The evolution of the third sector during the COVID-19 pandemic: Next generation diasporic civic organizations (DCOs) among Bangladeshis in Toronto

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the confluence of civic engagement and cyberspace by studying diasporic civic organizations (DCOs) within superdiverse and digitizing contexts. Civic engagement is crucial for DCOs, which often originate in superdiverse locales in migrant-receiving cities like Toronto. The paper explores how studying superdiverse locales provides a framework to move past ethnocentric interpretations of diasporic civic engagement and how digitization affects their organizations. The study focuses on three next-generation Bangladeshi Canadian DCOs through semi-structured interviews, digital archival analysis, and field notes. Findings show that digitization initially posed challenges due to inadequate support and resources during the early stages of the pandemic. However, digitization ultimately provided less resource-intensive interventions for a more dispersed audience. Simultaneously, unequal access to digital tools negatively impacts less-resourced, volunteer-run DCOs and their service recipients. Policymakers and service providers must find ways to support more effective and equitable digitization for DCOs originating in superdiverse locales.

KEYWORDS:

• Civic engagement
• diasporic organizations
• cyberspace
• social mobility
• migrants in the city

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) is an aggregated administrative geographic unit of the Canadian population census. The Toronto comprises of 16 unique census subdivisions (CSDs) which range from small towns to large cities, around the city of Toronto. The city of Toronto remains the most populous census subdivision within the Toronto CMA.

2. The researcher was involved with the organization from its early days and still serves on the board.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tahmid Rouf

Tahmid Rouf is a final stage PhD candidate at the Environmental and Urban Change (EUC) department of York University (Toronto, Canada) specializing in critical human geography. He is interested in research issues of diversity, migration, urban life, diaspora, and digital technologies within the broad disciplines of urban, economic, social, cultural, and digital geographies. He has over a decade of non-profit sector experience tackling the issues of youth engagement and leadership issues. From student internships to executive board seats, he has been involved at various levels of non-profit work at different scales, from the local to the international, since 2010. Moreover, he has been a research and teaching assistant at the university level since 2014 and looks forward to building on his experiences through an academic role after completing his doctorate. He is an Ontario Graduate Scholar who received his MA and BBA from York University.