Exploring the Practices of Refugee Settlement Practitioners in Toronto: An Institutional Ethnography

Abstract

Using Institutional Ethnography as a method of inquiry, this study explores the institutional ruling relations that regulate refugees' settlement process in Toronto from the standpoint view of practitioners. The research team conducted 13 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with practitioners and “mapped out” their everyday living experiences. The institutional map serves to illuminate how governance structures shape the professional practices of practitioners, which shape the settlement experience of refugees. The findings indicate that practitioners strategize to meet refugees’ needs and engage in work outside of the system due to funding constraints.

Keywords:

• Settlement institution
• practitioners
• funding constraints
• institutional ethnography
• ruling relations

Acknowledgements

First, the authors acknowledge and give a special thank you to Tearney McDermott and Chloe Ouellette for their contributions to this article. The authors are also thankful to Dr. Roxan Caron, Dr. Marie Lacroix and the Journey Home Team. The authors also want to note that they are genuinely grateful to the participants for contributing their time, knowledge, insights, and voices. These contributions made this much-needed research possible.

Notes

1 A “refugee claimant” is seeking protection in Canada. This means that the individual has made a claim, but the decision has not been determined (CCR, n.d.).

2 A “standpoint position” refers to the material practices and relations anchored in reality, noting that it does not relate to inner psychological experiences, thoughts or feelings of an individual (Klostermann, 2020; Smith, 1990a, 1990b, 2002, 2005, 2006).

3 IE understands that “institutions are not viewed as singular forms of organizations, but rather as functional complexes such as education, health care, [settlement] and law, in which several forms of organizations are interwoven” (Graham, 1998, p.352).