Tracing the Invisible Borders of Canadian Citizenship: Critical Analysis of Social Work with Noncitizens

This thesis interrogates the notion of citizenship as a social good through critical analysis of Canadian social work with noncitizens. Drawing on multidisciplinary scholarshipcritical border scholarship, Indigenous studies, critical race studies, settler colonial studies, affect theories, and Foucaults notion of powerI consider both the historical and contemporary contexts in which social work with noncitizens has become invested in Canadian citizenship. My thesis addresses the co-constitutive dimension of border and citizenship and proposes the concept of inner borders to elucidate the ways in which inclusionary and exclusionary functions at the territorial border are internalized within the nation-state. I theorize social work as a site of inner border making where the boundaries of national membership and belonging are drawn through everyday practices of inclusion and exclusion.

Weaving together interview data with social workers, policy analysis on immigration and citizenship changes, and historical analysis of border making, I conduct three strands of analysis of border making in social work that attend to: (1) entangled histories of the settler colonial project, immigration, and social work; (2) the contemporary context of neoliberalism and its relations to social work with noncitizens; and (3) affective relations involved in social work with noncitizens. My research findings reveal that the discourse of civility is fundamental to border making in Canada. The discourse of civility was foundational to the settler colonial project, which relied on the discursive construction of Indigenous peoples as uncivilized vis--vis civilized European settlers. The discourse of civility functioned not only to legitimize the violent land dispossession by Europeans but also as a mechanism to govern the internal lives of members of Canadian society, whereby whiteness, Britishness, and masculinity were defined as the ultimate standard of progress and orderliness. Early social work played a key role in reproducing the discourse of white civility as it emerged and developed as the professional helper. The examination of contemporary social work with noncitizens reveals that, though different in its expression, the discourse of civility continues to shape the standard script of Canadian citizenship, demarcating the boundaries of national membership and belonging. However, the manner in which the discourse of civility works on, through, and within contemporary social workers is contingent and complex. My study highlights some of the ways in which the discourse of civility operates in constructing the multiple forms of inner borders in social work with noncitizens.