McGill University – “Witnessing Migrant Futurities,” a talk by Annie Fukushima – March 11 at 3PM

Peel 3487 Seminar Room, 3487 rue Peel, Montreal, QC, H3A 1W7, CA

Technology and migration in global processes have created the opportunities for imagining social life. A homeland futurity encompasses the critical analysis of the contemporary world and possibilities in a future, with a particular emphasis on such imaginings as determined by nation-states. Current US rhetorical strategies of imagining a future of their homeland have propagated ‘discourses of emergency’ which are part of a ‘risk management program designed to extract profit from projections of an ever-susceptible border.’ This presentation will grapple with homeland futurity in anti-trafficking discourse and practice. Fukushima examines multiple sites –policies, campaigns, media, qualitative data, and websites–to trace how homeland futurities emerge in US anti-trafficking efforts. Fukushima’s presentation illuminates how migrant laborers are impacted by a discourse of threat and containment regarding the border. However, migrant laborers and collaborators are innovating to enact migrant futures. Therefore, this presentation illustrates through the example of Contratados.org how technology in the anti-trafficking movement may facilitate opportunities of future visioning by migrant laborers beyond a homeland futurity, to enact a migrant futurity.