Daniel Hiebert

Bio: Daniel Hiebert is an academic researcher from University of British Columbia. The author has contributed to research in topics: Immigration & Ethnic group. The author has an hindex of 21, co-authored 40 publications receiving 1186 citations.

Immigration, Entrepreneurship, and the Family: Indo-Canadian Enterprise in the Construction Industry of Greater Vancouver

Abstract: Margaret Walton-Roberts and Daniel Hiebert Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis (RIIM) wwwriimmetropolisglobalxnet Department of Geography, University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 Ethnic enterprise The subject of "ethnic enterprise" -- businesses operated and maintained primarily by members of immigrant and/or minority groups -- has become a significant area of research since the 1960s, when it became apparent to researchers and policy makers that the level of self-employment among ethnic minorities was higher than average (Borjas 1986) More recently, this interest has been aligned with a growing body of literature documenting the importance of self-employment and small businesses generally, (1) some of which focuses specifically on the role of ethnic entrepreneurs in industrially advanced economies (Waldinger et al 1990; Ward 1991) This research reflects a growing concern with the intersection of increased immigration in western countries, industrial restructuring, and the resurgence of the small business sector in response to this restructuring These issues resonate most clearly when considered within the context of urban economies which, in Canada as elsewhere, are the major reception areas for immigrants Even the mainstream media has become captivated with the success of minority firms (for example, Vincent 1996), and one financial institution in British Columbia has adopted a practice common among Korean immigrant groups, lending circles, which rely on internal networking, mutual support and repayment enforcement within peer groups of entrepreneurs (see Light 1972) While popular commentators generally interpret the proliferation of ethnic enterprises in favourable terms, academic literature on the subject became sharply polarized in the 1980s One "side" emphasizes the benefits of ethnic enterprise to group members, while the other focuses on the potential traps, or structural limitations these businesses can place on their owners and co-ethnic employees Bun and Hui (1995), following Auster and Aldrich (1984), comment on this "intellectual schizophrenia" and show that these opposing interpretations of ethnic enterprise are part of broader ideological debates about the nature of capitalism and the relationship between cultural and economic forces This empirical and theoretical-ideological split reached its crescendo in a brief "dialogue" between Edna Bonacich (1993) and Roger Waldinger (1993), which brought the structuralist/negative and culturalist/positive views into sharp relief While some authors continue to champion one interpretation over the other (for example, Bonacich 1994), or see the ascendance of one side (for example, Barrett et al 1996), researchers increasingly agree that ethnic entrepreneurship is associated with a complex mix of problems and benefits This form of economic organization is seen, more and more, as both emancipatory for immigrants attempting to better their standard of living but also as potentially exploitative, abusive and marginalizing (see Table 1) The particular mix of positive and negative qualities is likely to be situation-specific, depending on a variety of factors that include the pre-migratory characteristics of immigrants, the degree of openness of the adopted country's labour market, the degree of isolation of immigrant groups, and so on While we feel that the turn toward a more balanced conceptualization of ethnic entrepreneurship is helpful, we believe there is still a crucial gap in this literature -- one that can be partly understood as an outcome of the polarized debates that dominated the field during the 1970s and 1980s Researchers have repeatedly demonstrated the salience of cultural networks for immigrant and minority entrepreneurs, and the webs of economic interactions that arise within systems of ethnic loyalty However, despite Light's (1980) important findings on the role of the extended family for Chinese entrepreneurs, the issue of the family -- both nuclear and extended -- has largely been ignored in studies of ethnic enterprise …

Immigration and the changing Canadian city

Abstract: The impact of immigration on Canadian cities since the Second World War has been profound, especially following the removal of barriers to non-European immigrants in the 1960s and the significant increase in the number of immigrants admitted since the mid-1980s. Over two million immigrants entered Canada in the 1990s and the vast majority have settled in just a few metropolitan areas. As a result, the social geography of large Canadian cities has been transformed, an issue that has attracted considerable attention from Canadian geographers. In this paper, research on these changes—published by cultural, social, and urban geographers between 1996 and 1999—is surveyed. This work is exceedingly diverse in emphasis and method, and has contributed a great deal to our understanding of the relationship between immigration and urban change, particularly in the areas of housing, the labour market, and neighbourhood life. In general, geographers are emphasizing the complexity of outcomes, highlighting on the one hand the importance of local contingency, and on the other the growing connections between Canadian cities and global processes. This research challenges traditional theories of immigration and urban structure, and in so doing will redefine the way we conceptualize urban spatial structure and urban social life. L'impact de l'immigration sur les villes canadiennes depuis la seconde guerre mondiale a ete profond, particulierement depuis la suppression des barrieres a l'egard des immigrants ne venant pas d'Europe dans les annees 1960, et l'augmentation significative du nombre d'immigrants dans les annees 1980. Plus de deux millions d'immigrants sont entres au Canada dans les annees 1990, dont la grande majorite s'est installee dans seulement quelques metropoles. Cela a provoque une transformation de la geographie des grandes villes canadiennes, phenomene qui a attire une attention considerable de la part des geographes canadiens. Dans cet article, des recherches sur ces changements, publies par des praticiens des geographies culturelle, sociale et urbaine entre 1996 et 1999, sont passees en revue. Les champs d'investigation et les methodes de ces travaux sont extremement divers. Ces derniers ont grandement contribuea notre comprehension du rapport entre immigration et changements urbains, particulierement dans les domaines du logement, du marche du travail, et de la vie de quartier. En general, les geographes mettent l'accent sur la complexite des consequences, en soulignant d'un cote l'importance de la contingence locale, et de l'autre les relations croissantes entre les villes canadiennes et les processus globaux. Ces recherches remettent en question les theories tradition-nelles sur l'immigration et la structure urbaine et, chemin faisant, redefinissent notre facon de conceptualiser la structure spatiale et la vie sociale des villes.

Local Geographies of Labor Market Segmentation: Montréal, Toronto, and Vancouver, 1991

Abstract: In this paper I use census data to provide an overview of gender, ethnic, and immigrant occupational segmentation in Canada’s three largest metropolitan areas. My findings corroborate the work of many other authors who have shown the pronounced split between female- and male-dominated portions of the labor market. There is also evidence of considerable ethnic and immigrant segmentation, and members of visible minority groups, especially those who are immigrants, are over-represented in poorly paid, vulnerable jobs. However, these patterns are uneven: segmentation takes different forms in the three urban areas examined here. I consider these results in light of human capital and labor market segmentation theory. Each of these approaches—particularly the latter—helps us understand the way capitalist labor markets operate, but the patterns of gender and ethnocultural participation are too complex to be adequately explained by either theory.

Winning, losing, and still playing the game: the political economy of immigration in canada

Abstract: In contrast to most other countries, public opinion in Canada is relatively positive towards immigration and immigrants. Yet the economic fortunes of immigrants, especially those who have arrived recently, have been falling over the past three decades. Four analytical perspectives on the relatively poor economic performance of immigrants in Canada are discussed, and are used to build a composite understanding of this economic outcome. I argue that the weak economic position of immigrants – particularly the fact that they do not compete against the Canadian-born in privileged segments of the labour market – is an important ingredient in the favourable public view of immigration.

Assimilation, Cultural Pluralism, and Social Exclusion among Ethnocultural Groups in Vancouver

Abstract: In this paper we use custom tabulations from the 1991 Census for Greater Vancouver to compare the settlement experience of "traditional" immigrants with ethnic origins in Europe vs. those from other parts of the world. In particular we analyze the extent to which assimilation or cultural pluralism best describe the experience of the two populations. Assimilation is measured according to the degree to which an ethnic group moves toward the characteristics of the native-born population, while cultural pluralism is assessed from profiles of residential concentration, employment segmentation, nonofficial language use in the home, and ethnic inmarriage. We also assess the extent to which assimilation or cultural pluralism is associated with social exclusion in terms of economic and educational achievement. In general we find that assimilation best describes the experience of both groupings, though it is much slower for non-European immigrants and ethnicities, where cultural pluralism survives appreciably beyon...

Urban Outcasts: A comparative sociology of advanced marginality

Abstract: Breaking with the exoticizing cast of public discourse and conventional research, Urban Outcasts takes the reader inside the black ghetto of Chicago and the deindustrializing banlieue of Paris to discover that urban marginality is not everywhere the same. Drawing on a wealth of original field, survey and historical data, Loïc Wacquant shows that the involution of America's urban core after the 1960s is due not to the emergence of an 'underclass', but to the joint withdrawal of market and state fostered by public policies of racial separation and urban abandonment. In European cities, by contrast, the spread of districts of 'exclusion' does not herald the formation of ghettos. It stems from the decomposition of working-class territories under the press of mass unemployment, the casualization of work and the ethnic mixing of populations hitherto segregated, spawning urban formations akin to 'anti-ghettos'.

“Brain Abuse”, or the Devaluation of Immigrant Labour in Canada

Abstract: Many professional and skilled Canadian immigrants suffer from de-skilling and the nonrecognition of their foreign credentials. Consequently, they are underrepresented in the upper segments of the Canadian labour market. Rather than accepting this devaluation of immigrant labour as a naturally occurring adjustment period, I suggest that regulatory institutions actively exclude immigrants from the upper segments of the labour market. In particular, professional associations and employers give preference to Canadian-born and educated workers and deny immigrants access to the most highly desired occupations. Pierre Bourdieu's notion of institutionalised cultural capital and his views of the educational system as a site of social reproduction provide the entry point for my theoretical argument. I find that the nonrecognition of foreign credentials and dismissal of foreign work experience systematically excludes immigrant workers from the upper segments of the labour market. This finding is based on data from interviews with institutional administrators and employers in Greater Vancouver who service or employ immigrants from South Asia and the former Yugoslavia.

The Transplanted-A History of Immigrants in Urban America.

Abstract: ..". an excellent broad overview... " --Journal of Social History..". powerfully argued... " --Moses Rischin..". imaginative and soundly based... " --Choice"Highly recommended... " --Library Journal..". an outstanding major contribution to the literature on immigration history." --History..". a very important new synthesis of American immigration history... " --Journal of American Ethnic History..". a state of the art discussion, impressively encyclopaedic... The Transplanted is a tour de force, and a fitting summation to Bodnar's own prolific, creative, and insightful writings on immigrants." --Journal of Interdisciplinary HistoryA major survey of the immigrant experience between 1830 and 1930, this book has implications for all students and scholars of American social history.

Expertise, truth, and urban policy mobilities: global circuits of knowledge in the development of Vancouver, Canada's 'four pillar' drug strategy

Abstract: There is growing attention across the social sciences to the mobility of people, products, and knowledge. This entails attempts to extend and/or rework existing understandings of global interconnections and is reflected in ongoing work on policy transfer—the process by which policy models are learned from one setting and deployed in others. This paper uses a case study of the development of an innovative approach to drug policy in Vancouver, British Columbia to deepen our understanding of what I call ‘urban policy mobilities.’ It details the often apparently mundane practices through which Vancouver's ‘four-pillar’ drug strategy—which combines prevention, treatment, enforcement, and harm reduction—was learned from cities outside North America and is now increasingly taught elsewhere. In doing so it draws on a neo-Foucauldian governmentality approach to emphasize the role of expertise (specialized knowledge held by many actors, not just credentialed professionals) and the deployment of certain powerful tru...