Toll of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Primary Caregiver in Yazidi Refugee Families in Canada: A Feminist Refugee Epistemological Analysis

Existing discourse on refugee resettlement in the West is rife with,imperialist and neoliberal allusions. Materially, this discourse assumes refugees as,passive recipients of resettlement programs in the host country, thereby denying them,their subjectivities. Given the amplification of all social and economic inequities,during the pandemic, our paper explores how Canada's response to the pandemic visa-vis refugees impacted the everyday of Yazidis in Calgary – a recently arrived,refugee group who survived the most horrific genocidal atrocities of our times. Based,on interviews with Yazidi families in Calgary and with resettlement staff we unpack,Canada's paternalistic response towards refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic.,We show how resettlement provisions and social isolation along with pre-migration,histories have furthered the conditions of social, economic, and affective inequities for,Yazidis. We also show how Yazidi women who were most impacted by the genocide,and the subsequent pandemic find ways of asserting their personhood and engage in,healing through a land-based resettlement initiative.