Book Review: Distant Stage: Quebec, Brazil, and the Making of Canada’s Cultural Diplomacy

Abstract

containing diversity works, it also shows how Canada’s colonial roots still impact its immigration policy. For this reason, Abu-Laban, Tungohan, and Gabriel make a significant contribution to the contemporary literature on immigration in Canada. Echoing Abu-Laban and Gabriel’s earlier arguments in Selling Diversity, this latest book illustrates the paradox between Canada’s mechanisms of exclusion and its efforts to embrace diversity through liberal discourse on openness, multiculturalism policies, and public support for immigration. In this sense, Canada is far from being an “exception” in the twenty-first century immigration landscape. The use of an ethics-of-care perspective combined with critical political economy opens new avenues to rethink immigration in Canada, instead of seeing migrants as numbers or quantifiable objects that would contribute to certain neo-liberal objectives. One of the most exciting contributions to the immigration literature in the last few years, Containing Diversity is a valuable resource not only for migration scholars, but also for policy analysts, as well as immigrants themselves who wish to learn about Canadian immigration policies.