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.
Tania Das Gupta is a professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, York University. She is currently also the Affirmative Action, Equity, and Inclusivity Officer there. She is the author of Real Nurses and Others: Racism in Nursing and Racism and Paid Work, and co-editor, with Carl E. James, Chris Andersen, Grace-Edward Galabuzi, and Roger C.A. Maaka, of Race and Racialization: Essential Readings. She has long experience in community work with immigrant women and anti-racism, and has acted as a consultant for human rights lawyers and nurses' groups on numerous cases of racial harassment.