Exploring Times of Uncertainty and Future Projections for Syrian Refugee Mothers in Canada

Join Laila Omar, PhD Candidate at the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, as she unravels how Syrian refugee mothers settling in Canada imagine their futures in this new context; how do these future projections evolve over time? Drawing on extensive qualitative data from in-depth interviews and observations, Laila Omar examines how Syrian refugee mothers experience time and uncertainty and conceptualize their futures after resettlement in Canada.

Her project contributes to an emergent stream in the migration literature, focusing on temporality
as a distinct, understudied phenomenon of the migratory process. By examining mothers’
experiences in the first year of resettlement, she shows how cultural and religious orientations of divine control heavily shape their future projections. By also following these mothers’
experiences beyond the initial period of resettlement, her work demonstrates how state-imposed
temporalities and expectations conflict with the reality of refugee experiences.

About the speaker:
Laila Omar is a Sociology PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto. Her primary research
interests lie in the fields of International Migration and Qualitative Methods, with a particular focus
on the integration process of refugees and immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA) in Canada. More specifically, Laila explores how Syrian refugee mothers and youth
experience time and conceptualize their futures after resettlement in the host country. Her research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and two Ontario Graduate Scholarships.

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