The week before the day of the interview with American essayist Sonia Shah, a report found that migratory movements to member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), of which Canada is a member, had increased by 22% in 2021. The annual total of migrant flows is now approaching five million. And seven out of ten expats find work quickly, and they are the most likely to change countries for this very reason.

At the same time, The duty was about a family of Colombian refugees who became Granby entrepreneurs. Radio Canada said the famous Roxham Road is also used to transport migrants in the opposite direction from Canada to the United States. And ex-minister Jean Boulet’s false campaign statements about Quebec’s non-French speaking and non-working immigrants continued to make waves.

We pass, and still very meaningful. One in three Montrealers was not born in Canada.

The anthology is enough to remind us that the essay migrations (translated by Écosociété) by Sonia Shah fits perfectly. The work traverses sociocultural history and natural history at a brisk pace to masterfully illuminate the fundamental role of displacements that shaped the world that will continue to transform it in our century of great astonishment, where the effects intertwine globalization, climate change and wars. The war in Ukraine has already created millions of refugees. Germany alone received almost a million between February and August of this year.

Journalist Sonia Shah patiently crafts large, well-informed summaries of difficult issues that allow us to step back and shed light on the world’s great progress. his latest book Pandemic, translated by the same Québec publisher, was both prescient and scary, which by the way explains that.

“I was finishing the book on pandemics in 2015 when the opportunity arose to go to Greece, to the island of Lesvos, to write about the crisis of the migrants who were arriving there en masse,” she explains in an interview at Have to. I had to write about the health implications of this population movement. I remember asking health workers what risk this migratory crisis would pose to residents of the island and to the migrants themselves. One of them replied that there is no migration crisis. It shook me. »

However, the media around the world only talked about this crisis, while Greece was already sinking into another sovereign debt crisis. So the development worker refined his explanation. He added that migration was not the cause of the crisis, that the country has a significant surplus of housing and, on the other hand, is struggling with a shortage of workers. So there was capacity for migrants to take in. Ultimately, the crisis was triggered by the reaction of the residents, who did not want the newcomers to arrive en masse.

The crisis has, so to speak, shifted the sides from the migrants to the receiving society. “From that moment on, I changed my mindset,” explains M.^me Shah. Until then, I said to myself, if these people move from one place to another, it’s a crisis and it has to be a disaster. From then on I understood that we have to ask ourselves what is the absorptive capacity of the places where they land. »

Life is migration

The fundamental questions have swirled around. Is there enough accommodation? Can the economy integrate them? Are utilities available? And what effects does migration have on the country of origin? And what are the consequences of the exodus for the migrants themselves?

The search for answers occupied her for years. The result fills almost 350 pages. She tells of her own family from a very modest background, who emigrated from India and thus benefited from a strong social advancement. One of the quotes in the foreground takes up a Latin proverb that says that invaders become natives over time. What Quebecer wouldn’t make it their motto while agreeing to talk about unceded territories?

The thesis of the book is based on a very simple idea: life is migration. “We have incorporated the idea of ​​sedentary life into our perspectives on our species and on other species. We believe that we don’t move much and that something is inevitably wrong. In fact, science teaches us the opposite,” summarizes M^me Shah.

The interview also took place as the 2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine was presented to Svante Pääbo, a pioneer in evolutionary genetics who redrawn the map of very complex comings and goingshomo sapiens on the planet. The book presents these impressive discoveries while deconstructing the “false science,” the ideological underpinnings of a variety of more or less smoky theories, such as that of the fixist naturalist Linnaeus.

“I’m trying to get back to the roots of the idea that species like humans need to anchor themselves in one place because they’re biologically different. Linnaeus based his ideas on hearsay and religious prejudice because he wanted to portray the unchanging and perfect beauty of divine creation. »

animals like everyone else

M^me Shah contains many references to the importance of the movement to animals and plants. The book begins with butterflies Euphydryas edita (Edith’s Checkers), which adapted to climate change by flying northwest from the North American continent.

“I wanted to include stories of non-human migrations that biologists are documenting,” explains the science writer. Species move to survive and thrive. They tell different stories of resilience and adaptation. They are often admired, while the exodus of humans is often seen as a disaster. We hear that it would be terrible to let people from Afghanistan, Syria or North Africa go to Europe or Guatemalans to Mexico or the United States. I personally find it interesting to observe the movement of all species at the same time. We are animals too. »

Isn’t it a bit short and even a bit sociobiological? If Sweden is reviewing its generous immigration policy, it’s because of that Social problems are piling up. This “socio-political crisis” seems to be weighing on the migrants. In 2020, 32 of the country’s most wanted criminal network leaders were first- or second-generation immigrants.

“The problems we see there or elsewhere are the result of mistakes in migration management,” replies M^me Shah. There are more border walls today than at any time in history. These walls do not prevent migrants from crossing borders. Rather, we must learn to control flows better. »

The scientific essay thus leads to an assumed political work. “Of course yes, I’m delivering a political message,” says M^me Shah goes back to his original idea. The book was conceived when Donald Trump came into the presidency. I would like to reiterate that migration is not a crisis, quite the opposite. Think of these populations whose territories are being swallowed up by rising oceans. For them, migration will be the only way to survive. We can facilitate this exodus if we see migration as a positive reality that ensures the sustainability of humanity’s cultural diversity. »

To see in the video