The Life Course — trauma, migration and 'renoviction' in Vancouver

**This episode originally aired October 9, 2018.

PhD student Mei Lan Fang's parents survived the Cultural Revolution. They immigrated to Canada with dreams of a new home in a country that values human rights and offers social mobility. But the mobility they found here was downward —after years of struggle in Vancouver, the family verged on homelessness.

Mei uses her family's experience of immigration from China to help her understand the life struggles of marginalized seniors in Vancouver's punishing housing market. She gathers their stories to gain the so-called "life course perspective" on their current predicaments, and in doing so, she forms strong personal bonds with her subjects — an approach to scholarship that reflects a shift in how many academics view their role today.

It was Mei Lan Fang's sixth birthday when she and her parents landed in Vancouver from Shanghai. 

She vividly remembers the culture shock. 

"After a few days of being in Vancouver, I packed all my clothes in these Safeway bags and I said to my parents, 'I'm ready to go back to China now. The joke's over!'" says Fang. "Everything was just so strange."

In Shanghai, Fang and her parents had enjoyed a middle-class lifestyle. They lived in a comfortable home. Both parents held professional careers. After arriving here in Canada, lacking local experience and facing a language barrier, they didn't succeed at finding work in their respective fields. They took factory jobs, and lived in a relative's basement for several years.

"My mum was particularly unhappy with the whole situation," says Fang. "I think she really felt that downward social mobility."

The family scraped together enough money for a downpayment on a house. But they weren't able to keep up with the payments. Fang says a major factor was her mother's succumbing to a gambling habit. 

"Being in the environment of the casino made her feel like she was part of something," says Fang. "I think she felt comfort [there]. But it completely drained us financially because my parents had a joint account. My dad was so busy working and doing all the things that he didn't really keep track of what was going on in the accounts to the point where it was basically too late."

Eventually, the family lost the house.

Fang's parents separated. She says that she, her father and sister veered dangerously close to homelessness. 

"My dad was completely devastated because he lost his wife and he lost the house," says Fang. "I thought he was suicidal at one point."

They rented a cheap basement apartment. The teenage Fang took on part-time work. But they were 'renovicted' twice — evicted by landlords who wanted to renovate to double the rent.

Her father died of colon cancer last year. He'd never been able to realize his dream of finding a decent and affordable place to call home in Vancouver.

'Life course' research

As part of Fang's research, she gathered the life stories of 29 seniors who experienced what she calls "precarious access to housing". Many of them followed a similar pattern to Fang's parents — migration to Canada with big dreams to establish themselves, followed by downward social mobility, followed by struggles to stay housed in a place where rents and real estate skyrocket. 

Research participants have the expertise on their own lives. Theoretical perspectives are very important, but we can't do better than to talk to the people and understand what's happening to them through their own eyes.- Judith Sixsmith

She draws from her own experience to connect emotionally with her research participants, and to perceive how key moments throughout an individual's life influence their economic and social situations later on. 

This 'life-course' approach to research represents a growing appetite among scholars to work across different disciplines and find value in the subjective experience alongside more scientific, large-sample approaches to data-gathering.

"The work we do is ground-up," says Judith Sixsmith, Fang's PhD supervisor now based at the University of Dundee. "Research participants have the expertise on their own lives. Theoretical perspectives are very important, but we can't do better than to talk to the people and understand what's happening to them through their own eyes."

Participants in this episode: 

• Mei Lan Fang is a PhD candidate in urban studies at Heriot-Watt University (Scotland). She is based in Vancouver.
• Yvone Marquis is one of Mei Lan Fang's research participants. She is originally from Macau and is a resident of Kiwanis Towers. 
• Judith Sixsmith is a professor in the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Dundee and a Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University.
• Laurence Kirmayer is Director of the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University. Co-director of the Culture, Mind and Brain Program, McGill University. He is Editor-in-Chief of Transcultural Psychiatry.

**This episode is part of our series Ideas from the Trenches. It was produced by Nicola Luksic and Tom Howell. Special thanks to Anne Penman in Vancouver for her help with this episode.