Abstract

This is an ethnographic study of Montreal's community of refugee advocates who work on behalf of refugees making requests to the Canadian government for asylum. The goal of this thesis is to portray who refugee advocates are, what they do, how they do it, and why. The study reveals that the work of advocacy requires building and maintaining networks through information exchange and that the successes of these networks are dependent upon the individuals in them. This thesis makes contributions to three areas of literature and research: (1) Refugee studies: Most research in this field has been undertaken within development discourse and conducted in the so-called "Third World". This thesis locates refugee rights as a "First World" issue and makes visible the work of refugee advocacy in one North American urban setting; (2) Advocacy anthropology: This thesis is based on grounded, collaborative, ethnographic fieldwork and responds to the expressed wish of advocates for a qualitative study--previous evaluations tended to be quantitative. This approach helps ensure that the research be done with and for rather than on the community; (3) Cyborg anthropology: The thesis describes and analyzes the use of communications technology for community activism using the ethnographic example of TIM--a local bulletin board system where information on refugee advocacy is exchanged. Methodologically, the thesis is innovative in that research is conducted both off-line and on-line. Also, life history narratives are recorded which reveal a community that identifies on the basis of conscious coalition, political kinship, or affinity.