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What's New
- Welcome to the very first issue of CRS Connect! Thank you to everyone who made submissions, and we're excited to connect with you all.
- Dr. James C. Simeon has been acclaimed as the new CARFMS president! He is Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA), Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, and a former Head of McLaughlin College, a former Acting Director and Deputy Director at the Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS), at York University, Toronto, Canada.
- Sarah Merghani, a Global Health student completing the Certificate in Refugee and Migration Studies, has been awarded a Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarship (QES) through York University’s Canada-Global South Interdisciplinary Initiative on Climate Change & Displacement. She received $10,000 to complete a three-month research/practicum placement with Pamoja Community-Based Organization in Kisumu, Kenya, beginning in January 2027. Her work will focus on understanding how climate change affects young mothers in fishing communities around Lake Victoria, particularly their livelihoods and vulnerability to HIV, while exploring strategies for economic empowerment and resilience.
Publications
Abeshu, G. A., Dugassa, B., & Liban, J. S. (2026). “The violence does not stay there. It affects us here emotionally”: Transnational conflict stress and mental health outcomes among Oromo Canadians. SSM - Qualitative Research in Health, 10, 100871. Black diaspora communities in Canada live within social networks that link everyday life in Canada to the realities of countries of origin. These ties are especially consequential for diasporas connected to countries affected by conflict in Africa where prolonged political violence produces ongoing loss. For many, migration does not end exposure to crisis; instead, the crisis continues through communication with relatives, and the circulation of images that reactivate fear, grief, and transnational trauma. These dynamics are particularly evident among Oromo diaspora communities in Canada. This paper responds to these gaps by focusing on first-generation Oromo Canadians who have lived in Canada for more than a decade.
Special Issue of Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry Volume 17, Number 1. This Special Issue includes the voices of some forcibly displaced migrants and refugees who eventually settled in countries identified by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Global Trends report released in June 2025 detailing the huge number of people forced to flee from their respective countries. The Special Issue embraces contributions from a wide range of enforced migrants originally from parts of the Ukraine, the Middle East and countries in Asia, Africa and South America. The guest editors are: Marcela S. Duran, Jan Stewart, Donald A. Dippo, Mohamed Duale (CRS affiliates) and Cecille DePass.
Atak, I., Zabet, S., Vilarino, I., Asalya, S. (2026). Navigating Precarity: Social Services, Belonging, and the Lived Experiences of Migrants in the Greater Toronto Area.Global Migration Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University. This report examines the perspectives and lived experiences of precarious status migrants concerning their access to and effective enjoyment of essential social services and support within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), one of Canada’s leading immigration destinations.
Azadah, K., & Carlaw, J. (2026). Discursive and policy opportunities opened and shut? Battles for the regularisation of undocumented residents’ immigration status in Canada (2020–2024).Third World Quarterly, 1–22. This article examines the rise and fall of Canada’s proposed regularisation initiative for undocumented residents between 2020 and 2024.
Erdilmen, M. (2026). Rethinking feminist alliances: Avoiding feminism, but advancing gender equality within refugee communities?International Feminist Journal of Politics, 1–23. This article examines how Syrian women and queer refugees approach feminism, and how the organizations they establish address gender-based inequalities in access to rights and services in Turkey.
Reece Jones and Greg Boos. Smuggler: Drugs, Gangs, and Refugees at America's Northern Border. Prometheus Books. When an ordinary man is thrust into the dangerous world of smuggling at America’s northern border, he is forced to risk his own freedom to protect refugees from violent immigration policing. This book will be published on October 20th, 2026.
Events
IASFM21: Extractions: Political Economy of Forced Migration. The upcoming biennial conference is scheduled to take place in Yerevan, Armenia, from August 23-27, 2027. Visit the website for the Call for Papers!
Research Commons Fall 2026 Workshop Program. York University.
Fall 2026 workshop program at a glance:
- September 10 – December 10: Discover York Academics Weekly Online Sessions
- October 5: LA&PS SSHRC Insight Development Grant (IDG) Information Session
- October 13: From Connections to Collaborations: Building Research Partnerships with Québec
- October 14: Finding the Right Fit: Positioning Interdisciplinary Research for Funding Opportunities
- October 22: Grant Readiness: Planning, Positioning and Managing Your Project
- November 5: Navigating Open Access and YorkSpace
- November 11: Research Data Management Across the Research Lifecycle, Part 1: Research Ethics and Integrity
- November 17: Research Data Management Across the Research Lifecycle, Part 2: Research Security and Cybersecurity
- November 25: Research Data Management Across the Research Lifecycle, Part 3: Depositing and Sharing Research Data
CRS Seminar Series
- October 6 2026, 10 – 11:30am: Beyond Emergency Care: Integrating Oral Health into Refugee Health Systems, Mannat Tiwana
- October 19, 2026, 4-6pm:Annual Howard Adelman Lecture, Audrey Macklin
- October 21, 2026, 1-2:30pm: Film screening of documentary “Lights in Dark Rooms”
Resources
CARFMS27: Call for Papers.The Unravelling of Refuge: Resettlement, Peacebuilding, and Safety in a World of Uncertainty. The CARFMS is calling for papers for their 17th biennial conference at the University of Manitoba.
Finding the Right Fit: Positioning Interdisciplinary Research for Funding Opportunities. Research Commons, York University. In this expert roundtable, researchers who have secured funding through multiple agencies and interdisciplinary competitions will discuss how they identified the right funding opportunities, tailored the same core research idea for different funders, built integrated research teams, and responded to reviewer feedback. Panelists will also share how they recognized when a competition was not the right fit and how they decided whether to revise, resubmit, or reposition a proposal following an unsuccessful application. Participants will gain practical strategies for assessing funding fit, communicating the value of interdisciplinary research to different review audiences, anticipating common reviewer concerns about interdisciplinary proposals, and developing a stronger funding strategy across agencies and competitions. This will be on October 14, 2026, 2:00 - 3:30pm online.
Access to Asylum through a Gender-Sensitive Lens: A Regional Dialogue and Training on Latin America. Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) and Global Strategic Litigation Council (GSLC). On Wednesday 28 October | 09:00-11:00 (CST) / 15:00-17:00 (UTC), WiRL and GSLC are holding a legal training session holding to enhance advocacy and litigation skills when working with women claiming asylum on the basis of gender-based violence.
"And Yet, It Moves" (*Y sin embargo, se mueve*). It is a podcast about migration, diasporas, and mobility, produced by the Laboratory for the Analysis of Diaspora Diplomacy Communication in North America (CODDAN Lab)—part of UNAM’s Center for Research on North America (CISAN)—and Simón Bolívar University.
Haiku Your Research!
As an experiment in radical reduction, re-imagine your research as a haiku. What is a haiku? Generally a 3 line poem with a 5-7-5 syllable structure (although not a hard and fast rule these days). Reward? Bragging rights! This isn't a contest. But CRS Connect would love to feature your haiku. Let's have some fun! Submit yours here.
Too much exclusion
Our migration politics
Let's fight the good fights!
- John Carlaw, CRS Research Affiliate, Criminology, Toronto Metropolitan University
Freedom is like gold,
A necklace that I hold tight
Against hate and fear.
- Janet Mancini Billson, External Affiliate, Sociology, The George Washington University