Gender, Racialization and Economic Restructuring:
Social Change in the New Global Order

Julia Sudbury

This research project aims to examine the gendered and racialized impacts of globalization and economic restructuring in Canada and to identify individual and collective strategies deployed by aboriginal and racialized minority women in the context of these phenomena. In particular, it will explore women's responses to two related phenomenon: the retreat of the state from the sphere of social welfare and the enhancement of the state's social control and punishment functions.

The project will address two interrelated concerns. Since 1984 successive federal and provincial governments in Canada have adopted the neo-liberal agenda, cutting public spending, privatizing state functions, tightening eligibility for income security transfers, rolling back labor, human rights and environmental protections, and deregulating industry (Lightman 2003). These policy changes have had devastating impacts on women in particular, since women rely more heavily on income security programs such as social assistance, and tend to fill the gaps in provision when social services are offloaded onto the community, family and private spheres. At the same time, and in particular after September 2001, the state has stepped up its law and order, immigration control and "homeland security" functions. Using the shift from welfare state to "law-and-order" state as a unifying theme, this research will document the changing face of the Canadian state and reflect on its implications for social cohesion and racialized gender inequality.

Secondly, and relatedly, this project will examine how aboriginal and racialized women have responded to these changes. When faced with increased income insecurity, vulnerability to violence and social dislocation, what tactics do women adopt and what are the implications of these limited choices for them and their families? Women's survival strategies might include such diverse approaches as working "off the books" to supplement income from welfare, taking in foster children, participating in higher education in order to be more competitive in the workplace, petty theft, fraud or drug dealing or engaging in informal systems of barter and exchange. While women have the agency to make these choices, the options available to them are shaped by supranational, national and provincial social and economic policy decisions and sharply circumscribed by experiences of inequality, poverty and violence.

The project will also examine women's engagement in collective action and social justice. As women begin to understand the obstacles facing them as forms of social injustice, and develop a collective consciousness as an oppressed group, how do they counter the social policies leading to adverse outcomes for them, their families and communities? How effective are these as social change strategies? What are their strengths and limitations? By mapping effective social change projects by women marginalized in Canadian social policy, the research will map emergent and innovative forms of community activism.

Contact: j.sudbury@utoronto.ca