Document Details

This study explores the relationships between collective action and social policy transformation in Canada. A community-based social movement in the 1970's protested punitive and restrictive changes in the policy to recruit domestic workers from the Caribbean operating since the 1950's. The research isolates community-based activists or advocates who represented the socially and legally disadvantaged immigrant domestic workers in negotiations with the government. Historical documentary techniques and interviews were the primary sources of data. Documentary data illuminated transitions in immigration recruitment policy and recorded cases of advocacy. Interviews, obtained using a referral method, provided the histories of the social movement's composition, goals, impact and the effect of advocacy work on the lives of activists. Two propositions guided the research: Unequal relations between Canada and the Caribbean are directly related to changing contours of immigration policy; and Immigration policy transformation reflects the negotiated interests of responsive immigrant subpopulations within the receiving nation. The findings of this research suggest direct correlations between advocacy and policy formation and implementation for foreign domestic workers. Domestic worker-based advocacy operates at various levels of social interactions and includes a wide range of groups working collectively. Voluntary organizers within the Caribbean immigrant community formed alliances with service agencies, trade unions and individuals, which built broad community support, but also increased the propensity for fragmentation and diversion of the movement's energy. Concrete legal changes for domestic workers were won through the social movement; alterations in their social situation did not simultaneously occur.