Louise Swaffer

Louise Swaffer is PhD candidate and inaugural Canadian-Scottish Studies Doctoral Fellow in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University. Louise’s training has coincided with rising interest in de-centralised perspectives on historically anglo-centric narratives, which has shaped her direction. The global phenomenon of British migration remains key to deepening understandings of structures and processes of settler state formation and globalisation, but also in reconstructing community histories shaped, marginalised, and fragmented by European imperialism. Her 2023 paper “Women’s Protestant foreign mission work and settler state formation in Canada: A reexamination of the Scottish diaspora” takes a multi-scale approach to the Canadian social reform movement to expose how local and foreign mission environments intersected and collaborated to fortify structures of Anglo-Protestant hegemony in Canada and globally. Her current project, which examines working-class Scottish migration to early twentieth-century Verdun, builds on re-framing the study of British migration through place-based, case study approaches and focus on urban and metropolitan environments. Louise has worked on several research projects related to migration in the modern period, most recently “The Human Cost of Food” a ActiveHistory.ca and HistoireEngagée.ca exhibit exploring temporary migrant labour in Canada’s food industry.