Professor Y.Y. Chen is exploring these questions through a new research project investigating how precarious-status migrants navigate health care access for their Canadian-born children. The project, “Performing Citizenship in Mixed-Status Families: How Precarious-Status Migrants Navigate Citizen Children’s Health Care Entitlement,” has received support through an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Professor Chen’s research examines the lived experiences of migrants whose legal status in Canada is temporary or uncertain, and the ways they interact with public institutions while advocating for their children’s rights and well-being.
While citizenship is often understood in formal terms as a legal status that grants individuals certain rights and protections, Professor Chen’s project examines citizenship as a lived and ongoing practice. Focusing on so-called mixed-status families, where parents may have precarious immigration status while their children are Canadian citizens, the research investigates how migrant parents seek access to health care coverage for their children and how these encounters shape their experiences of recognition and belonging.
The research brings together multiple perspectives to develop a more complete understanding of how citizenship is enacted in everyday life. By centering migrants as participants in citizenship practices, rather than as people outside the boundaries of citizenship, the project aims to expand understandings of membership, rights and recognition. The findings have the potential to inform more responsive public policies and administrative practices that better support children in mixed-status families.
Professor Chen will lead the project as principal investigator, alongside co-applicants Monica Gagnon (Toronto Metropolitan University), Marc Valade (Western University), Tracy Glynn (St. Thomas University), and Rebecca Cheff (St. Francis Xavier University). Together, the interdisciplinary team brings expertise in law and governance, citizenship and deservingness, qualitative research methods, public administration and community-engaged research.
SSHRC Insight Development Grants support research in its initial stages, enabling the development of new research questions, as well as experimentation with new methods, theoretical approaches and/or ideas.
Congratulations to Professor Chen and his team!