History Speaker Series: Caribbean Migrants to Canada, Domestic Violence and the Federal Court

Friday, February 11, 2022 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EST (GMT -05:00)

History Speaker Series 2021-22

Caribbean Migrants to Canada, Domestic Violence and the Federal Court

Dr Barrington Walker

Associate vice-president, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and professor in the Department of History at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Friday February 11, 11:00am Eastern time via Microsoft Teams

Professor Barrington Walker

This paper is a work in progress and part of my ongoing research on the experiences of Black people in Canada and their encounters with the ‘racial state’ over time. This particular presentation focuses on the cases of two twenty first century Caribbean migrants who made refugee claims based on the domestic violence that they suffered in their countries of origin and the Canadian state’s response. This presentation will touch on the legal considerations, arguments, and bodies of law that shaped these cases. It will also pay attention to the role of legal officials. For this particular talk, however, we will pay equal attention to making sense of these stories by carefully considering the broad historical contexts that shaped them. Among these are long histories of Blackness in Canada, anti-Black racism, resistance, gender, migration, refugee policies and humanitarianism.

This event is in collaboration with Ujima Black History Month. For more university and community related Black History Month events, please visit their website.