Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 65 million people were displaced by the end of 2016. While existing international humanitarian and legal tools are designed to deal with refugees on an individualized basis and within short-term crises, we are witnessing a structural human displacement problem that is becoming more and more acute.

In response to this growing global crisis, the FMHT was founded in March 2015 at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. It is fitting that this initiative should be housed at the Pardee School—which boasts an interdisciplinary faculty committed to developing long-term sustainable policy solutions to some of the most pressing issues of our time.

FMHT brings together these scholars and practitioners in order to create policies and resources that have an impact beyond the classroom. We are enriched by our location in Boston—with its vibrant history as a migrant and refugee host city and thriving community of academics that is unparalleled in the United States. Our members include political scientists, sociologists, lawyers, doctors, economists, public health professionals, anthropologists, and religious figures; academics, practitioners, policymakers, and students.

By drawing specialists from such a broad range of fields, we are able to discuss and craft more comprehensive policies to propose to various stakeholders in humanitarian assistance. Our partnership with the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies allows us to include academics and students from the entire Boston area and further develop our ability to cultivate multiple approaches to migration and trafficking.

Noora Lori, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Pardee School of Global Studies, Founding Director

Noora Lori is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Her first book Offshore Citizens: Permanent “Temporary” Status in the Gulf (Cambridge University Press 2019) examines the citizenship and migration policies of the United Arab Emirates, where non-citizens make up 90 percent of the population. Challenging the dominant paradigm of citizen vs. alien, her book shows that not all populations are fully included or expelled by a state; they can be suspended in limbo—residing in a territory for protracted periods without accruing citizenship rights. She has published in the Oxford Handbook on Citizenship, the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, the Journal of Politics & Society, and for the Institut français des relations internationals (IFRI). She is the Founding Director of the Pardee School Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking, which she co-directs with Professor Kaija Schilde. At BU she received the Gitner Family Prize for Faculty Excellence (2014) and the CAS Templeton Award for Excellence in Student Advising (2015). She was previously an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and a fellow at the International Security Program of the Harvard Kennedy School. She received her PhD in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University’s (2013) and her dissertation received the Best Dissertation Award from the Migration and Citizenship Section of the American Political Science Association in 2014.

Specializations: Comparative Politics, Immigration and Citizenship, Middle East Politics

Kaija Schilde, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Pardee School of Global Studies, Co-Director

Kaija Schilde is an Associate Professor at the Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript addressing why states outsource security to firms and industries, titled Outsourcing Security, Managing Risk: Hiding the National Security State in Global Markets. Her first book, The Political Economy of European Security (Cambridge University Press, 2017) theorizes EU-interest group state-society relations, identifying the political development of security and defense institutions as an outcome of industry interest and mobilization. Her research spans multiple dimensions of comparative national security, including the causes and consequences of military spending; the relationship between spending, innovation, and capabilities; defense reform and force transformation; the politics of defense protectionism; and the political economy of border security. She has published articles in the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of Global Security Studies, Security Studies, European Security, and the Journal of Peace Research.

Specializations:

European Union; European Foreign and Security Policy; Comparative Politics; Defense Acquisition and Technology; Bureaucracy and Interest Groups; Computational Modeling and Simulation.

Susan Akram

Professor Susan Akram directs BU Law’s International Human Rights Clinic, in which she supervises students engaged in international advocacy in domestic, international, regional, and UN fora. Her research and publications focus on immigration, asylum, refugee, forced migration, and human and civil rights issues, with an interest in the Middle East, the Arab, and Muslim world.

Akram’s distinguished research was recognized with a Fulbright Senior Scholar Teaching and Research Award for the 1999–2000 academic year. She has lectured on Palestinian refugees to general audiences around the world as well as to committees of the United Nations (including the High Commission for Refugees and the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), the European Union, and representatives of European and Canadian government ministries and parliaments. Since September 11, 2001, she has presented widely on the USA Patriot Act and immigration-related laws and policies as well as on her work challenging standard interpretations of women’s asylum claims from the Arab/Muslim world.

With her clinic students as well as in collaboration with other legal organizations, Akram has worked on resettlement and refugee claims of Guantanamo detainees, and has been co-counsel on a number of high profile cases, including the 20+-year litigation of a case of first impression on the interpretation of one of the exclusion bars to asylum, In Re A-H-. She has taught at the American University in Cairo, Egypt and at Al-Quds and Birzeit Universities in Palestine. She regularly teaches in the summer institute on forced migration at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, and in various venues in the Middle East on refugee law.

Christina Bain

Christina Bain is the Director of Babson College’s Initiative on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery where she is focused on addressing the role of business and entrepreneurial solutions in the fight against human trafficking, in addition to coursework and initiatives to train the next generation of business leaders in anti-trafficking strategies. Christina is the former and founding Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery within the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, a program that she designed, developed, and implemented with the aim of creating data-driven public policy solutions to human trafficking. Prior to the Harvard Kennedy School, Christina was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as the Executive Director of the Governor’s Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence, a statewide commission of nearly 350 public and private sector partners.  She previously served as the Public Affairs Liaison to Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey where she worked on domestic violence and criminal justice issues, including human trafficking and sex offender management. Christina also served as a Special Assistant to Governor Jane Swift of Massachusetts.

Christina is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on the Illicit Economy; Global Agenda Council on Human Rights; and is the Co-Chair of the Global Agenda Council Network-Wide Human Trafficking Task Force, a cross-council initiative with other Global Agenda Councils and Forum industry partners. She is a member of the Global Initiative Network of Experts with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime; a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and a member of the Massachusetts Governor’s Council to Address Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence under Governor Charlie Baker and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito.

Julie Dahlstrom

Julie Dahlstrom directs BU Law’s Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking (IRHT) Program, which offers law students the unique opportunity to represent noncitizen and survivor clients while developing important lawyering skills. Dahlstrom founded and directed the Human Trafficking Clinic since it opened in 2012. In 2014, the Human Trafficking Clinic was recognized by preLaw magazine as one of the top 25 most innovative clinical programs nationally.

She served previously as a senior staff attorney at Casa Myrna Vazquez, where she represented survivors of commercial sexual exploitation, and as managing attorney of the Immigration Legal Assistance Program at Ascentria Care Alliance. Dahlstrom founded and chairs the U and T Visa Working Group of the Immigration Coalition and is a member of the Human Trafficking Subcommittee of the Delivery of Legal Services Committee. She previously served as the co-chair of the Public Service Subcommittee of the Immigration Committee of the Boston Bar Association.

In 2012, she was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick to the Massachusetts Human Trafficking Task Force, chaired by the Attorney General, and she has served as the co-chair of the Victim Services Subcommittee and a member of the Labor Trafficking Subcommittee. In 2016, she received the Top Women of the Law Award from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Dahlstrom received a JD from Boston College Law School and a BA from Boston College.

Susan Eckstein

Susan Eckstein is a Professor of International Relations and Sociology at Boston University and Past President of the Latin American Studies Association. She has written extensively on Mexico, Cuba, and Bolivia and on immigration and the impact immigrants have had across country borders. Her most recent book, The Immigrant Divide: How Cuban Americans Changed the U.S. and Their Homeland, won awards from Sections of the American Political Science Association and American Sociological Association for Best Book in 2010/2011. She also authored prize-winning Back from the Future: Cuba under Castro and The Poverty of Revolution: The State and Urban Poor in Mexico. In addition, she edited Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements and co-edited books on social justice and social rights in Latin America with Timothy Wickham-Crowley and on developing country immigrant impacts in their homelands with Adil Najam. She also co-edited a 2015 double issue of Diaspora that focuses on generational differences within diverse diasporas.

Eckstein has received grants and fellowships for book projects from a range of funding sources. They include the Russell Sage Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute for World Order, the Mellon Foundation through MIT, the Ford Foundation, and the Tinker Foundation. This year she received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship to write a book, Cuban Immigration Exceptionalism: The Long Cold War. Among other topics, the book addresses how U.S. Presidents and Congress have treated Cubans as refugees even when they sought U.S. entry for economic reasons. The book also addresses the various immigration privileges provided Cubans since the 1959 revolution in Cuba.

Lance Laird

Lance Laird is Assistant Director of the Master of Science Program in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice in the Graduate Medical Sciences Division of Boston University School of Medicine.  He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and in the Graduate Division of Religious Studies

Dr. Laird received his BA in 1986 in religious studies, with a focus on Islam, from the University of Virginia. He studied theology at Baptist seminaries in Kentucky and Switzerland, earning an MDiv in 1989. Dr. Laird completed his ThD in comparative religion at the Harvard Divinity School in 1998. His dissertation, “Martyrs, Heroes and Saints: Shared Symbols of Muslims and Christians in Contemporary Palestinian Society,” examined Christian-Muslim relations and nationalism through ethnographic fieldwork in Bethlehem.

Dr. Laird’s research at Boston University has focused on multiple intersections of Muslim identity with healing professions and public health in the US. His early research on shared symbols of Muslims and Christians in Bethlehem set forth a research agenda on the “dialogue of life.” He employs a “lived religion” and ethnographic approach, and draws on theories of racialization, social suffering, and identity formation. While continuing to write on Christian-Muslim relations in theological circles, he has published articles on how Muslims are represented in medical literature, the emergence of Muslim free clinics, and chaplaincy for Muslim patients; the civic participation and professional identities of American Muslim physicians; the assets that predominantly Black Christian and Muslim congregations bring to neighborhood public health; and cultural aspects of Somali oral health.

Dr. Laird is currently an organizer with the Greater Boston Muslim Health Initiative, studying networks of faith and health that affect local Muslims; and conducting research on healthcare access for Muslim women who have experienced domestic violence. He is also collaborating with family medicine faculty in qualitative studies of integrative medicine group visits and virtual group health promotion.  Dr. Laird is interested in developing new projects on religious and cultural community assets for immigrant and refugee health. He is directing the 2015 Boston University Religion Fellows Seminar on “Multiple Interdisciplinary Approaches to Religions, Health and Healing in Global and Local Contexts” with Dr. Mary Elizabeth Moore, Dean of the School of Theology.

Robert E.B. Lucas

Denis J. Sullivan (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs as well as the Co-Director of the Middle East Center at Northeastern University. Prof. Sullivan is the founding Director of BCARS, the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies, supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Dr. Sullivan is the author of nearly three dozen journal articles, book chapters, policy briefs, blogs and encyclopedia entries plus a number of books, including: Egypt: Global Security Watch, with Kimberly Jones, (Praeger 2008); The World Bank and the Palestinian NGO Project: From Service Delivery to Sustainable Development (Jerusalem: PASSIA, 2001); Islam in Contemporary Egypt: Civil Society vs. the State, with Sana Abed-Kotob (Boulder: L. Rienner, 1999); Private Voluntary Organizations in Egypt: Islamic Development, Private Initiative, and State Control (University Press of Florida, 1994); and Privatization & Liberalization in the Middle East, co-edited with Iliya Harik (Indiana University Press, 1992).

His current research and policy focus is on the Syrian refugee crisis and its impact on regional societies (Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey) as well as in the Balkans. He co-authored (with Jaime Jarvis) the policy brief Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis: A Call for Regional and International Responses and co-authored (with Sarah Tobin) “Security and Resilience among Syrian Refugees in Jordan,” MERIP.

Sullivan has been a consultant to the World Bank, USAID, U.S. State Department, U.S. Department of Defense, Council on Foreign Relations, human rights organizations, and academic institutions in Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East.

Prof. Sullivan also is the founding Director of the Dialogue of Civilizations program at Northeastern. Dialogue programs send some 1,200 students around the world each summer on 60+ faculty-led academic programs; each program is at least 5 weeks in length and some are 8-weeks long. These programs enable students to engage with host communities, learn languages, conduct research and service learning projects, and otherwise train and learn new skills. For 22 years, Dr. Sullivan has led programs in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Oman, Qatar, Dubai, as well as the Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Greece).

Sarah A. Tobin

Sarah A. Tobin is an anthropologist who teaches at the Watson Institute at Brown University, with expertise in Islam, economic anthropology, and gender in the Middle East. Her work explores transformations in religious and economic life, identity construction, and personal piety at the intersections with gender, Islamic authority and normative Islam, public ethics, and Islamic authenticity. Ethnographically, her work focuses on Islamic piety in the economy, especially Islamic Banking and Finance, Ramadan, and in contested fields of consumption such as the hijab, and the Arab Spring. She has recently begun a new project examining gender and security with Syrian refugees in the fields of marriage in Jordanian camps. Her books, Everyday Piety: Islam and the Economy in Jordan and The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States are published by Cornell University Press. 

John D. Woodward, Jr.

John D. Woodward, Jr. is a Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Pardee School, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate classes on security issues. Prior to coming to Boston University in 2015, John served for over twenty years in the CIA as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service and as a technical intelligence officer in the Directorate of Science and Technology, with assignments in Washington, DC, East Asia, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East, to include war zone duty. From 2003 to 2005, John served as the Director of the U.S. Department of Defense Biometrics Management Office, where he received the Army’s third highest civilian award for his work on using biometric technologies to identify transnational security threats.

Previously, John worked at the RAND Corporation, a federally funded research and development center, as a senior policy analyst (2000-2003) and the Associate Director of RAND’s Intelligence Policy Center (2005-2006), where he helped oversee, manage, and develop RAND’s work for the national security community. During this time, he was an adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.

John has gained extensive experience related to intelligence, counterterrorism, and technology policy issues. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on four occasions, the Commission on Online Child Protection, and the Virginia State Crime Commission.

His publications include Biometrics: Identity Assurance in the Information Age, (McGraw-Hill, 2003), Army Biometric Applications: Identifying and Addressing Sociocultural Concerns (RAND, 2001) and his many articles have appeared in various journals and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Legal Times, and the University of Pittsburgh Law Review.

He holds a J.D magna cum laude from Georgetown Law, an M.S. from the London School of Economics, where he was a Thouron Scholar, and a B.S. with honors from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Graduate Chair Co-Chairs

Catherine Abou-Khalil (Cat) is a Ph.D. student in the Political Science department. Her research interests are on the topics of forced migration, immigration, gender and security, media, and applying an intersectional lens of feminist and race theories. She earned her B.A. in Political Science International Relations and Comparative Politics and a double minor in Arabic Studies and Writing at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Her interest in migration sparked when she worked as Volunteer Coordinator and Student Curriculum Supervisor for the after-school program at the SayDaNar Community Development Center, a non-profit organization in Lowell, MA that works with refugees from Myanmar. She also volunteered as a teaching assistant for SayDaNar’s citizenship class.

Kelley Gourley is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology. Her main research interests are migration, emotion, and education in conflicts and emergencies. As an undergraduate, she majored in International Relations and MENA Studies at the Pardee School of Global studies before making the switch to anthropology for her graduate work. Kelley has worked in international education programs in Morocco as well as domestic social work. Her dissertation will focus on the effects of formal and non-formal education for Syrian youth in Jordan.

Desiree (Desi) Hartman is a MSW candidate at the BU School of Social Work. She is passionate about providing mental health support to children impacted by forced displacement and transforming systems to actualize the human rights of every immigrant, refugee, and asylum seeker. Desi graduated from Colorado College with a B.A. in Psychology and Global Health. Her experiences range across global health internships in Kenya and Ecuador, psychology field research in the Philippines, support groups for immigrants who are in ICE detention centers, trauma-informed education with Vital Village Networks, and child rights advocacy with UNICEF USA.

Interns 2021-2022

Brianna Aldea

Major: International Relations

Minor: Business Administration

Anna Rafferty

Major: English and American Studies

Minor: Classical Civilization

Tatiana E. Jose-Santos

Major: Psychology

Jenna Riedl 

Major: Painting

Hadeel Abu Ktaish

Major: International Relations

Minor: African American Studies

Former Graduate Chairs:

Brooke Jardine is a Master’s of International Affairs candidate with a specialization in Diplomacy at the Pardee School of Global Studies. Her areas of research are migration, sustainable development, and food security. She is originally from Boise, Idaho where she got her undergraduate degree in Business and Economics at Boise State University. Brooke initially became interested in migration when she was doing research on climate change and its effects on the rise of climate migrants around the world.

Zach Crawford (Pardee ‘13, ‘20) hails from Buffalo, NY. He is an MA candidate studying Global Policy with a specialization in international public health policy, and also works full-time for the Office of the Provost. Zach previously served in Peace Corps Benin as a rural community health advisor and then as a volunteer manager for a refugee services agency before returning to Boston in 2016. In addition to his extensive background and interest in human rights research and advocacy, Zach has taken coursework in international law, political economy, global health economics and monitoring and evaluation for international health programs. He has a passion for improving health outcomes among the most vulnerable through both targeted programming and innovative policy.

Lara Tennyson is an MA candidate in the Master’s of International Affairs (MAIA) program with a specialization in Diplomacy at the Pardee School of Global Studies. Her focus is on human rights issues, which include human trafficking, state violence, and ethno violence. Her research includes sex trafficking in the U.S. and South Korea and rape culture in the U.S. and India. As an undergraduate, she studied state violence and ethno violence abroad in Berlin, Germany. Lara has taken courses focused on human rights, political violence and terrorism, and international law. Lara was an intern at United Way Worldwide (UWW) where her work focused on development in the Africa and Caribbean Regions

Samantha Robertson is an MA candidate in Global Development Policy (GDP) at the Pardee School of Global Studies. Her focus is on economic development and human capital accumulation by increasing access to quality education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her research is on conditional cash transfers (CCTs), gaps in education programs and policies, and using statistical analysis to promote effective development programs. Samantha is also an editor for the Pardee Periodical Journal of Global Affairs. 

Vicky Kelberer received her MA in International Affairs in May 2017 from the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. She co-founded FMHT with Profs. Lori and Schilde in spring 2015, and served as an inaugural Graduate Chair from 2015-2017. During her MA, Vicky conducted research on refugee policy in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Switzerland. Her research focuses on reassessing international approaches to urban (non-camp) refugees and internally displaced persons, and integrating urban planning theories and practices into humanitarian responses. She has published articles in the Middle East Research and Information Project, Atlantic Council, Huffington Post, Foreign Policy in Focus, and Parabellum Report on refugees and international affairs. Vicky is currently working on the Jean Monnet Migration Innovation Series with FMHT, and will return to Jordan in 2017 for an extended research consultancy on refugee programs.

Trish Ward is a PhD candidate in the Dept. of Sociology at Boston University. Her research interests include refugee relief and so-called “migration management” practices particularly in the Middle East context. Trish obtained her B.A. from American University’s School of International Service and was a 2012 Fulbright Student Scholar in Canada where she studied refugee labor integration and Canadian migration scholars’ contributions to the country’s immigration policy debate. Trish has also worked and conducted research in Jordan where she examined applications of UNHCR’s urban refugee policy in protracted refugee contexts.

Former Legal Fellows

Yoana Kuzmova

Yoana Kuzmova served as a legal fellow at FMHT during the academic year 2018-19. Since obtaining her Juris Doctor at the School of Law (2014) and a Master’s degree from the Pardee School (2015), Yoana has practiced in the areas of nationality and refugee law. Her research interests include protracted displacement, statelessness, and the future of citizenship. She has worked as a Clinical Instructor at the Boston University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic (2016-2018) and served as the Clinic’s Interim Director for the academic year 2021-2022.

Interns 2020-2021

Brianna Aldea, B.A. in International Relations minoring in Business Administration – Events Coordinator Intern

Ethan Collier, B.A. in International Relations – Advocacy and Communications Intern

Caroline Fernandez, B.A. in International Relations with a focus on Latin America – Student Engagement Intern

Madison Romo, B.A. in International Relations & Russian Language and Literature – Advocacy and Communications Intern

Interns: 2019-2020

Graduate Interns

Jessica Frith, BA/MA in International Affairs – Events Manager Intern

Lauren Labrique, MA in International Affairs – Advocacy & Communications Intern

Ari Platz, MA in International Affairs – Grants Coordinator Intern

Undergraduate Interns

Julia Mullert – Student Engagement Intern

Kavya Verma – Student Engagement Intern

Interns: 2018-2019

Graduate Interns

Khadija Noor – MA in International Affairs

Undergraduate Interns

Nikta Khani – Research and Institutional Development Intern

Stephanie Garcia – Events Manager Intern

Ashley Cruz – Advocacy and Communications Intern

Interns: 2017-2018

Graduate Interns

Jannate Temsamani, MA Global Development Policy

Samuel Brostuen, MA International Affairs

Undergraduate Interns

Sofie Sørskår Engen, BA International Relations and Political Science (2018)

Karla Kim, BA International Relations and Sociology (2020)

Maryna Ivanna Markowicz, BA International Relations (2019)

Paulina Prasad, BA International Relations (2018)

Ellen Asermely, BA International Relations (2018)

David Huang, BA International Relations (2019)

Raina Hasan, BA Economics and International Relations (2018)

Interns: 2016-2017

Graduate Interns

Jannate Temsamani, MA Global Development Policy

Samuel Brostuen, MA International Affairs

Jeffrey Nicklas, MS Medical Anthropology

Undergraduate Interns

Yasmeen Ammus, BA International Relations  (2017)

Ellen Asermely, BA International Relations (2018)

Aida Bardissi, BA International Relations (2018)

Claire Coffey, BA International Relations (2017)

Sofie Engen, BA International Relations (2017)

Raina Hasan, BA Economics and International Relations (2018)

David Huang, BA International Relations (2019)

Colleen Karp, BA International Relations (2017)

Eva Koronios, BA International Relations and Middle East & North Africa Studies (2017)

Maryna Markowicz, BA International Relations (2019)

Ashley Mixon, BA Political Science (2017)

Smaranda Tolosano, BA International Relations (2017)

The Boston University Citizenship Hub was launched to address the needs of newcomer refugees and immigrants, who have a beginner/intermediate level of English, and who need additional English training to take the United States Citizenship Exam. It brings together BU student language learners with these newcomers to create a dynamic space of learning and exchange for everyone involved. This interdisciplinary community outreach program promotes the ethnic and racial diversity of our community and country by bringing new arrivals into the legal fold.

Each week we hold multiple practice sessions for those who have watched and studied the Exam Preparation videos linked below. For information on how to join these sessions, please email us at bucitizenshiphub@gmail.com.

Resources for Learners 

Citizenship Exam Question in English

Citizenship Exam Questions in Arabic

If you are a BU student interested in volunteering with the Hub, please fill out this form.

Ellie Yeo

Major: International Relations

Minors: Arabic and History

Rana Hussein 

Major: Math & Computer Science

Noor Mchallah

Major: International Relations

Our BU research team created an original database of political cartoons depicting refugees and migrants around the world. The cartoons depict migrants and refugees in harrowing journeys across the desert and sea and the kinds of reception, detention, and discrimination they face once they arrive to a country. The RMPC database includes 2140 cartoons from 65 countries and 163 artists published between 2015-2017. After an initial collection of the cartoons, the research team coded each cartoon based on the actors, context, events, region, frames, and themes. The database will be analyzed for trends across region, time, and demographics and can be used to explore how the media portray migrants and refugees during times of crisis.

Research Team

Dr. Nicholas Micinski is the PI for the RMPC and led the research team in collecting, coding, and analyzing the new database. Dr. Micinski is the ISA Rosenau Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of Europe, Boston University. His research focuses on international cooperation on migration and refugee policies, the European Union, United Nations, and global governance. Dr. Micinski received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.

Prachi Jain earned her Bachelor of Business Administration with honors from Baruch College- City University of New York. She is currently working in financial services and juggling a writing project with retired senior executive of Princeton University and ex investment strategist at Sesame Street, Paul Firstenberg. She hopes to attend graduate school for a masters in finance.

Niki Kiani is an undergraduate student at Boston University studying economics and statistics. She joined this project because of her interests in refugee politics and the portrayal of refugees in the media across the years. She has had previous experience working for a U.S. congressman, as a legal intern at a law firm, and as an ESOL tutor for new immigrants of the greater Boston area. Niki is currently conducting an independent research project using the RMPC database regarding refugee portrayal in the U.S. before and after the election of Donald Trump. She aspires to continue her studies by attending law school to practice as an immigration and human rights attorney.

Bernard Mulaw is a first-generation senior pursuing a dual bachelor’s and master’s degree in political science. He immigrated from Ethiopia during its political violence in 2005 and grew up in Las Vegas since 2007. These difficult life experiences, coupled with the 2008 housing crisis, encouraged him to study the broad nature of politics and their influence on people. He hopes to grow into a civic leader, and to leverage academic research to advocate for positive policy changes.

Maggie Choy is one of the coders for the RMPC project. Over the course of this project, her favorite political cartoons were any of the that showed the Statue of Liberty because of all the symbolism and the hidden meanings that were revealed. Currently, Maggie is a rising sophomore majoring in Journalism and minoring in Political Science. Her experiences include working at the Alumni Affairs & Development Office at Harvard University as an events intern, a communications and legal intern with New York State Senator Todd Kaminsky, and an associate podcast producer and interviewer for The Creative Process.

Briana Frost (CGS ’19, CAS ’21) is a rising senior at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University studying International Relations and Environmental Analysis & Policy. She is passionate about the use of media and the arts in representing the realities of the human experience. Briana aspires to continue studying immigration and environmental policy throughout her education and diving into the complex relationship between climate change and global migration. Previous research has included a capstone project on the application of environmental resilience projects and educational programs within Boston in the face of climate change.

2020

• June 30 – Webinar: UN Global Compacts: Governing Migrants and Refugees

2019

• October 10 – The Politics of Migration in the Middle East
• April 30 – Rocio Documentary Screening and Q&A with Director Dario Guerrero
• April 25 – Suitcase Stories
• March 28 – Invisible Hands Movie Screening

2018

• November 12: Perspectives on the Future of Citizenship in the Middle East
• September 17: Caring for Survivors of Torture & Refugee Trauma
• April 24: Borders Now: A Reading & Conversation with Faruk Šehić and Mirza Purić
• April 19: Voices from the Edges of Europe
• February 26: Beyond the Headlines: Rohingya: Ethnic Cleansing? Genocide?

2017

• November 3: Workshop and Panel Discussion on Migrant Disappearances in Mexico
• October 27-28: Disrupting the Human Trafficking – Migration Nexus (international workshop)
• September 25: Migration Innovation Incubators – Rethinking the Approach to Policy Education
• July 14-15: Refugee Resettlement – Between Policy and Practice
• April 20: “Fake News Isn’t New or News – Remembering the 2003 US Invasion of Iraq“
• Human Trafficking Education Week 2017
  • April 18: Expert Panel – Human Trafficking, A Global Crisis
  • April 19: Local Anti-Human Trafficking Organizations, Panel Discussion
  • April 20: Film Screening of “Not My Life” with REACT to Film
• April 4: Professor Perspectives – Undocumented Immigrants and Allyship
• March 28: FMHT Graduate Student Working Paper Roundtable
• February 16: Immigrant Dreams, Emigrant Borders: Migrants, Transnational Encounters, and Identity in Spain
• February 1: “Refugees, Immigrants, and US – Town Hall Discussion“

2016

• December 9: “Freedom of movement, the migration crisis, and the reopening of the stateness question in Europe”
• October 25: Amnesty International and FMHT Present: “Forced to Flee: The Human Rights Crisis in Syria”
• October 20: FMHT Discussion with Justin Gest: “The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality”
• September 21-28: Refugee Education Week
  • BUIAA Global Insights Discussion: Along the Migrant Trail with Vicky Kelberer
  • REACT to Film Screening of “After Spring”
  • Global Crisis, Local Action: Panel of Local Refugee NGOs
  • Refugee Benefit Gala with Eyes on Refugees
• April 22: “Refugees NGOs, Social Networks, and Urban Homemaking: Ethnographic observations from Cairo” with Dr. Anita Fabos
• April 15: “Syrian Refugees and the Limits of Turkey’s ‘Open Door’ Policy” with Dr. Cigdem Benam
• April 11: “Managing Refugees though Economic Integration? Some Case Studies from the Middle East” with Dr. Oroub el-Abed of SOAS London
• March 30: “Remittances, Forced Displacement, and Human Security” with Dr. Daivi Rodima-Taylor
• March 18: “Human Trafficking, Care, and the U.S. Healthcare Environment” with Jeff Nicklas, MS Candidate
• March 17: FMHT Student Working Paper Roundtable
• February 26: “Migration, Gender, and Medicine Across Cultures” with Dr. Lance Laird
• February 19: “Digital Solutions and Displacement” with Noora Lori
• February 18: “Living in the Shadows – the Disappeared Migrants in Mexico”
• January 25: “Dying to Forget: Oil, Power, Palestine, and the Foundations of US Policy in the Middle East.”