Migrant Youth, Islandness, and Belonging on Prince Edward Island

Abstract

The small Canadian province of Prince Edward Island has recently experienced a population boom, driven largely by international immigration. As a sub-national jurisdiction with considerable leverage over immigration and education policy, PEI has targeted young migrating international students in immigration and education marketing, positioning such migrants as ideal future Islanders whose arrival will reverse population loss. This qualitative study considers the lived experiences of nine such migrants, all of whom arrived on PEI on international student visas within the last six years and all of whom have expressed a desire, however nominal, to remain in the province following graduation. Using narrative and arts-informed research—in particular, photo elicitation and photovoice—this multi-modal, multi-stage study explores how migrating students experience various forms of belonging and exclusion in Island material and symbolic space. Hall’s (2017) theory of ethnos as an organizing and disciplinary practice for establishing and maintaining group identity is extended into the realm of Island space, to consider how the conditions and practices of islandness as a key vector of Island identity exclude migrating students from Island society in various ways. Findings suggest that historical discourses focused on maintaining a homogenized Island identity, constructed through operationalizing and policing a strict insider/outsider binary, punishes racialized subjects in particular. While a vibrant and diverse younger population suggests the Island may be reaching a demographic inflection point, in which migrating students benefit from parallel economies of affect and capital, data suggest that social and political networks continue to privilege and elevate white Islanders within material and symbolic Island spaces. Further, findings demonstrate how the Island imaginary continues to be produced within Island and transnational space in strategic and disciplinary ways as traditional, rural, past-centric, and culturally homogenous, despite ample evidence to the contrary. The research makes an important contribution to critical international education studies by considering the influential role sub-national policy and branding play in shaping how migrating students experience settlement and place. Further, the research offers an important case study to island studies scholars considering how island place, identity, and social relations shape (and are in turn shaped by) the conditions of international migration.