York sociology and geography Professor Jennifer Hyndman knows a little about disasters. She also knows a benign water project run by humanitarian aid agencies can fuel a war if careful attention is not paid to the political and cultural landscape. Hyndman was in Sri Lanka within months of the 2004 tsunami. She saw first-hand not […]
Last week, York law Professor Obiora Okafor was elected to the advisory committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Nigerian-born professor brings his expertise in international law, human rights law, and immigration and refugee law, especially as it relates to Africa, to the advisory committee. “The committee is the think tank of the […]
Nancy Nicol’s team receives $1 million to study LGBT human rights around the world York University visual arts professor Nancy Nicol will lead a major international project on the impact of criminalizing sexual orientation and gender identity, with $1 million in funding over five years from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). […]
The day the Toronto Star broke the story on a wide variation of acceptance rates by refugee board members, a Federal Court judge issued a decision chastising an adjudicator who had not granted asylum to anyone in three years, wrote The Star March 9: In an order issued Friday on an appeal by failed refugee […]
Asylum rejection rates have no bearing in the quality and consistency of decisions made by adjudicators, says Canada’s refugee board, reported the Toronto Star March 4: In fact, the board insists that each decision must be examined on a case-by-case basis. “Statistics on the acceptance and rejection rates of individual IRB members who determine refugee […]
If you were a refugee seeking protection in Canada, you wouldn’t want to cross the path of David McBean, wrote the Toronto Star March 4, in a story about a new York study that shows evidence of bias among different adjudicators on the Immigration & Refugee Board (IRB) of Canada: According to an analysis of […]
There’s a tendency to think that the problems faced by people with precarious status – temporary workers, refugee claimants, failed claimants and people without status – are not Canadian issues, but York sociology Professor Luin Goldring disagrees. To shed light on the emerging body of research in this area, the Research Alliance on Precarious Status, which […]
York University President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri is welcoming back students for another academic year a little differently than usual. This year, the president is providing an update through a new video on issues and initiatives that affect the entire York community: In the high-definition video, also available on the Office of the President website […]
After medical and security checks, anyone arriving in Canada may apply for refugee status, wrote the National Post Aug. 13, in a story that used statistics provided by Michele Millard, coordinator of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University: The process takes anywhere from six months to 15 years. A new law passed this […]
Canada's first boat people were the Norse who came ashore a thousand years ago in Newfoundland. They fit the refugee pattern: farmers and simple artisans, maybe a few fierce Vikings among them known for terrorizing Europe, people driven out of their homeland by population pressures and political unrest, wrote The Globe and Mail Aug. 14: […]
A York University certificate program aimed at training front-line workers who deal with refugees has graduated its first cohort of students and is already showing promising results. The Certificate in Refugee & Forced Migration Issues Program, run out of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and the Centre for Refugee Studies, teaches students how […]
York University hosted two major international events in the field of refugee studies, one of its widely recognized areas of research excellence, during the week of May 17 to 20. On May 17, the War Crimes and Refugee Status Research Workshop took place, followed by a welcome reception to launch the York 2010 International Conference […]
York University researchers have issued a report with recommendations for improving technical and vocational training in Southern Sudan, based on in-depth interviews with Sudanese from different walks of life. The report, published jointly by Plan International Canada (Plan Canada) and York’s Centre for Refugee Studies, identifies barriers to such training, believed to be crucial for […]
Researchers, faculty, administrators and staff working in the York Research Tower gathered on May 4 to celebrate the new building’s role in fostering social science and humanities research across York University (all speaker videos are available in the Research Multimedia Centre). Above: The York Research Tower, which opened in September 2009, features some 84,000 square feet […]
York researchers awarded two of SSHRC’s largest grants to study long-term residential healthcare and global suburbanism Two teams led by York University researchers have received $5 million in research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Their multinational research teams, involving multiple universities and community partners in a large-scale collaboration, […]
Due to what is sometimes called the CNN effect – the rapid transmission of images and news – the media can have a huge impact on global aid response to a disaster. The most dramatic images of suffering attract the most funds and push other, more protracted emergencies, off the radar. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami […]
The rags-to-riches immigrant stories Canada has been bred on don’t work anymore, say the two professors who led the project that will be released today, wrote the Toronto Star June 18. Luin Goldring, sociology professor in York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and Patricia Landolt of the Centre for Urban and Community […]