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Immigration from the Asia and Pacific area now accounts for over 50 percent of all Canadian immigration. Therefore, any consideration of Canada's linkages with Asia must address this issue. While much work has debated the impact of immigration in Canada's urban centres, less has been directed to understanding the transnational nature of such population movements, or their specific transnational geographies. In this paper, I consider the geography of immigration from India to Canada. Immigration from India has traditionally been tightly regionalised, with the majority of immigrants originating from the Doaba area of Punjab. Settlement in Canada is also highly concentrated at the provincial, metropolitan and suburban scales. Drawing upon a range of qualitative and quantitative data collected in both India and Canada, I illustrate the geography of immigration from India and highlight some of the processes that contribute to creating transnational networks between these sites.
Actuellement, l'immigration en provenance d'Asie et de la zone Pacifique represente plus de 50 % de toute l'immigration canadienne. Il serait donc bon de prendre en compte l'ensemble des liens existant entre le Canada et l'Asie pour traiter ce sujet. Tandis que de nombreuses recherches ont etudie; l'impact de l'immigration sur les centres urbains au Canada, tres peu se sont penchees sur la nature transnationale de tels mouvements de la population ou sur leurs geographies transnationales specifiques. Dans cet article, j'examine les flux migratoires de l'Inde vers le Canada. L'immigration en provenance de l'Inde a ete naturellement tres localisee, la majorite des immigrants provenant de la region de Doaba dans le Pendjab. L'etablissement au Canada est aussi tres concentre aux niveaux provinciaux, metropolitains et suburbains. En m'appuyant sur differentes donnees qualitatives et quantitatives publiees en Inde et au Canada, j'illustrer l'immigration de l'Inde d'un point de vue geographique et mets en lumiere quelquesuns des processus qui contribuent a creer des reseaux transnationaux entre ces sites.
Introduction
Immigration has played a central role in Canadian nation-building, not only in providing labour, but also in forging international political, economic and cultural connections. The rising global influence of various Asian economies since the 1960s has resulted in immigration patterns that have profoundly influenced Canada's largest urban centres and reoriented aspects of the nation's political, economic and cultural focus towards Asia (Hiebert 1994,...