Macnab, Maddy

This thesis documents an oral history of the New Canadians Centre, the only immigrant-serving organization in Peterborough, Ontario. This case study builds on scholarship that critically examines immigrant settlement work in Canada. Drawing on interviews and archival research, and employing the analytical concept of home, I investigate how differently-located actors have practiced home and welcome in Peterborough in the context of settlement work. I demonstrate how the New Canadians Centre's work consolidated as well as challenged normative discourses of home that disadvantage racialized new immigrants and privilege white settlers represented as "host." I argue that this false binary between immigrant and host is harmful, inadequate in accounting for the complexities of people's lives, and easily reinforced in settlement work without efforts to challenge it. I conclude that accountability to power in settlement work is crucial to envisioning a more inclusive welcome and a more just home in Peterborough and Canada.

Author Keywords: home, immigrant settlement sector, migration, oral history, Peterborough, welcome

This short document offers key findings and conclusions from research I carried out from 2015 to 2017 as part of my Master's degree at Trent University in Canadian and Indigenous Studies. The purpose of the research was to document an oral history of the New Canadians Centre and immigration to Peterborough, focusing on the period from 1979 to 1997. I have prepared this document as a summary of the full Master's thesis for research participants. In sharing this document, I invite participants to share their feedback on the research. I will incorporate participants' feedback as I prepare the final version of the thesis, to be submitted to Trent University in January 2018.