Dis-Citizenship for Refugees in Canada: The Case of Fernando.

In this article, a case study is used to illustrate how the construct of dis-citizenship may be applied to the circumstances of refugees in a Canadian city. Based on findings from a year long ethnography of refugee families in Calgary, Canada, I focus on the experiences of one of the participants, Fernando, a highly trained surgeon from Colombia, to illustrate some of the ways that a person's identity can be diminished—at times, erased—when his skills, training, and work experience are not validated by a receiving society that recognizes only certain linguistic skills and professional credentials as minimum requirements for full social participation and, thereby, citizenship rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]