The experiences of professional nurses who have migrated to Canada: cosmopolitan citizenship or democratic racism?

This interpretive research analyses the discourse of nurses who migrated to Canada and experienced racism. They also experienced reprisals when they formally complained about racism in a context of denial of the problem of racism by colleagues and employers. The present work focuses on two issues arising from the data: the problem of how to make racism visible among those who have a vested interest in denying its existence and the emotional cool of those filing grievances or complaints in contrast with the hot reaction of those being challenged when racism is named. We introduce two theoretical perspectives to address these phenomena called democratic racism and cosmopolitan citizenship, respectively. The former, as defined by Henry et al. (The Colour of Democracy: Racism in Canadian Society. Harcourt Brace, Canada, Toronto, 1996), describes the coexistence of both democratic values and practices that discount people of colour advertently or inadvertently. We outline the notion of cosmopolitan citizenship that is argued by Turner (Politics of the Global City. Routledge, London, 2000) to be an orientation resulting from global microcosms in cities teeming with diversity. The characteristic orientations of cool and stewardship are useful for describing some of the discourse expressed by each participant in our study all of whom challenged racism practices, not on nationalistic grounds, but rather out of concern for universal human rights. Their characteristics qualify them for cosmopolitan citizenship under Turner's perspective. We suggest that anti-racist activists have been cosmopolitan citizens for decades and argue that while cosmopolitan citizenship may have taken root in neo-liberal movements, it appears to have tactical attributes in the struggle with democratic racism. In conclusion, we advocate for a cosmopolitan citizenship ethic to facilitate a rational move toward racial integration in the profession through the sharing of power and privilege. One goal in confronting racism is the accountability for whiteness: immunity from responsibility or apology.