Soma Chatterjee
Associate Professor
Office: Ross Building, S868
Phone: (416) 736-2100 Ext: 33385
Email: schat@yorku.ca
Media Requests Welcome
Accepting New Graduate Students
My research interests have a few distinct yet overlapping trajectories. Primarily I am interested in migration, mobility justice, nationalism and border studies. Within this overarching interest, I look into the politics of state formed identity categories (e.g., ‘immigrant’, ‘Canadian’, ‘Canadian-born’, ‘non-status’, ‘refugee’ etc.) and their implications for contemporary Western nation building, the institutionalization of the civilizational ideologies of skills and standard in immigration and citizenship policies, and the global race for knowledge (e.g., discourses of internationalization and study migration policies etc.). Given above interests, the ‘entanglement’ of immigration policies/immigrant integration, anti-racist politics and indigenous self-determination in contemporary settler nations, primarily Canada, forms another important pillar of my research interests. Finally, I am a keen follower of social and political issues of relevance to South Asia and South Asians (in diaspora and beyond), including student migratory patterns from South Asia, and diaspora engagement policies of major South Asian emigration states. I am currently working on a book length manuscript titled Skills to Build the Nation, which is a study of Canadian skilled labour policies in relation to post-liberalization Canadian nationalism.
Degrees
PHD, OISE-University of Toronto, CanadaMSW, University of Toronto, Canada
MA, University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
2022- Member. Editorial Board. Academic Matters. Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations
Community Contributions
2019 - Chatterjee, S. & Sultana Jahangir (ED, SAWRO). Better jobs, living wages. A forum organized with South Asian Women’s Rights Organization. For York University Community Conversations - Series 4 – Immigrant Experience in Canada.
2018 - Chatterjee, S. & Campbell, M. “First peoples to newcomers: How do we know each other?” Workshop facilitation. Community – Education – Change. KIHKINOOHAMAAKEWIN - Indigenous Ways of Knowing. Tommy Douglas Institute. George Brown College.
2016 - Roundtable Participant. Report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Canada. The Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic & the Colour of Poverty–Colour of Change Campaign
Research Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Co-investigator with A ka Tat Tsang (Social Work, University of Toronto), Jill Hanley (Social Work, McGill University), Sean Lauer (Sociology, University of British Columbia), Carla Hilario (Nursing, University of Alberta), Weiguo Zhang (Sociology, University of Toronto).
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
The main objective of this research project is to shed light on the experiences of international students as migrants to specific communities, beyond their academic affiliation, by using the ways in which racialization affects them on and off-campus, and has repercussions on their migratory experiences and trajectories as a whole.
For more detailed summary, see here: https://ycar.apps01.yorku.ca/rais/
Description:SSHRC Insight Grant. Co-investigator with Drs. Jean Michel Montsion (Multidisciplinary Studies, York U), Ann Kim (Sociology, York U) & Shirin Shahrokni (Sociology, York U). (CAD 285,882)
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
This project is part of a larger, multi-sited project on the role of the postsecondary education in facilitating reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada, USA and Australia. It builds on my scholarly interest in two apparently disparate but deeply conceptually connected developments in postsecondary education in these countries – international student recruitment, and enhancing Indigenous content in teaching and learning.
Description:The proposed project focuses on Canada. It aims to study how Indigenizing and internationalizing initiatives sit in relation to each other, how they are in tension/conflict, and/or offer a historic opportunity for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians, and whether/how the postsecondary sector is facilitating dialogue between Indigenous, diasporic and international students. In the process, the project aims to challenge the mutual disconnect between ‘Indigenizing’ and ‘internationalizing’ initiatives in the public and policy realms.
Funders:
MITACS
-
Summary:
The project aims to engage student voices and perspectives on the deeply entangled political phenomena of migration (e.g., via dominant and subaltern, “outside-of-state” forms), various disparate diasporic formations (e.g., non-status workers, asylum seeker and international students), and xenophobic white nationalism (a reactionary force). A series of conversations on global social movements and transnational solidarity are organized to both enhance student learning about the application of critical social work tools in responding to reactionary forces, and engage student perspectives on critical decolonial solidarity.
Description:A collaborative project with Dr. Nicole Penak, Chair, Aboriginal Advisory Committee, York University.
Funders:
YUFA Teaching/Learning Development Grant
-
Summary:
Review of critical Social Work theories and their practical application in key Social Work fields.
Description:The project explores the dominant Social Work understanding of integration between theory and practice and aims to understand why the divide between theory and practice been a long-standing issue in social work. It asks the following series of questions: How does theory-practice integration look like in Social Work classrooms? How does it look like in various practice sites? What needs to change in the ways we think about theory and practice and their relationship to make integration tangible, especially for upper year Social Work students getting ready for practice? Finally, are there similar debates in other professions? If yes, what are these debates (e.g., medicine, law, Psychiatry)? Is there anything we can draw from in other professional disciplines?
Start Date:
- Month: May Year: 2018
End Date:
- Month: Aug Year: 2018
Funders:
Dean's Award for Research Assistantship - Liberal Arts and professional Studies
-
Summary:
This was an upper year undergraduate course on migration and refugee protection where I challenged the very idea of immigrant settlement (a historically popular area of social work practice) as an innocent, desirable enterprise for social work. Instead, I placed Canada within a global system of nation states, and actively oriented the discussion toward the global project of imperial dispossession even if ‘the global’ seems vast and distant, and therefore, impossible to comprehend. I introduced content aimed to bridge the purported gap between the local and global modes of displacement; in the process, made both relentlessly visible. This is currently being developed as a graduate course.
Description:See above
Funders:
Indigeneity in Teaching and Learning Fund. Office of the Vice President Academic & Provost, York University
-
Summary:
This is the preliminary phase of a larger project on high skilled labour migration (including postsecondary international student migration), and the shifting nature of national membership in our world dominated by knowledge economic discourses. In this phase a comparative review of various study-migration policies of Canada, Australia, USA, UK and Germany, all introduced in response to the global race for professional talent, will be conducted. This review will build the foundation for the second phase of the study where I plan to explore postsecondary international students’ experience of navigating and making sense of the increasing entanglement between higher education and immigration policies of the aforementioned states, which construct them as 'knowledge diplomats' and 'ideal immigrants' but also maintains a gap between their economic welcome and political disenfranchisement.
rise of racist nationalism. By Harsha Walia. Fernwood Publishing. For Antipode: A
Radical Journal of Geography.
possible’?: A study of anti-racism, Indigenizing and internationalizing initiatives in
two Canadian postsecondary institutions. Special Issue on Asian International Students in Canada's Post-Secondary Institutions: Strategies, Structures and Environments
Immigrants.
Approach to Teaching
I teach graduate research seminars focusing on methods and epistemologies. I also teach upper year undergraduate courses in integrating social theories in social work practice, and immigration and refugee protection. Following a firm belief in the inadequacies of discipline bound singular answers, my research questions and plans draw from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Similarly, my pedagogy is informed by three key principles – an appreciation of the personal (as teaching, learning, reading subjects) as the door to sites of inquiry, encouraging an ability to sit with discomfort as key to learning/practising social justice work, and generating/fostering tools to work through learning moments, which involves accepting questions as answers.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2025 | GS/SOWK5450 3.0 | M | Practice Research Paper Seminar | SEMR |
My research interests have a few distinct yet overlapping trajectories. Primarily I am interested in migration, mobility justice, nationalism and border studies. Within this overarching interest, I look into the politics of state formed identity categories (e.g., ‘immigrant’, ‘Canadian’, ‘Canadian-born’, ‘non-status’, ‘refugee’ etc.) and their implications for contemporary Western nation building, the institutionalization of the civilizational ideologies of skills and standard in immigration and citizenship policies, and the global race for knowledge (e.g., discourses of internationalization and study migration policies etc.). Given above interests, the ‘entanglement’ of immigration policies/immigrant integration, anti-racist politics and indigenous self-determination in contemporary settler nations, primarily Canada, forms another important pillar of my research interests. Finally, I am a keen follower of social and political issues of relevance to South Asia and South Asians (in diaspora and beyond), including student migratory patterns from South Asia, and diaspora engagement policies of major South Asian emigration states. I am currently working on a book length manuscript titled Skills to Build the Nation, which is a study of Canadian skilled labour policies in relation to post-liberalization Canadian nationalism.
Degrees
PHD, OISE-University of Toronto, CanadaMSW, University of Toronto, Canada
MA, University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
2022- Member. Editorial Board. Academic Matters. Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations
Community Contributions
2019 - Chatterjee, S. & Sultana Jahangir (ED, SAWRO). Better jobs, living wages. A forum organized with South Asian Women’s Rights Organization. For York University Community Conversations - Series 4 – Immigrant Experience in Canada.
2018 - Chatterjee, S. & Campbell, M. “First peoples to newcomers: How do we know each other?” Workshop facilitation. Community – Education – Change. KIHKINOOHAMAAKEWIN - Indigenous Ways of Knowing. Tommy Douglas Institute. George Brown College.
2016 - Roundtable Participant. Report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Canada. The Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic & the Colour of Poverty–Colour of Change Campaign
Research Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Co-investigator with A ka Tat Tsang (Social Work, University of Toronto), Jill Hanley (Social Work, McGill University), Sean Lauer (Sociology, University of British Columbia), Carla Hilario (Nursing, University of Alberta), Weiguo Zhang (Sociology, University of Toronto).
Project Type: FundedRole: Co-investigator
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
The main objective of this research project is to shed light on the experiences of international students as migrants to specific communities, beyond their academic affiliation, by using the ways in which racialization affects them on and off-campus, and has repercussions on their migratory experiences and trajectories as a whole.
For more detailed summary, see here: https://ycar.apps01.yorku.ca/rais/
Description:SSHRC Insight Grant. Co-investigator with Drs. Jean Michel Montsion (Multidisciplinary Studies, York U), Ann Kim (Sociology, York U) & Shirin Shahrokni (Sociology, York U). (CAD 285,882)
Project Type: FundedRole: Co-investigator
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
This project is part of a larger, multi-sited project on the role of the postsecondary education in facilitating reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada, USA and Australia. It builds on my scholarly interest in two apparently disparate but deeply conceptually connected developments in postsecondary education in these countries – international student recruitment, and enhancing Indigenous content in teaching and learning.
Description:The proposed project focuses on Canada. It aims to study how Indigenizing and internationalizing initiatives sit in relation to each other, how they are in tension/conflict, and/or offer a historic opportunity for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians, and whether/how the postsecondary sector is facilitating dialogue between Indigenous, diasporic and international students. In the process, the project aims to challenge the mutual disconnect between ‘Indigenizing’ and ‘internationalizing’ initiatives in the public and policy realms.
Project Type: FundedRole: Principal Investigator
Funders:
MITACS
-
Summary:
The project aims to engage student voices and perspectives on the deeply entangled political phenomena of migration (e.g., via dominant and subaltern, “outside-of-state” forms), various disparate diasporic formations (e.g., non-status workers, asylum seeker and international students), and xenophobic white nationalism (a reactionary force). A series of conversations on global social movements and transnational solidarity are organized to both enhance student learning about the application of critical social work tools in responding to reactionary forces, and engage student perspectives on critical decolonial solidarity.
Description:A collaborative project with Dr. Nicole Penak, Chair, Aboriginal Advisory Committee, York University.
Project Type: FundedRole: Co-facilitator
Funders:
YUFA Teaching/Learning Development Grant
-
Summary:
Review of critical Social Work theories and their practical application in key Social Work fields.
Description:The project explores the dominant Social Work understanding of integration between theory and practice and aims to understand why the divide between theory and practice been a long-standing issue in social work. It asks the following series of questions: How does theory-practice integration look like in Social Work classrooms? How does it look like in various practice sites? What needs to change in the ways we think about theory and practice and their relationship to make integration tangible, especially for upper year Social Work students getting ready for practice? Finally, are there similar debates in other professions? If yes, what are these debates (e.g., medicine, law, Psychiatry)? Is there anything we can draw from in other professional disciplines?
Project Type: FundedRole: Principal investigator
Start Date:
- Month: May Year: 2018
End Date:
- Month: Aug Year: 2018
Funders:
Dean's Award for Research Assistantship - Liberal Arts and professional Studies
-
Summary:
This was an upper year undergraduate course on migration and refugee protection where I challenged the very idea of immigrant settlement (a historically popular area of social work practice) as an innocent, desirable enterprise for social work. Instead, I placed Canada within a global system of nation states, and actively oriented the discussion toward the global project of imperial dispossession even if ‘the global’ seems vast and distant, and therefore, impossible to comprehend. I introduced content aimed to bridge the purported gap between the local and global modes of displacement; in the process, made both relentlessly visible. This is currently being developed as a graduate course.
Description:See above
Project Type: FundedRole: N/A
Funders:
Indigeneity in Teaching and Learning Fund. Office of the Vice President Academic & Provost, York University
-
Summary:
This is the preliminary phase of a larger project on high skilled labour migration (including postsecondary international student migration), and the shifting nature of national membership in our world dominated by knowledge economic discourses. In this phase a comparative review of various study-migration policies of Canada, Australia, USA, UK and Germany, all introduced in response to the global race for professional talent, will be conducted. This review will build the foundation for the second phase of the study where I plan to explore postsecondary international students’ experience of navigating and making sense of the increasing entanglement between higher education and immigration policies of the aforementioned states, which construct them as 'knowledge diplomats' and 'ideal immigrants' but also maintains a gap between their economic welcome and political disenfranchisement.
Project Type: FundedRole: Principal Investigator
All Publications
rise of racist nationalism. By Harsha Walia. Fernwood Publishing. For Antipode: A
Radical Journal of Geography.
possible’?: A study of anti-racism, Indigenizing and internationalizing initiatives in
two Canadian postsecondary institutions. Special Issue on Asian International Students in Canada's Post-Secondary Institutions: Strategies, Structures and Environments
Immigrants.
Approach to Teaching
I teach graduate research seminars focusing on methods and epistemologies. I also teach upper year undergraduate courses in integrating social theories in social work practice, and immigration and refugee protection. Following a firm belief in the inadequacies of discipline bound singular answers, my research questions and plans draw from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Similarly, my pedagogy is informed by three key principles – an appreciation of the personal (as teaching, learning, reading subjects) as the door to sites of inquiry, encouraging an ability to sit with discomfort as key to learning/practising social justice work, and generating/fostering tools to work through learning moments, which involves accepting questions as answers.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2025 | GS/SOWK5450 3.0 | M | Practice Research Paper Seminar | SEMR |
