St. James Town, Toronto – Understanding Immigration to Canada (including my own)

I have been interested in the stories of immigrants for over ten years now. This very interest led me to become an immigrant myself, first in the Netherlands and ultimately in Canada where I’ve pursued my PhD degree. Having lived and volunteered in an immigrant neighbourhood of St. James Town in Toronto, I had a unique opportunity to understand the experiences of newcomers, share their lived environment and participate in their struggles. On an analytical level, I focused on outlining the transnational ties formed by the immigrants in St. James Town as well as on the role of informality in maintaining economic and social networks in the neighbourhood. In my research, I aimed to situate the neighborhood on the conceptual spectrum of global immigration flows, from an immigrant enclave, through a world-class city, a settler colonial nation and the Global South-North interdependency. In order to do that, I’ve engaged in 2-year long observations, I have volunteered in the local community centre and I have conducted 50 interviews with immigrants in Canada (mostly from the Indian sub-continent). Aside from conducting research in St. James Town, I wrote two articles about the neighbourhood and its role in global immigrant networks.

An Immigrant Neighborhood as a Site of Planetary Urbanization: The Case of St. James Town, Toronto. (PhD dissertation, published in 2025)

A World Within a Block: Negotiating Space in Toronto’s St. James Town/ New Sociology (2022)