Conditional love; representations of migrant work in Canadian newsprint media

Bibliographic Data

ID2993686
AuthorsKimiko Inouye (Toronto Metropolitan University, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume18
Issue5
Pages573-592
Publication date2012-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Identities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-4630 • E-ISSN: 1363-0296
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13504630.2012.692895
OpenAlexW1983046031
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited23

In Canada, the mainstream newsprint media contains dominant discourses of multicultural neo-liberalism. This paper explores how migrant domestic workers and migrant farm workers, as well as their citizen-employers, are represented within these discourses. Examined are the ways in which certain emotions are expressed and how these expressions shape certain conditions for migrant workers. A common tendency is that citizens, including citizen-employers of migrant workers, accept, and even claim to love migrant domestic workers and farm workers, so long as they exercise so-called good and obedient behaviour. In cases where migrant workers display any type of resistance, or rejection of the ideal multicultural, loving subject, the loving sentiment is absent. The love is therefore conditional. Lacking in the newsprint media are accounts of the historical and current realities of migrant work as an unfree form of labour. As a result, news coverage neglects a genuine call for solidarity with migrant workers. This paper seeks to deconstruct dominant representations of the subject and the other as a way to challenge them, and make way for anti-oppressive methods of representation

Economic growth · Economics · Mainstream · Media studies · Migrant workers · Multiculturalism · Newspaper · Newsprint · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solidarity · Emotional Labor in Professions · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Labor Movements and Unions · Law