Faculty Associate
elenelam[at]yorku.ca
Associate Professor
School of Social Work, York University
Research Keywords:
Sex work, migration, racism, labour rights and gender-based violence; state violence; criminalization; harm reduction; public policies: human rights; intersectionality; critical race studies; migration studies; Asian studies; health studies; critical trafficking studies; abolitionist; institutional ethnography; community-based and participatory methodologies; social work; community organizing and social movements
Research Diaspora(s):
Asian Diaspora
As an activist-scholar, Elene Lam brings near 30 years of transnational grassroots organizing into her academic work and pedagogy. She employs decolonizing, arts-based and diverse innovative approaches for knowledge transfer. With her transnational activist work spanning from East and Southeast Asia, Australia and Canada, Elene is committed to an interdisciplinary approach to integrate theory into practice. The commitment has guided her extensive work with diverse and marginalized communities to advance racial, migrant, gender, labour, sex worker and disability justice, and to challenge carceral and anti-trafficking systems. Her community-based participatory research supports community-led, transformative justice approaches for social and policy change. She holds a Master of Law in Human Rights, a Graduate Diploma in Gender Studies, and a PhD in Social Work. Her work is committed to building a platform for marginalized communities to transform society. Her research contextualizes their lived realities within multiple scales and layers of oppression, whereby community leadership can create space and opportunity to effect structural change. Elene is the recipient of the Constance E. Hamilton Award for Women’s Equality, a recognition by the City of Toronto for her work and impact.