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Transformative Resilience through Collective Action

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Rupaleem Bhuyan discusses what resilience means from the perspectives of migrants living in the Greater Toronto Area

Image courtesy of interviewee. April 25, 2024

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This video video is a transcript of a presentation discussing the concept of resilience, particularly in the context of social work and the experiences of migrants in Canada. The speaker expresses gratitude for the opportunity to speak and acknowledges the Indigenous territories they are situated on. They reflect on their own immigration background and the impact of colonialism, highlighting their ongoing commitment to Indigenous self-determination.

The speaker examines the concept of resilience, which traditionally emphasizes individual coping and overcoming challenges, often obscuring the systemic inequalities that contribute to those challenges. They critique how resilience is often framed in neoliberal contexts, placing responsibility on individuals rather than addressing structural issues.

Through a project focused on building migrant resilience in Toronto, the speaker analyzes how local and provincial governments use the term resilience in policy and education, often equating it with equity and inclusion efforts. However, there is a gap between recognizing systemic inequities and effective resource allocation to support those in need. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding resilience as multi-dimensional, involving individual, collective, and transformative aspects.

The presentation highlights grassroots actions taken by immigrant communities, particularly women, to support each other through mutual aid and advocacy. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the necessity of relationships and collaboration across community and governmental levels to enact meaningful change, arguing that true resilience involves addressing systemic inequalities and fostering collective empowerment rather than relying solely on individual self-sufficiency.

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Thank you for having me.

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It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the question.

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Um, before I begin, I, I wanted to honor the territories

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that I'm speaking to you from.

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I'm in a very rainy day here in

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what is now called Toronto Ontario,

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and I work at the University of Toronto,

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which sits on the territories of, the nee,

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the Huron Wenda, the Seneca,

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and the Mississaugas of the credit, who

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for many generations have been caretakers of this territory.

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And through a treaty with the British Crown in the 1820s,

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it became part of what became the later nation state

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of Canada and myself, who has family

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that originated in what is now called India, a territory

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that was also, governed under British Empire

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for many decades.

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Um, so my trajectory here is deeply intertwined

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with colonial presence on territories.

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And as an immigrant through the colonial nation of Canada,

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I'm constantly trying to understand my own role

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in supporting indigenous self-determination

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and sovereignty, both through the grassroots organizing

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and the incredible political advocacy within

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the systems that we have.

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Systems of governance, as well as through expressions of art

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and epistemology, some of which I hope

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to touch upon when I think about resilience.

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Um, so myself as someone who's situated in the university,

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but also working closely with many migrant communities

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in Toronto, in the United States where I grew up, as well

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as in regions of Eastern India.

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My family is from Assam.

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I've often wondered about how do we understand the capacity

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of individuals, so resilience to cope with, overcome

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and thrive, despite facing many systemic

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inequalities, barriers that might dehumanize them,

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but also deprive them from basic rights.

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Um, within the concept of social work, it is a concept

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that has been beholden for many decades

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because it offers a promise to work with individuals,

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groups, and communities.

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This is something social workers,

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especially in the North American context, do,

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to help them overcome many different kinds

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of intersecting harms.

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They might be through interpersonal challenges,

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but also the structural inequalities that produce inequality

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and then can be embodied

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and expressed through ill health,

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poverty and forms of violence.

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But at the same time, working

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with migrants in the Toronto region, especially those

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who have precarious status, who are undocumented

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or have a temporary status, the concept

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of resilience is often mobilized in ways that seems to

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download all of the responsibility to the individual.

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So in this project, with support from a partnership

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that was funded by the federal government,

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looking at building migrant resilience in cities,

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We sought to understand

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how is this concept being used in

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different levels of government.

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In this case, we started with the city of Toronto, as well

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as the province of Ontario.

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Looking at the policy documents, the policy discourse,

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and how these were used in public education campaigns in

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program development, specifically in the context

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of rapid growth population growth.

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It's primarily driven by immigrants in this region.

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To be honest, I was apprehensive to join a project

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that was constructed around the concept of resilience

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because of my wariness, of

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how it does fit into the neoliberal project

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of requiring individuals

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to be self-sufficient self-sustaining,

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and to moderate their needs

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and to make very limited demands on the regions around them.

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Um, that's a very dark view of resilience.

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I mean, who doesn't wanna be resilient?

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I wanna be resilient. I want the people I love

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and care for to be resilient,

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but I don't know what it means when a governing body

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or when a profession like social work is

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using resilience in that way.

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So I've been reading up on psychological definitions

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of resilience and the shift, especially in social work,

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but across disciplines to more social conceptualizations

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of resilience, by Eliana Juarez, Suarez

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and Michael Ungar.

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These are folks who are trying to look at the dynamic

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interplay between individuals

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and their environment, both their social environment,

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but also their ecological environment.

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So any one person or individual is not only recovering

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and coping, they're also exchanging resources, ideas,

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and transmitting visions of what could be

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through those social interactions in a very dynamic way.

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So thinking about resilience

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as this transformative social interplay, we, we took,

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we took up the concept of transformative resilience

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to see in what ways, one, the different municipal

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and provincial governments were mobilizing resilience,

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especially in the context of rapid population growth

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and the kind of interest in managing diversity,

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given the many different kinds of inequities

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that are layered by racial capitalism, systemic inequality,

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ongoing systemic racism.

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And as we see, especially in the period

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of ongoing war in Gaza, the anti-Islamic phobic,

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politics that can frame everyday interactions.

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So at the city level, we saw on the one hand this desire

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to identify subjects in need of resilience.

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This is a kind of typical policy.

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Um, policy aim is to understand who do we need

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to worry about and to construct the deserving,

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the more deserving in order to allocate resources.

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So we saw resilience often used almost interchangeably

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with equity discourse and diversity discourse

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and inclusion discourse.

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So as this kind of broad claim

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that we lay out a concern in the population for, especially

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for immigrants who are settling in Toronto,

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who may be experiencing intersecting systemic harms,

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because we want them to be included, we want

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to have equitable outcomes,

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and we want them to be resilient.

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So this is speaking from the city discourse.

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Similarly, at the provincial level, we saw,

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especially in institutes that are governing education

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and institutes that are governing health

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and mental health, especially amongst youth, was

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to use the concept of resilience to try to locate

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who are the people in need of resilience.

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On the one hand, there's this recognition

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that many migrants come already resilient, again,

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thinking in that psychological sense

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because they've overcome perhaps, of their refugees

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or forced migrants incredible hardships

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prior to coming to Canada.

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And also the process of settlement.

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People recognize as requiring a lot of resources,

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innovation, adaptability, these are all concepts.

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Again, that kind of echo this idea of individual resilience.

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So we have at the government level this need

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to identify who's in need of resilience

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and then also how to flood resources to spaces

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to support their resilience.

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All of these ideas seem really heartwarming.

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And actually, as I teach social work students,

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I started hearing more

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and more that they were using this language in their grants

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when they were applying for funds to support their programs,

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but they were working with adolescent youth

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who were experiencing gun violence, where they were working

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with mothers who are pregnant and trying to seek healthcare.

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Thinking about resilience in those

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ways seemed to make sense.

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At the same time, in the policy discourse,

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we definitely saw this disconnect

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where on the one hand there was an acknowledgement

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of systemic inequities

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and the need to identify people

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who may already have some capacity for resilience

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or are in need of resilience

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and thus need funding for programming.

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But at the program level, almost all

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of the resources really emphasized

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how can we get these individuals to be more resilient.

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They were not focused on making sure there's adequate

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housing or decent work or, or fair pay.

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Um, these are the kind of broad concerns

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that produce the need for resilience in a city like Toronto,

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which is incredibly wealthy and also has

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growing systemic inequality.

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Right now we have a huge housing crisis, partly

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because of the lack of, of, of building affordable housing,

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especially social housing funded by the government.

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And it is not a surprise

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that the public rhetoric now is turning

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to blaming immigrants as if they are the people

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who are causing the housing crisis

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and not the policy decision makers.

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So we, we saw the concept of resilience mobilize

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to really locate who's in need of resilience

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to worry about people who might need resilience,

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but also the failure of governments to reinforce

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and do that kind of social interaction piece

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to make sure the environments were actually conducive

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to living a decent life.

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You know, we're, we're still trying to play around

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with this concept, so we started noticing,

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various public education campaigns,

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especially prior to the pandemic.

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Um, I say that because the timing

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of the covid pandemic really shifted so many concerns.

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So in the years prior 20 18, 20 19, we saw,

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especially in the city

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of Toronto public education campaigns in partnership

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with community-based organizations

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who are supporting immigrant settlement,

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doing anti-racist work, specifically the Ontario Council

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for Agency serving immigrants, for example, really aiming to

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present a social responsibility

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for all the entire public to address systemic racism,

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Islamophobia, anti trans sentiment,

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the intersecting kind of inequalities through, yeah,

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as a civic responsibility.

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And they use the concept of resilience as a way

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to talk about the strength of diversity.

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This is a common motto in many,

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municipalities across Toronto, I'm sorry, across Canada,

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perhaps across East Western Europe as well.

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This idea that we have increasing ethnic racial

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faith diversity, and this can be a resource, a resource

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for ideas, a resource for just, you know, inter,

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inter-community benefit.

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It can also produce a lot of conflict.

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So this idea of resilience was to acknowledge

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that this incredible diversity might require each

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and every one of us to understand, to learn,

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and to even check our own biases.

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So the idea of civic resilience also is a wonderful idea.

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How can we each carry the responsibility

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to produce an equitable inclusive society?

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At the same time, similar to the rhetoric

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around individual resilience

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that we saw in program development for youth,

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for pregnant mothers, we saw the civic re

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responsibility also downloaded to the individual.

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So the resources that the city had was for public education,

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which I'm a big proponent of,

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but was not necessarily, again,

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to address those real systemic inequities.

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So we have grassroots organizations calling for decent work,

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calling for fair pay,

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and then as the pandemic hit, calling for access

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to those emergency funds that were available,

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but often excluded,

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especially racialized women working in part-time jobs

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who didn't have enough work hours to have, you know, seen

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as deserving of emergency funding during the pandemic.

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So you saw, again, this disconnect

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between the structural inequities that are producing

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so much inequality and actually fan a lot

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of intergroup conflict.

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Um, and then this kind of romantic idea of civic resilience

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and responsibility that individuals

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can take on on their own.

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I mean, I think at the political rhetoric side, there's

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so many things happening at once.

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So I don't, and I'm not a political scientist.

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Um, I do think that across Canada

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and I think in different regions of Western Europe,

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I know in my own region of Assam, they're trying

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to consider, multiculturalism a version of that

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as an antidote to the Hindu nationalism at ethno nationalism

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that frankly is prevailing right now.

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So certainly I don't think that

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promoting civic resilience is a bad thing,

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especially if the alternative is ethno racism.

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Um, I do worry about the,

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the lack of political will

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to address the fundamental producers of in inequity.

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So not providing decent wage,

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not providing affordable childcare, not providing,

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you know, like healthcare to people who are in emergency,

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response mode.

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Um, we have universal healthcare, of a kind in Canada,

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but it is still tied to your legal

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relationship to this state.

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So a growing number of people living in Canada

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who are migrants have a temporary work

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permit or study permit.

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They're very vulnerable

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because they're dependent on their employer

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or their education.

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I know if I have a student

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with who's an international study permit holder

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and they do badly on a grade

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and in graduate education, like they can't get below a 70%,

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they can lose their status

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and then be precarious in the country, and they may

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or may not have the resources even to return home quickly.

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Um, if a health crisis ensues in that moment,

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they're often left out in the cold.

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So we have a lot of social problems that are not going

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to be addressed just by the rhetoric of resilience.

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Um, on the other hand, I do hope for systemic change.

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We have grassroots movements really

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calling for these changes.

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The federal wage minimum wage did go up this last week on

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April 1st in Canada.

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I don't think it is yet a decent wage,

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but it did not happen without grassroots movement.

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So that's where I see the potential for resilience

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is in the mobilization from communities making demands

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and calling on the state to hear when they say

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that they're suffering in various ways.

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Thank you. Yes. So I'm so excited

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because when we were on this partnership grant,

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remember I said I was wary about a project that,

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was growing around the concept of resilience

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and one of our community partners at the time.

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So I'm based at a university

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and love working with folks

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who are based in community-based organizations.

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Um, and I think the, in this organization,

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access Alliance Multicultural Health Center, they're funded

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by the province to provide primary healthcare,

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but also do a lot of research, community-based research

14:47.875 --> 14:51.055
and, grassroots supports, especially to people who are,

14:51.120 --> 14:52.485
are uninsured,

14:52.615 --> 14:54.525
under the provincial health insurance plan.

14:55.185 --> 14:59.285
So one of the, my colleagues I'm looking at on my notes,

14:59.305 --> 15:03.125
so again, Shaki, who was at Access Alliance at the time,

15:03.225 --> 15:04.605
he proposed the idea

15:04.985 --> 15:06.885
of looking at transformative resilience.

15:07.425 --> 15:10.525
And he and I both had ongoing relationships

15:10.555 --> 15:14.005
with various migrant led community action organizations.

15:14.175 --> 15:17.325
These were very grassroots groups, some of which were able

15:17.325 --> 15:19.845
to tap into some public funds to deliver services,

15:20.305 --> 15:23.805
but were built on this amalgamation of mutual aid,

15:24.225 --> 15:27.645
direct service, advocacy and collective action.

15:28.305 --> 15:32.965
Um, all of these things became, to some extent, more visible

15:33.105 --> 15:34.805
during the pandemic, but we, again,

15:34.805 --> 15:36.485
we started this work in 2019.

15:37.305 --> 15:39.085
So through RA's partnership

15:39.085 --> 15:41.965
with the Tibetan community in Toronto, these are folks

15:42.025 --> 15:44.085
who are resettled often.

15:44.085 --> 15:45.925
For the third time in Canada,

15:46.515 --> 15:48.685
there's a small community living in the

15:48.755 --> 15:49.965
west side of Toronto.

15:50.395 --> 15:52.045
They're incredible organizers

15:52.045 --> 15:54.965
because of the intergenerational displacement

15:54.965 --> 15:56.805
and trauma of ongoing occupation

15:57.145 --> 16:00.245
and violence in Tibet by the Chinese, government.

16:00.905 --> 16:04.845
And as immigrants who had to come and flee, oftentimes

16:04.845 --> 16:06.685
because they were stateless people in India

16:06.705 --> 16:09.285
and Nepal, they, they came to Toronto

16:09.745 --> 16:14.205
to continue the ongoing struggle for freedom in Tibet

16:14.785 --> 16:17.605
and to hold the world accountable for failing

16:17.745 --> 16:19.285
to support their sovereignty

16:19.465 --> 16:22.085
and protect their rights to live on their territories.

16:22.825 --> 16:25.605
At the same time, they're experiencing many

16:25.605 --> 16:28.365
of the structural inequalities that I already mentioned,

16:28.365 --> 16:31.525
inability to find decent work, affordable housing,

16:31.755 --> 16:34.485
childcare, healthcare for their loved ones,

16:34.665 --> 16:36.445
and also working with the immigration system

16:36.445 --> 16:37.965
because many of their family members

16:38.065 --> 16:41.085
and community members who were stateless were unable

16:41.085 --> 16:43.045
to arrive as refugees

16:43.045 --> 16:45.765
because you need a passport to apply for refugee status.

16:46.505 --> 16:48.445
So they started mobilizing

16:48.465 --> 16:51.165
and doing what they've already been doing for generations,

16:51.225 --> 16:53.725
mutual aid, direct service,

16:54.165 --> 16:55.645
advocacy and collective action.

16:55.825 --> 16:57.485
Simultaneously, I was working

16:57.485 --> 17:00.325
with a grassroots organization on the east side

17:00.325 --> 17:03.365
of Toronto called the South Asian Women Rights Organization,

17:04.035 --> 17:07.965
primarily led by women coming from the region of Bangladesh.

17:08.355 --> 17:11.445
They arrived through Canada's economic immigrant program.

17:11.665 --> 17:13.845
So on paper, these are considered the most

17:13.845 --> 17:14.965
desirable immigrants.

17:14.965 --> 17:17.365
They have to pre-qualify based on their education,

17:17.375 --> 17:18.525
their work experience.

17:18.995 --> 17:21.605
Many of the women were accompanying their husbands

17:21.875 --> 17:25.005
because of the gender inequality they also experienced in

17:25.005 --> 17:27.645
their home region of Bangladesh,

17:28.065 --> 17:31.645
and yet they had incredible experience doing mutual aid,

17:31.665 --> 17:33.365
direct service and support in their home

17:33.365 --> 17:35.165
communities and collective actions.

17:35.225 --> 17:38.245
So they brought these knowledges to Canada

17:38.825 --> 17:39.885
and in the different spaces,

17:40.175 --> 17:43.205
these communities were struggling with systemic inequities,

17:43.705 --> 17:48.245
but also building strength in community by holding space

17:48.265 --> 17:49.965
for each other, understanding

17:49.985 --> 17:51.845
and witnessing each other's suffering,

17:52.305 --> 17:55.325
and again, providing those immediate resources.

17:55.425 --> 17:58.525
The mutual aid for childcare, the support defined

17:58.705 --> 18:02.445
as Sultana Jge would say that first job that you're,

18:02.905 --> 18:04.845
you're immediately qualified for, which

18:04.865 --> 18:07.645
for many racialized immigrant women from Bangladesh whose

18:07.645 --> 18:10.285
credentials, even if they have higher education,

18:10.385 --> 18:14.205
are not seen as useful in Canada, may have

18:14.205 --> 18:17.405
to get a really terrible job either in fast food

18:17.465 --> 18:18.765
or factory manufacturing,

18:18.815 --> 18:20.525
where they have very minimal rights.

18:20.925 --> 18:23.645
A lot of temp agencies are, you know,

18:24.565 --> 18:26.445
predator predatory in these communities.

18:26.465 --> 18:28.925
And these are kind of the just in time labor requirements

18:28.925 --> 18:31.405
where you might show up because they've asked you to show up

18:31.405 --> 18:33.285
for a shift and then they don't need you.

18:33.305 --> 18:35.565
So they don't pay you or they have you work

18:35.565 --> 18:36.645
and they still don't pay you.

18:36.985 --> 18:39.245
But without the labor protections, even though they are,

18:39.245 --> 18:41.325
they're in law without the resources

18:41.425 --> 18:43.085
to support their labor rights.

18:43.585 --> 18:45.645
So in these two communities, we saw

18:46.385 --> 18:47.765
all the different forms of resilience.

18:47.945 --> 18:50.885
We saw individual resilience, incredible capacity

18:50.885 --> 18:53.685
of individuals to overcome

18:54.315 --> 18:56.285
like insurmountable challenges

18:56.285 --> 18:58.325
through the trans national migration process

18:58.425 --> 19:00.645
and their own families dealing with family conflict,

19:00.655 --> 19:02.965
maybe family violence, dealing with poverty,

19:03.665 --> 19:06.405
and also the systemic inequities in the capitalist

19:06.405 --> 19:07.405
racialized market.

19:08.105 --> 19:11.285
We also saw the collective action, collective forms

19:11.285 --> 19:13.165
of resilience, people supporting each other

19:13.165 --> 19:16.085
through exchanging resources, exchanging knowledges.

19:16.355 --> 19:19.365
When the pandemic hit, there was this incredible way

19:19.365 --> 19:22.085
that the kind of intergenerational knowledge was tapped

19:22.175 --> 19:25.085
where the young people, not to say only young people know

19:25.225 --> 19:26.965
how to use the internet, but they were

19:26.965 --> 19:28.125
setting up the zoom calls.

19:28.435 --> 19:30.005
They were mobilizing social media,

19:30.465 --> 19:33.165
and then those with the language skills were taking those

19:33.165 --> 19:35.645
emergency respons bulletins from the federal government,

19:35.645 --> 19:37.445
which were only offered in English and French,

19:37.825 --> 19:40.365
and every night going on Zoom

19:40.425 --> 19:41.445
and translating them,

19:41.445 --> 19:43.725
interpreting them into multiple languages.

19:43.955 --> 19:46.165
This was incredible form of community resilience.

19:46.825 --> 19:49.325
But the transformative part is the part

19:49.325 --> 19:52.045
that I think is almost the secret ingredient

19:52.095 --> 19:53.485
where the magic is happening.

19:53.995 --> 19:55.485
This is that vision of the world

19:55.715 --> 19:59.285
that the communities are creating that doesn't yet exist,

20:00.035 --> 20:03.445
that vision of Canada, that is not yet fully equitable,

20:03.445 --> 20:05.445
that's not living up to its liberal principles

20:05.445 --> 20:07.885
of human rights and self-determination

20:07.985 --> 20:09.805
and respect for human dignity.

20:10.465 --> 20:13.125
So they look at these words on paper in the municipal

20:13.125 --> 20:14.325
government, in the provincial government,

20:14.325 --> 20:17.685
in the federal government, and they challenge all of us

20:18.025 --> 20:19.925
to make them more real than they currently are.

20:20.225 --> 20:22.045
So this is that transformative piece

20:22.315 --> 20:24.725
that we really learned from the migrant organizers

20:25.115 --> 20:27.805
that is currently missing, I think, in public rhetoric

20:28.105 --> 20:32.805
and would love to see more of this, sharing of resources

20:33.025 --> 20:35.965
so that we can meet these full, the full potential

20:36.085 --> 20:37.205
of these grand ideas.

20:37.725 --> 20:40.085
I mean, I think in the neoliberal era that we're in,

20:40.215 --> 20:44.765
especially in this era where the media as well

20:44.765 --> 20:46.805
as political rhetoric is increasingly governed

20:47.225 --> 20:50.245
By private capital, I'm always wary

20:50.385 --> 20:52.525
of even the best concepts

20:52.625 --> 20:54.085
as they're mobilized in these spaces.

20:54.945 --> 20:58.605
Um, so I don't want to put my investment in any one idea,

20:59.105 --> 21:01.125
rather, I think it's gonna be through relationships.

21:01.185 --> 21:02.205
And again, this is something

21:02.205 --> 21:04.245
that I'm learning from indigenous communities

21:04.825 --> 21:06.285
who are struggling

21:06.345 --> 21:10.085
and promoting indigenous knowledges that have been held

21:10.105 --> 21:13.725
for generations, but often are not seen as, as credible.

21:14.345 --> 21:18.125
So building these relationships in community across these

21:18.125 --> 21:19.405
different sectors so

21:19.405 --> 21:22.085
that the grassroots community leaders are sitting at the

21:22.085 --> 21:25.405
table and are held into account by their community,

21:25.665 --> 21:28.325
but also are, have the resources

21:28.345 --> 21:31.125
to hold their state representatives to account.

21:31.605 --> 21:33.925
I think it's through that collective struggle

21:34.465 --> 21:36.245
across the different levels of power

21:36.435 --> 21:37.925
that we're gonna see meaningful change.

21:37.925 --> 21:39.005
Whether it's through the concept

21:39.005 --> 21:41.925
of resilience at an individual collectives, social

21:42.505 --> 21:43.685
or transformative level,

21:44.205 --> 21:46.405
I don't think it'll be meaningful just through rhetoric.

21:46.675 --> 21:49.125
It's going to have to happen through these relationships,

21:49.235 --> 21:50.445
through working together

21:50.705 --> 21:53.325
and tackling some of these intractable problems

21:53.665 --> 21:55.605
to bring about a vision of change

21:55.605 --> 21:58.085
that hopefully will benefit all I.

Intersections of Resilience and Colonial History

00:00:00 - Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the question. before I begin, I, I wanted to honor the territories that I'm speaking to you from. I'm in a very rainy day here in what is now called Toronto Ontario, and I work at the University of Toronto, which sits on the territories of, the nee, the Huron Wenda, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the credit, who for many generations have been caretakers of this territory. And through a treaty with the British Crown in the 1820s,
00:00:37 - of Canada and myself, who has family that originated in what is now called India, a territory that was also, governed under British Empire for many decades. so my trajectory here is deeply intertwined with colonial presence on territories. And as an immigrant through the colonial nation of Canada, I'm constantly trying to understand my own role
00:01:08 - and sovereignty, both through the grassroots organizing and the incredible political advocacy within the systems that we have. Systems of governance, as well as through expressions of art and epistemology, some of which I hope to touch upon when I think about resilience. so myself as someone who's situated in the university, but also working closely with many migrant communities in Toronto, in the United States where I grew up, as well
00:01:39 - My family is from Assam. I've often wondered about how do we understand the capacity of individuals, so resilience to cope with, overcome and thrive, despite facing many systemic inequalities, barriers that might dehumanize them, but also deprive them from basic rights. within the concept of social work, it is a concept that has been beholden for many decades because it offers a promise to work with individuals,
00:02:12 - This is something social workers, especially in the North American context, do, to help them overcome many different kinds of intersecting harms. They might be through interpersonal challenges, but also the structural inequalities that produce inequality and then can be embodied and expressed through ill health, poverty and forms of violence. But at the same time, working with migrants in the Toronto region, especially those who have precarious status, who are undocumented or have a temporary status, the concept
00:02:46 - download all of the responsibility to the individual. So in this project, with support from a partnership that was funded by the federal government, looking at building migrant resilience in cities, We sought to understand how is this concept being used in different levels of government. In this case, we started with the city of Toronto, as well as the province of Ontario. Looking at the policy documents, the policy discourse,

Resilience Within Immigrant Population Growth Context

00:03:17 - program development, specifically in the context of rapid growth population growth. It's primarily driven by immigrants in this region. To be honest, I was apprehensive to join a project that was constructed around the concept of resilience because of my wariness, of how it does fit into the neoliberal project of requiring individuals to be self-sufficient self-sustaining, and to moderate their needs
00:03:49 - that's a very dark view of resilience. I mean, who doesn't wanna be resilient? I wanna be resilient. I want the people I love and care for to be resilient, but I don't know what it means when a governing body or when a profession like social work is using resilience in that way. So I've been reading up on psychological definitions of resilience and the shift, especially in social work, but across disciplines to more social conceptualizations
00:04:20 - and Michael Ungar. These are folks who are trying to look at the dynamic interplay between individuals and their environment, both their social environment, but also their ecological environment. So any one person or individual is not only recovering and coping, they're also exchanging resources, ideas, and transmitting visions of what could be through those social interactions in a very dynamic way. So thinking about resilience
00:04:51 - we took up the concept of transformative resilience to see in what ways, one, the different municipal and provincial governments were mobilizing resilience, especially in the context of rapid population growth and the kind of interest in managing diversity, given the many different kinds of inequities that are layered by racial capitalism, systemic inequality, ongoing systemic racism.
00:05:21 - of ongoing war in Gaza, the anti-Islamic phobic, politics that can frame everyday interactions. So at the city level, we saw on the one hand this desire to identify subjects in need of resilience. This is a kind of typical policy. policy aim is to understand who do we need to worry about and to construct the deserving, the more deserving in order to allocate resources.
00:05:54 - with equity discourse and diversity discourse and inclusion discourse. So as this kind of broad claim that we lay out a concern in the population for, especially for immigrants who are settling in Toronto, who may be experiencing intersecting systemic harms, because we want them to be included, we want to have equitable outcomes, and we want them to be resilient. So this is speaking from the city discourse. Similarly, at the provincial level, we saw,

Understanding Resilience Among Migrants and Youth

00:06:25 - and institutes that are governing health and mental health, especially amongst youth, was to use the concept of resilience to try to locate who are the people in need of resilience. On the one hand, there's this recognition that many migrants come already resilient, again, thinking in that psychological sense because they've overcome perhaps, of their refugees or forced migrants incredible hardships prior to coming to Canada. And also the process of settlement.
00:06:57 - innovation, adaptability, these are all concepts. Again, that kind of echo this idea of individual resilience. So we have at the government level this need to identify who's in need of resilience and then also how to flood resources to spaces to support their resilience. All of these ideas seem really heartwarming. And actually, as I teach social work students, I started hearing more and more that they were using this language in their grants
00:07:27 - but they were working with adolescent youth who were experiencing gun violence, where they were working with mothers who are pregnant and trying to seek healthcare. Thinking about resilience in those ways seemed to make sense. At the same time, in the policy discourse, we definitely saw this disconnect where on the one hand there was an acknowledgement of systemic inequities and the need to identify people who may already have some capacity for resilience or are in need of resilience
00:07:58 - But at the program level, almost all of the resources really emphasized how can we get these individuals to be more resilient. They were not focused on making sure there's adequate housing or decent work or, or fair pay. these are the kind of broad concerns that produce the need for resilience in a city like Toronto, which is incredibly wealthy and also has growing systemic inequality. Right now we have a huge housing crisis, partly
00:08:32 - especially social housing funded by the government. And it is not a surprise that the public rhetoric now is turning to blaming immigrants as if they are the people who are causing the housing crisis and not the policy decision makers. So we, we saw the concept of resilience mobilize to really locate who's in need of resilience to worry about people who might need resilience, but also the failure of governments to reinforce
00:09:01 - to make sure the environments were actually conducive to living a decent life. You know, we're, we're still trying to play around with this concept, so we started noticing, various public education campaigns, especially prior to the pandemic. I say that because the timing of the covid pandemic really shifted so many concerns. So in the years prior 20 18, 20 19, we saw, especially in the city of Toronto public education campaigns in partnership

Building Civic Resilience Amidst Diversity Challenges

00:09:33 - who are supporting immigrant settlement, doing anti-racist work, specifically the Ontario Council for Agency serving immigrants, for example, really aiming to present a social responsibility for all the entire public to address systemic racism, Islamophobia, anti trans sentiment, the intersecting kind of inequalities through, yeah,
00:10:02 - And they use the concept of resilience as a way to talk about the strength of diversity. This is a common motto in many, municipalities across Toronto, I'm sorry, across Canada, perhaps across East Western Europe as well. This idea that we have increasing ethnic racial faith diversity, and this can be a resource, a resource for ideas, a resource for just, you know, inter, inter-community benefit. It can also produce a lot of conflict.
00:10:35 - that this incredible diversity might require each and every one of us to understand, to learn, and to even check our own biases. So the idea of civic resilience also is a wonderful idea. How can we each carry the responsibility to produce an equitable inclusive society? At the same time, similar to the rhetoric around individual resilience that we saw in program development for youth, for pregnant mothers, we saw the civic re
00:11:07 - So the resources that the city had was for public education, which I'm a big proponent of, but was not necessarily, again, to address those real systemic inequities. So we have grassroots organizations calling for decent work, calling for fair pay, and then as the pandemic hit, calling for access to those emergency funds that were available, but often excluded, especially racialized women working in part-time jobs who didn't have enough work hours to have, you know, seen
00:11:42 - So you saw, again, this disconnect between the structural inequities that are producing so much inequality and actually fan a lot of intergroup conflict. and then this kind of romantic idea of civic resilience and responsibility that individuals can take on on their own. I mean, I think at the political rhetoric side, there's so many things happening at once. So I don't, and I'm not a political scientist. I do think that across Canada
00:12:13 - I know in my own region of Assam, they're trying to consider, multiculturalism a version of that as an antidote to the Hindu nationalism at ethno nationalism that frankly is prevailing right now. So certainly I don't think that promoting civic resilience is a bad thing, especially if the alternative is ethno racism. I do worry about the, the lack of political will

Addressing Migrant Inequities and Resilience Needs

00:12:46 - So not providing decent wage, not providing affordable childcare, not providing, you know, like healthcare to people who are in emergency, response mode. we have universal healthcare, of a kind in Canada, but it is still tied to your legal relationship to this state. So a growing number of people living in Canada who are migrants have a temporary work permit or study permit.
00:13:13 - because they're dependent on their employer or their education. I know if I have a student with who's an international study permit holder and they do badly on a grade and in graduate education, like they can't get below a 70%, they can lose their status and then be precarious in the country, and they may or may not have the resources even to return home quickly. if a health crisis ensues in that moment, they're often left out in the cold. So we have a lot of social problems that are not going to be addressed just by the rhetoric of resilience.
00:13:50 - We have grassroots movements really calling for these changes. The federal wage minimum wage did go up this last week on April 1st in Canada. I don't think it is yet a decent wage, but it did not happen without grassroots movement. So that's where I see the potential for resilience is in the mobilization from communities making demands and calling on the state to hear when they say
00:14:17 - Thank you. Yes. So I'm so excited because when we were on this partnership grant, remember I said I was wary about a project that, was growing around the concept of resilience and one of our community partners at the time. So I'm based at a university and love working with folks who are based in community-based organizations. and I think the, in this organization, access Alliance Multicultural Health Center, they're funded by the province to provide primary healthcare, but also do a lot of research, community-based research
00:14:51 - are uninsured, under the provincial health insurance plan. So one of the, my colleagues I'm looking at on my notes, so again, Shaki, who was at Access Alliance at the time, he proposed the idea of looking at transformative resilience. And he and I both had ongoing relationships with various migrant led community action organizations. These were very grassroots groups, some of which were able to tap into some public funds to deliver services,
00:15:24 - direct service, advocacy and collective action. all of these things became, to some extent, more visible during the pandemic, but we, again, we started this work in 2019. So through RA's partnership with the Tibetan community in Toronto, these are folks who are resettled often. For the third time in Canada, there's a small community living in the west side of Toronto.

Resilience Among Displaced Communities in Toronto

00:15:52 - because of the intergenerational displacement and trauma of ongoing occupation and violence in Tibet by the Chinese, government. And as immigrants who had to come and flee, oftentimes because they were stateless people in India and Nepal, they, they came to Toronto to continue the ongoing struggle for freedom in Tibet and to hold the world accountable for failing to support their sovereignty and protect their rights to live on their territories.
00:16:25 - of the structural inequalities that I already mentioned, inability to find decent work, affordable housing, childcare, healthcare for their loved ones, and also working with the immigration system because many of their family members and community members who were stateless were unable to arrive as refugees because you need a passport to apply for refugee status. So they started mobilizing and doing what they've already been doing for generations, mutual aid, direct service,
00:16:55 - Simultaneously, I was working with a grassroots organization on the east side of Toronto called the South Asian Women Rights Organization, primarily led by women coming from the region of Bangladesh. They arrived through Canada's economic immigrant program. So on paper, these are considered the most desirable immigrants. They have to pre-qualify based on their education, their work experience. Many of the women were accompanying their husbands because of the gender inequality they also experienced in
00:17:28 - and yet they had incredible experience doing mutual aid, direct service and support in their home communities and collective actions. So they brought these knowledges to Canada and in the different spaces, these communities were struggling with systemic inequities, but also building strength in community by holding space for each other, understanding and witnessing each other's suffering, and again, providing those immediate resources.
00:17:58 - as Sultana Jge would say that first job that you're, you're immediately qualified for, which for many racialized immigrant women from Bangladesh whose credentials, even if they have higher education, are not seen as useful in Canada, may have to get a really terrible job either in fast food or factory manufacturing, where they have very minimal rights. A lot of temp agencies are, you know, predator predatory in these communities.
00:18:28 - where you might show up because they've asked you to show up for a shift and then they don't need you. So they don't pay you or they have you work and they still don't pay you. But without the labor protections, even though they are, they're in law without the resources to support their labor rights. So in these two communities, we saw all the different forms of resilience. We saw individual resilience, incredible capacity of individuals to overcome like insurmountable challenges through the trans national migration process

Community Resilience and Collective Action Insights

00:19:00 - maybe family violence, dealing with poverty, and also the systemic inequities in the capitalist racialized market. We also saw the collective action, collective forms of resilience, people supporting each other through exchanging resources, exchanging knowledges. When the pandemic hit, there was this incredible way that the kind of intergenerational knowledge was tapped where the young people, not to say only young people know how to use the internet, but they were setting up the zoom calls.
00:19:30 - and then those with the language skills were taking those emergency respons bulletins from the federal government, which were only offered in English and French, and every night going on Zoom and translating them, interpreting them into multiple languages. This was incredible form of community resilience. But the transformative part is the part that I think is almost the secret ingredient where the magic is happening. This is that vision of the world that the communities are creating that doesn't yet exist,
00:20:03 - that's not living up to its liberal principles of human rights and self-determination and respect for human dignity. So they look at these words on paper in the municipal government, in the provincial government, in the federal government, and they challenge all of us to make them more real than they currently are. So this is that transformative piece that we really learned from the migrant organizers that is currently missing, I think, in public rhetoric and would love to see more of this, sharing of resources
00:20:36 - of these grand ideas. I mean, I think in the neoliberal era that we're in, especially in this era where the media as well as political rhetoric is increasingly governed By private capital, I'm always wary of even the best concepts as they're mobilized in these spaces. so I don't want to put my investment in any one idea, rather, I think it's gonna be through relationships. And again, this is something that I'm learning from indigenous communities
00:21:06 - and promoting indigenous knowledges that have been held for generations, but often are not seen as, as credible. So building these relationships in community across these different sectors so that the grassroots community leaders are sitting at the table and are held into account by their community, but also are, have the resources to hold their state representatives to account. I think it's through that collective struggle across the different levels of power
00:21:55 - Whether it's through the concept of resilience at an individual collectives, social or transformative level, I don't think it'll be meaningful just through rhetoric. It's going to have to happen through these relationships, through working together and tackling some of these intractable problems to bring about a vision of change that hopefully will benefit all I.

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