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The Global South Migration Lab (GSML) is Canada’s first research hub dedicated to migration within the Global South. For decades, the dominant narrative has focused on people fleeing the Global South to reach the Global North—framing migration as a threat rather than a complex, multidirectional reality. But most migrants never leave the Global South.

Take Venezuela: almost 8 million people have fled, but 85% remain in neighbouring countries. Movements are often circular, regional, and shaped by local conditions—yet traditional migration theories, crafted in the Global North, fail to explain this.

GSML exists to flip the script. Led by Dr. Yvonne Su, the lab supports South-led research, collaborates with Global South scholars, and centers the lived experiences of displaced communities. It challenges a system where most migration studies are published by academics in high-income countries—many with no direct ties to the regions they study.

This distorted narrative has consequences. In the North, it fuels xenophobia and deadly border policies. In the South, it blinds governments to the economic power of regional diasporas. Humanitarian aid remains dominated by Northern actors, sidelining local responses.

GSML spotlights the realities and resilience of South-South migration. It aims to build knowledge, shift power, and shape policies rooted in truth—not colonial myths.

Global South Migration Lab Team

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Yvonne Su, Director

Dr. Yvonne Su is the Founder and Director of the Global South Migration Lab (GSML).

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Tyler Valiquette, Co-Director

Tyler is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography at UCL. He studies south-south queer forced migration in Latin America.

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Abril Ríos-Rivera, Fellow

Abril is a DPhil candidate in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford. She researches migration, gender, sexuality, and agency.

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Pratiti Roy, Fellow

Pratiti is a Doctoral Candidate studying the politics of migration in South Asia in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research.

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Ginbert Cuaton, Fellow

Dr. Cuaton is a Research Assistant Professor at Lingnan University where he researches social policy issues on disasters, displacements, and climate action in Southeast Asia.

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Tegan Hadisi, Fellow

Tegan Hadisi is an MPhil Candidate in Development Studies at the University of Oxford. Tegan’s thesis explores the mediation of knowledge in mega and giga-city projects in the MENA region.

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Ma Suza, Fellow

Ma Suza is a PhD candidate at Wageningen University and a Marine Social Scientist at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen, Germany.

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Mrinalini Kumar, Fellow

Mrinalini Kumar is a Ph.D. Research Scholar of Political Science studying the precarity of small island developing states at the Amity University, India.