Transnational identities in the Canadian context: Kurdish refugee youth as actors and citizens
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2020
Abstract
This study explores the circumstances of Kurdish refugee youth in Canada. Using a critical ethnographic approach, I interviewed twenty young people, aged 15–30, to examine their transnational identities and lived experiences in the Canadian context. Arendt’s notion of the right to have rights, Isin’s concept of acts of citizenship, and Hall’s concept of state hegemony proved to be useful theoretical tools to examine the exclusion of refugee youth from the educational market and their statelessness, rightlessness, and statuslessness in the nation-states. The interview data indicate that the statelessness and statuslessness of refugee youth stem from the practices of hegemony, assimilation, and racism by their home and host state. The study also suggests the importance of questioning the state’s hegemony and the domination of the western construction of citizenship to provide alternative forms of social and educational participation that can transform the youths’ status from refugees to actors and citizens.
Publication Title
Race Ethnicity and Education
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1080/13613324.2020.1718081
ISSN
13613324
E-ISSN
1470109X
Citation Information
Kayaalp, D. (2020). Transnational identities in the Canadian context: Kurdish refugee youth as actors and citizens. Race Ethnicity and Education, 1-19.