and age shape their histories. At the same time, we will track continuities in the social, economic, and political forces that propel unauthorized mobility (e.g. racial capitalism, political violence) and structure the lifeways of undocumented populations (e.g. xenophobia, militarized policing), along with the dynamic techniques that migrants deploy to navigate these realities.