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Irregular migration is a growing, global issue that is still undertheorized in the Canadian context. While economic globalization and capitalist expansion displace growing numbers of migrants, advanced nations including Canada are tightening their borders and increasing their immigration laws. With fewer legal migration channels available, a growing number of migrants are choosing irregular ways of life, whereby they reside, work, and raise their families underground. This paper critically assesses how irregular migration is produced and perpetuated in Canada. Following other critical migration scholars (Andrijasevic 2009; De Genova 2002; Goldring et al. 2009), I begin from the premise that not only laws, but nation-state rulers and agents, employers, and a diversity of social actors who may appear unconnected to the government engage in practices that contribute to the production of irregular migration. From this view, irregularity is seen less as a legal status and more as a sociopolitical condition generated and maintained by a range of structural and psychosocial determinants. Henceforth, I discuss several key geopolitical, juridicial, and sociopsychological determinants of irregularity in Canada. Further, I highlight the challenging conditions that constitute irregular life in the Canadian context in order to make imperative the need for social change as well as propose some directions for political action. La migration irrégulière est un phénomène global qui s’accroît, mais qui n’a pas encore été abordé dans le contexte canadien. Pendant que la globalisation économique et l’expansion du capitalisme déplacent un certain nombre d’immigrants, les pays développés, y compris le Canada resserrent leurs frontières et renforcent leurs lois d’immigrations. Avec quelques canaux de migration légaux disponibles, un nombre croissant d’immigrants choisissent les voies irrégulières de la vie, au moyen desquelles ils vivent, travaillent et élèvent leurs familles. Ce papier évalue de manière critique la façon dont la migration irrégulière se produit et se perpétue au Canada. Faisant suite à d’autres spécialistes critiques de la migration (Andrijasevic 2009; De Genova 2002; Goldring et al. 2009), je pars du principe que, non seulement les lois, mais aussi les dirigeants, les agents de l’Étatnation, les employeurs, les acteurs de la diversité sociale, qui peuvent paraitre déconnectés du gouvernement s’engagent dans des pratiques qui contribuent à la production de la migration irrégulière. De ce point de vue, l’irrégularité est considérée moins comme un statut légal ou encore une condition sociopolitique générée et maintenue par une gamme de déterminants structuraux et psychosociaux. Désormais, j’analyse quelques déterminants géographiques, juridiques et sociopsy-chologiques importants de l’irrégularité au Canada. Ensuite, je mets l’accent sur les conditions difficiles qui constituent la vie irrégulière dans le contexte canadien dans le but, non seulement de montrer le besoin impératif du changement mais aussi de proposer des orientations pour l’action politique.

Whereas cross-cultural psychology and cultural psychology have been distinguished as separate projects for decades, talk about their possible collaboration is becoming increasingly common. Several scholars have described their differences as essentially non-oppositional and the latest Handbook of Cultural Psychology combines articles from both research traditions. This paper scrutinizes these consolidating efforts first by tracing historically how the two accounts of culture (cultural and cross-cultural) developed, and second, by examining whether their long-standing epistemological premises allow for the kind of collaboration advocated by some scholars. We argue that attempts to combine the disciplines come primarily from cross-cultural psychologists who appear increasingly challenged by cultural and indigenous psychological approaches. Attempts at a merger have been twofold: on the one hand, cross-cultural psychologists who seek to preserve the status of their discipline have expanded its scope to include cultural theorists; on the other hand, cross-cultural scholars persuaded by cultural theories are creating a new blend of 'experimental cultural psychology' that seeks to accommodate both programs. These proposals, in our view, exemplify a cross-cultural discipline in crisis, struggling to account for a growing cultural psychology. We conclude that the overlapping interests between cross-cultural and cultural scholars make this a propitious time for cross-disciplinary dialogue.

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Critical migration studies emerged to trace how restrictive immigration contexts contribute to conditions of migrant “illegality” and deportability. More recently, researchers have turned to examine diversity in migrants’ experiences, revealing how migrant “illegality” and deportability can take varied forms based on different social factors, including migrants’ immigration status, developmental stage, ethno-racial background, gender, and nationality. Yet, despite increasingly nuanced and contextualized accounts of migrants’ lived experiences, the psychology of migrant “illegality” remains under-theorized, as we lack general concepts and frameworks to explain how deportability shapes, and is shaped by, migrants’ psychosocial lives. This article introduces such a framework by drawing upon findings from two ethnographic studies with undocumented migrants in Canada and the United States. Observing common psychosocial patterns in both groups, I propose cycles of deportability as a framework to capture how migrant “illegality” develops at the psychosocial level through repeated occurrences of status-related stressors, which produce both acute and chronic fears that further require distinct agencies and coping strategies. Next, I examine differences in migrants’ cycles of deportability based on their national context and immigrant generation. I conclude by discussing how this framework can help consolidate previous research findings and guide future psychological and critical migration studies.