Harini Sivalingam

Discourses of Fear and Victimization: the Impact of National Security Legislation on the Tamil Canadian Community Harini Sivalingam

National security discourses have a significant impact on migrant, refugee and immigrant communities. This publication will address the impact that national security legislations have on vulnerable ethnic communities using the Tamil community in Canada as a case study. In highlighting concerns about rashly buying into the dominant discourses of terrorism and security, critical insights into how laws and policies impact community groups and society as a whole will be raised by exploring the discourses of fear and victimization. In particular, two important questions will be addressed. Firstly, how does the dominant discourse on fear of terrorism in national security legislation impact on the victimization of community groups, such as Tamil-Canadians? And secondly, what methods should be employed by communities so that the cycle of fear and victimization can be broken to enable the community to act with agency and resist these dominant discourses?