Redessiner les espaces francophones au présent : la prise en compte de l’immigration dans la recherche sur les francophonies minoritaires au Canada

What is it about?

Given the declining number of Canadians with French as their first official spoken language, immigration has become, for Francophone minority communities outside of Quebec and for the Canadian state, a way to compensate for this decrease. As a source of “vitality” for these communities, specific plans to attract and retain Francophone immigrants were implemented since the beginning of the 2000s and as a result, growing percentages of Francophone minority communities are made up of immigrants, creating new multilingual and multicultural spaces with redefined boundaries. This article proposes a critical analysis of the evolution of research communities’ representations of immigrants, and how they are linked to the debates on Canadian identity. It then analyzes the renewal of this community, given the recent attention to Francophone immigration. The major themes and issues regarding integration policies and immigration covered in this research are highlighted, while stressing the distinctiveness of its method of producTion (academic, community, government partnerships) as well as its limits.

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