Absence, "Removal," and Everyday Life in the Diasporic City

Abstract

This article is concerned with the “removal” (the Canadian government policy word for deportation) of noncitizens rendered suspect in the climate of 9-1-1 Islamophobia, who are detained and/or deported without specific charges, and with the impact of removals on the landscape of a cosmopolitan city such as Montréal. When people are removed, their absence leaves an imprint; the intimates they have left behind restructure their everyday lives around that imprint. But how is the imprint of absence transposed into presence, and how does that presence affect the city as a site that lets flourish or prohibits radical difference and hybridization? The article focuses on the examples of family members of detainees or deportees and antideportation activist networks.