2024 - 2027: This multi-year project examines the unintended consequences of climate change adaptation projects in the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Ghana. The challenges posed by CCA programs show how climate and societal change occur simultaneously and must be tackled together. Drawing on theories on dispossession, displacement and climate change adaptation, we will bring out novel connections between these different fields. Because tensions between biodiversity and access to land and waters for vulnerable communities contribute to dispossession, we will use a nature-based solutions framework that “works with and enhances nature to address societal challenges” (Seddon et al 2019) as a lens to look for synergies. To analyze the gendered dimensions of dispossession and highlight contextual and social vulnerabilities, we use an intersectional approach, highlighting the co-constitution of inequalities.

2024 - 2027: Arctic communities depend on safe, accessible, and affordable transportation routes to underpin sustainable livelihoods, culture, and food security. Climate change is contributing to increasingly unpredictable conditions across the cryosphere (i.e. sea ice, freshwater ice, snow, and permafrost). These changes in the cryosphere are making the Arctic more accessible, but also creating a riskier environment with more hazardous transportation routes. Concurrently, these cryospheric changes are also altering migration patterns of traditional food sources, including caribou, beluga, narwhals, and whitefish. This in turn impacts routes used for hunting and herding, thereby creating challenges for Indigenous food security, culture, and mental health across the circumpolar Arctic.

Working in concert with Indigenous communities who rely on the cryosphere for critical transportation infrastructure, food security, and water security in Canada (Inuvik, Northwest Territories and Pond Inlet, Nunavut), the United States (Circle, Utqiaġvik), and Norway (Troms & Finnmark, Nordland & Trøndelag), we will develop and operationalize a dashboard of real-time forecasting and climate projections for ice and snow conditions at local community scales, based on an adaptive system using models, remote sensing, in situ measurements, and traditional community knowledge, thereby addressing limitations of current climate models. Our approach will transfer successful monitoring and adaptation solutions from one nation to communities in the others.

2024 - 2027: The project aims to bring together and co-create a network of interdisciplinary teams of faculty and students from Costa Rica, Ghana, and the Philippines to: 1) study the current human displacement caused by climate change-related extreme events; 2) model and predict the future trends of population displacement caused by climate change; 3) understand the impacts of climate displacement on different groups, economies, health systems, cultures, and environments; and 4) examine the current and future planning and policy challenges of climate change-related population displacement.

The results of these studies will guide local, regional, and global planners/policy makers/NGOs to understand better the current and future trends and challenges of climate change displacement and design effective mitigation and resilience strategies. This project will also train the next generation of planners, policymakers, engineers, and community leaders in managing population displacement at various levels.

2024 - 2025: From Catastrophe to Community will confront the challenges communities face on the frontlines of climate change by amplifying survivor voices and learning how to share narratives of loss and hope. Narratives are important because they are how we make sense of the world, defining our communities and actions. Narratives about resource consumption have encouraged harmful behaviours that are increasing temperatures and weather-related disasters. Likewise, environmental narratives, which too often exclude climate disaster survivors, have not curbed that harm. We are caught in a crisis of narrative as pernicious as the climate crisis it enabled. To find a way out, we need to listen to survivors on the frontlines of climate change in a way that addresses the traumas and inequities they have experienced. Thus, our research question is: how can the personal narratives of climate disaster be documented, mobilized, and invite climate action? To answer this question, we will assemble a people's history of climate change that will be disseminated in the media and museums, as well as via a digital living library that will inspire and inform other creators and researchers.

2024 - 2026: The CIDRARC research partnership will connect a team of international academics and practitioners to conduct initial case and pilot studies, along with a literature review, that will enable us to establish in a series of workshops, key research themes, partnerships, protocols, and activities dedicated to addressing the global challenge of climate displacement. Specifically, we will 1) Ascertain the current state-of-the-art knowledge about climate displacement impacts and solutions, and identify gaps; 2) Set up an archive of case studies, literature, and best practices on justice-driven responsive, receiving, and adaptive practices in cities; 3) Conduct six in-depth case studies, in Toronto, Boston, Chennai, Melbourne, Barcelona, and Karachi, as related to (a) identifying and predicting climate displacement trends and (b) analyzing best policy, planning, and civic justice-driven responses and adaptive practices; 4) Conduct pilot studies of climate-induced mobility in select U.S. cities using cell phone, consumer reference, and census datasets; 5) In a workshop and symposium, co-develop convergent themes for use-inspired research; and 6) Expand the CIDRARC network globally.

2023-2024: This project allowed us to make a podcast called Voiced on the Move. Voices on the Move is a podcast series that explores the complex relationship between climate change and migration, going beyond sensational headlines to bring you real stories. Amplifying the voices of migration researchers, climate migrants, displaced persons, and community leaders—especially from the Global South—the series provides both personal voices and scholarly insights. From Afghanistan to Ghana to Canada, it addresses climate-induced displacement, impacts on indigenous and rural populations, social and gender inequalities in mobility, and much more.

2023 - 2024: Our project Resettlement as Climate Change Adaptation? Exploring the longer-term impacts of post-disaster resettlements in rural coastal and island communities in Eastern Samar, the Philippines examined the experiences of resettlement site households in Guiuan. We conducted fieldwork in Guiuan that included focus groups and expert interviews with politicians, community leaders and other stakeholders.

2023 - 2024: This Connection Grant allowed us to have three workshops and roundtables on climate displacement with scholars, practitioners and policymakers.

2023 - 2024: The Connection Grant allowed us to write a bi-lingual and comprehensive book (600 pages) “Forced Migration in/to Canada: From Colonization to Refugee Resettlement”. Forced migration shaped the creation of Canada as a settler state and is a defining feature of our contemporary national and global contexts. Many people in Canada have direct or indirect experiences of refugee resettlement and protection, trafficking, and environmental displacement.

Offering a comprehensive resource in the growing field of migration studies, Forced Migration in/to Canada is a critical primer from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Researchers, practitioners, and knowledge keepers draw on documentary evidence and analysis to foreground lived experiences of displacement and migration policies at the municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal levels. From the earliest instances of Indigenous displacement and settler colonialism, through Black enslavement, to statelessness, trafficking, and climate migration in today’s world, contributors show how migration, as a human phenomenon, is differentially shaped by intersecting identities and structures. Particularly novel are the specific insights into disability, race, class, social age, and gender identity. Situating Canada within broader international trends, norms, and structures - both today and historically - Forced Migration in/to Canada provides the tools we need to evaluate information we encounter in the news and from government officials, colleagues, and non-governmental organizations. It also proposes new areas for enquiry, discussion, research, advocacy, and action.

2021 - 2023: Our project trained LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants in São Paulo, Brazil to use photovoice and videovoice to share their everyday lives. It was a knowledge mobilization project to share some of the results and experiences from our previous research on Venezuelan LGBTQ+ refugees in Brazil. From that research, participants made it very clear they wanted to present their world to the global community on their own terms. We gave them the tools and space to tell their stories of migration, asylum-seeking and placemaking through social media trends they are already familiar with and interested in creating. In total, we had 21 participants that produced over 70 photos and videos. The participants were from Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Mozambique, Tunisia, Haiti and Guinea-Bissau.

We held workshops to teach the participants photovoice and videovoice and have participants share their lives with each other. Sharing their past struggles made them see how important the LGBT rights are and how crucial is to fight for them. Some participants mentioned that they want to inspire and represent the LGBT community so the young generation could learn about their rights. During the workshops, a lot of information on public initiatives for the LGBT community in São Paulo has been raised and shared. It had a great impact as some of the participants used the tips learned to seek assistance, such as collecting basic food baskets. 

 Considerable information was also shared on whether Brazil is a good place for LGBT community or not. Most of the participants agreed that São Paulo is, however, it is not the same in other Brazilian cities, mainly in the interior. According to them, São Paulo is a cosmopolitan place, which can provide people with good professional and personal opportunities and less discrimination compared to their countries of origin.

2021 - 2023: Our project "At the Edge of Safety: Comparing Responses to Venezuelan LGBT Refugees in Brazil and Colombia" in partnership with Casa Miga in Manaus (Brazil) and La Casa que Abraza in Cucuta (Colombia), compared the responses to Venezuelan LGBTQ+ Refugees in Brazil and Colombia. We conducted extensive fieldwork in refugee shelters that was focused on identifying the protection gaps that LGBTQI+ asylum seekers face, especially high-risk groups such as trans Venezuelan asylum seeker sex workers. These groups are at much higher risk of extreme violence, exploitation, and human trafficking and are often overlooked in humanitarian and government responses. A core objective of my research was to empower Venezuelan LGBTQI+ asylum seekers by illuminating their experiences and co-producing policy recommendations with them aimed at humanitarian organizations and governments. In the end, we surveyed 100 LGBTQ+ Venezuelan asylum seekers in Colombia and 55 in Brazil. We conducted 25 semi-structured interviews with LGBTQ+ Venezuelan asylum seekers in Colombia and 15 in Brazil. We also conducted participant observation in 8 refugee shelters in Brazil and conducted 10 key informants interviewed with policymakers and NGO staff.

2020 - 2022: Our research project, "COVID-19: Asylum-seeking in the Epicentre of COVID-19 - The Social Impact of COVID-19 on Venezuelan LGBTQI+ Asylum Seekers in Brazil" partnered with Casa Miga, the only LGBT Refugee Shelter in Brazil and one of the only in Latin America, to explore the impact of COVID-19 on LGBTQ+ Venezuelan asylum seekers in Manaus. Working closely with the manager of Casa Miga, we conducted 56 surveys, 34 semi-structured interviews (including 20 interviews with trans Venezuelan asylum seekers and trans Venezuelan migrant sex workers), as well as 22 key informant interviews with trans activists, humanitarians, NGO staff and politicians. Our research found that LGBTQ+ Venezuelan asylum seekers faced a great deal of discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and violence in Manaus during COVID-19. Rumours that LGBTQ+ people were responsible for spreading COVID-19 caused many of the respondents to stay indoors for fear of violence. Most respondents lost their sources of livelihood during the pandemic and faced a great deal of discrimination in the job market when lockdowns lifted. Most respondents felt the government response was inadequate and were grateful to the NGOs and safe spaces like Casa Miga that helped them during the pandemic. Most importantly, the refugee determination process was halted during COVID-19, meaning people's asylum claims were paused, leaving them to feel "frozen" in time and in place with an uncertain future. As one of the first migration experts to research these high-risk and hard to reach groups, my research had a significant policy impact. It was cited by R4V, the Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela in their policy plan used by 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and nearly 200 organizations around the world. Our research inspired the President of the Early Childhood Front and the Secretary of Women of the Brazilian Parliament to visit the refugee camps and, subsequently, multiple inquiries into the experience of Venezuelan asylum seekers during the pandemic, including women, unaccompanied minors, and LGBT folks were launched and investigated by the Brazilian Congress. Lastly, our research was shared with the UNHCR, the UNFPA, Brazil’s Coordinator-General for the National Committee of Refugees, and the Brazilian military. 

2020 - 2022: Our research project “COVID-19: Displaced, Resettled and Isolated – Impact of COVID-19 on Disaster-affected Households in Resettlement Sites in Tacloban, Philippines” partnered with the Redemptorist Church (also known as the Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish) to answer two questions that are important to the Church in their community work in resettlement sites in Tacloban: 1) what are the most pressing needs of disaster-affected people living in resettlement sites in Tacloban City, Philippines confronted with COVID-19 and community quarantine measures and 2) how can those be best addressed in anticipation of subsequent waves of the pandemic?

Working with a strong local team of researchers, we conducted 357 surveys in 4 resettlement sites in June 2021 in the local language of Waray. Our study found that 1) COVID-19 exacerbated the pre-existing vulnerabilities of resettlement site residents, 2) all levels of government provided insufficient pandemic support to residents and lockdown measures stripped them of the ability to provide for themselves and their families, and 3) residents are largely self-sufficient in meeting their daily needs during the pandemic, relying on themselves the most to protect themselves against COVID-19.