Pursuing permanence: former international students’ trajectories to permanent residency in Canada

Abstract

This exploratory study investigates former international students’ experiences pursuing permanent status with the use of primary data from interviews with five individuals. Guided by the question, “what characterizes former international students’ trajectories to permanent residence” and based on the understanding that discourses of exclusion and control inform immigration policies today (Fobear, 2014), personal experiences are explored as realities of temporariness in which subjects are contained by the following forms of regulation: time limits, employment specificity, and temporary legal status. Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory is employed to showcase participants as “knowledgeable” (Sewell, 1992:4) and reflexive agents (Turner, 1986); how they persevere and negotiate their way to permanent residence by enacting creative strategies and enduring the emotional labour that characterize their search for and securing of ‘skilled’ employment while mitigating the immediate need for income, in reframing their mindsets and in their reflections upon the meaning of their pursuits for permanence.