Muslim Integration in France and Canada Compared

Description

In this special panel discussion, experts from France and Canada will present and discuss recent survey research assessing the integration of Muslim minorities in France, Quebec and Canada.

Program

3:50-4:00 Registration
4:00-4:05 Welcome address: Professor Randall Hansen, Director, Munk School of Global Affairs
4:05-4:10 Opening remarks: Mr. Marc Trouyet, Consul General of France in Toronto
4:10-4:40 Dr Patrick Simon, Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques (INED): “Muslims in France: Religion and the Experience of Exclusion”
4:40-5:10 Professor Jeffrey Reitz, Harney Program in Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto: “Muslims in France, Canada and Quebec: Inclusion and Exclusion across Settings”
5:10-5:20 Professor Abdie Kazemipur, Department of Sociology, University of Lethbridge
5:20-5:30 Professor Valérie Amiraux, Department of Sociology, Université de Montréal
5:30-6:00 Q&A
6:00-7:00 Reception

PATRICK SIMON is Director of Research at the Institut national d’études démographiques (National Institute for Demographic Studies; INED). He was a Visiting Scholar at the Advanced Research Collaborative program at CUNY (2015-2016) and at the Russell Sage Foundation in 2010-11. Trained as a sociodemographer at L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences; EHESS), where he earned a doctoral degree in 1994, he has studied social and ethnic segregation in French cities, antidiscrimination policies, and the integration of ethnic minorities in European countries. He is one of the principal investigators of a large survey, Trajectories and Origins: The Diversity of Population in France, conducted by INED and the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies).

JEFFREY G. REITZ is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the R.F. Harney Program of Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, and Professor and former Chair in the University’s Department of Sociology. Professor Reitz has published extensively on immigration and inter-group relations; his work had emphasized the case of Canada in comparative perspective, and he also has written on policies for immigration, immigrant employment, and multiculturalism. Recent articles have appeared in the International Migration Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Social Science Research, and Patterns of Prejudice. He is a member of the Centre d’analyse et d’intervention sociologiques, L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales; in 2017 he will be Visiting Fellow at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

ABDIE KAZEMIPUR is the University Scholar research chair in social sciences at the Department of Sociology, University of Lethbridge; and as of next month, the Chair of Ethnic Studies at University of Calgary. Previously, he served as Stephen Jarislowsky Chair in Culture Change and Immigration at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He has also been the founding director of two research data centres at the University of Lethbridge and Memorial University. He conducts research on the socio-economic experiences of immigrants in Canada and the socio-cultural developments in the Middle East, on which he has published seven books. His most recent book, The Muslim Question in Canada: A Story of Segmented Integration (UBC Press, 2014), received the 2015 John Porter Excellence Award from the Canadian Sociological Association. He is currently working on a new book titled Sacred as Secular: Secularization under Theocracy in Iran. Commentaries and interviews about his works have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, National Post, la Presse, Winnipeg Free Press, Vancouver Sun, Lethbridge Herald, Global TV, TVO, and Russia Today TV, among others.

VALĒRIE AMIRAUX (valerieamiraux.com) is a full Professor of Sociology at the University of Montreal (on leave from her Senior Research Fellow position at the CNRS), where she holds the Canada Research Chair for the Study of Religious Pluralism. Her main fields are religious pluralism, the relationships between Muslim minorities and European and Quebecer societies, Islamophobia and discrimination. Her current research interests centre on an ethnographic analysis of the articulation between pluralism and radicalisation, with a special emphasis on the interaction between majority societies and Jews and Muslims as minorities in specific cities of Europe and Canada. Her most recent publications include: 2017 AMIRAUX V., “From the Empire to the Republic: ‘French Islam’”, in N. Bancel et al. (ed.), The Colonial Legacy in France, Indiana University Press (forthcoming), 2016, AMIRAUX, V., “Visibility, Transparency and Gossip: How did the religion of some (Muslims) become the public concern of other? ”, Critical religious Studies (special issue: The Muslim Question), vol. 4(1), pp. 37-56, AMIRAUX V., “Parler des autres pour dire qui nous sommes : Débat(s) européen(s) sur le port du voile intégral”, in D. Koussens, M.-P. Robert, C. Gélinas et al., La religion hors-la-loi : L’État libéral à l’épreuve des religions minoritaires, à paraître, AMIRAUX, V. ET D. KOUSSENS (dir.), “Droit et religion en contexte de pluralisme : alliance objective ou mariage de raison ? //Law and Religion in Plural Societies : Objective Alliance or Marriage of Convenience ? ”, Studies in Religion-Religious Studies, 45 (2), numéro spécial, 2015 AMIRAUX, V. ET F. DESHARNAIS, Salomé et les hommes en noir, Bayard Canada., 2014 AMIRAUX, V. ET D. KOUSSENS, Trajectoires de la neutralité, Presses de l’université de Montréal.