# Middle Class Nation-building through Immigration? (2022) ## expand\_more ## September 21–23, 2022 ## About the Conference From Nicolas Sarkozy to Donald Trump, many Western leaders have expressed envy of Canada’s market-driven immigration policy, which, in the words of the former French President privileges immigration “chosen” not “endured” immigration. Striving to reboot its economy hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Canadian government further boosts immigration levels, specifically highly skilled economic immigration. This workshop will situate Canada’s ethnically heterogeneous middle-class nation-building in a comparative perspective. Indeed, many UN member states have tabled legislation that emulate the Canadian example of facilitating the influx of ethnoculturally diverse upper middle-class immigrants. These political decisions come at a time of unprecedented opposition by native populations in North America and Europe to what they see as the dismantling of their social and cultural citizenship rights by alleged global elites and unwanted migrants. This workshop addresses the opportunities, challenges, and shortfalls of ethnically diverse middle-class nation-building against the backdrop of increasing divisions along the lines of class, culture, and status in receiving societies who also happen to be liberal democracies. Panellists provide answers to the following questions: Is there such as thing as middle-class nation-building through immigration? If so, a) how is its current version different from past editions and b) what are potential national/regional variations? Furthermore, what are the normative, political, and empirical prospects and pitfalls of this new logic of remodelling membership in the polity? ## Wednesday, September 21 *Room 212, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge* ### 5:00 Welcome reception ### 6:00 Dinner ## Thursday, September 22 *Room 205, Harvard Faculty Club 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge* ### 8:45–9:00 Coffee, pastries, fruit ### 9:00–10:00 Opening remarks - **Michèle Lamont**, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies, Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies - **Elke Winter**, Professor of Sociology, University of Ottawa and William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies, Harvard University ### The Race for Talent and its Discontents ### 10:00–11:00 Session I **Immigration to Build the Nation, Not to Transform it. Preferences in Immigrants’ National Origin and Social Classes in Quebec** - **Antoine Bilodeau**, Concordia University and Audrey Gagnon, University of Oslo - Chair: **Oliver Schmidtke**, University of Victoria - Discussants: **Giovanni Matera**, Harvard University, and **Mathieu Lizotte**, University of Ottawa ### 11:00–11:15 Coffee Break ### 11:15–12:15 Session II **Race for Talent: Immigrants, Refugees and the Tenacity of a Discourse on Skills in Canada** - **Yasmeen Abu-Laban**, University of Alberta - Chair: **Benjamin Zyla,** University of Ottawa - Discussants: **Mary Waters**, Harvard University, and **George Borjas**, Harvard University ### 12:15–1:30 Lunch, Room 212 ### 1:30–2:30 Session III **Bound by Time: Temporary Migration Schemes in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates** - **David Cook-Martin**, University of Colorado, Boulder - Chair: **Antoine Bilodeau**, Concordia University - Discussant: **Jackie Bhabha**, Harvard University ### Migration and Neoliberalism ### 2:30–3:30 Session IV **Skillful and Classless? Immigration, Nation, and Class from a Transnational Perspective** - **Magdalena Nowicka**, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Chair: **Efe Peker**, University of Ottawa - Discussant: **Natasha Warikoo**, Tufts University ### 3:30–4:00 Coffee Break ### 4:00–5:00 Session V **The New Nation-building Nationalism: From Liberal to Neoliberal** - **Christian Joppke**, University of Bern - Chair: **Yasmeen Abu-Laban**, University of Alberta - Discussant: **Peter A. Hall**, Harvard University ## Friday, September 23 *Room 205, Harvard Faculty Club 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge* ### 8:45–9:00 Coffee, pastries, fruit ### Social Inequality and Polarizations ### 9:00–10:00 Session VI **Confronting or Incorporating Middle-class Nation-building through Immigration and Multiculturalism: Right-wing Parties in the Pan-Canadian Context** - **Efe Peker**, University of Ottawa and Elke Winter, University of Ottawa - Chair: **Magdalena Nowicka**, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ### 10:00–11:00 Session VII **Migration as a Political Wedge Issue: Germany's Centre-right and Right Wing Parties between Anti-Immigrant Nativism, Economic Nationalism, and Marketization** - **Oliver Schmidtke**, University of Victoria - Chair: **Audrey Gagnon**, University of Oslo - Discussants: **Lorenza Antonucci**, Harvard University, and **Georg Menz**, Old Dominion University ### 11:00–11:15 Coffee Break ### 11:15–12:15 Wider Perspectives, Concluding Thoughts, SI Agenda - Chair: **Elke Winter**, University of Ottawa ### 12:15–2:00 Lunch, Room 212 See also:- [ 2022–2023 ](/academic-year/2022%E2%80%932023)