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Spring Newsletter  |  June 1, 2023
To our alumni and friends, 

Record numbers of migrants are attempting the dangerous trek to the United States and Europe in search of safety and a decent standard of living. Yet, despite mounting evidence that the strategy of "prevention through deterrence" is no match for the powerful forces uprooting people from their homes, policymakers continue to rely on restrictionist policies that severely compromise the human security of migrants and affected communities.    

At Leir, we seek to expose this and other mismatches between policy and reality and to privilege the lived experiences of migrants and those around them. We do so by engaging people, programs, and partners in empirically rigorous, applied research. Our ultimate goal is to achieve a world where migration is a choice; in the interim, we seek more humane and effective responses to forced displacement in all its forms. Unfortunately, recent developments like the war in Ukraine, the conflicts in Ethiopia and Sudan, the earthquakes in Türkiye, the uptick in criminal violence in once-relatively safe countries such as Ecuador, Chile, and Costa Rica, and the lingering effects of the global pandemic continue to push people from their homes. 

As you can read below, we have been busy since December. We have expanded the Leir community at Tufts, launched a major new program on migration in the Americas (Hopes, Fears, and Illusions), created the Leir Briefing Room as an information clearinghouse on the foundational topics in migration and human security, had our inaugural meeting with our Alumni Advisory Group, and developed new research partnerships with practitioner organizations. We have also seen concrete signs of our impact: for example, Mercy Corps Colombia is implementing recommendations to improve the financial health of Venezuelans in Colombia following student field work last summer led by Professor Kim Wilson. The Refugees in Towns Project’s Race and Refugees research has also sparked a new effort to develop racially-informed programming with refugee-serving organizations across the U.S., including our partner, the Hello Neighbor Network.

There are plenty of reasons to despair about the state of the world, but we at Leir look for – and often find – unexplored opportunities for positive change and pockets of resilience, generosity, and entrepreneurial spirit that give us hope for a better future. We look forward to having you join us on this journey.  

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have ideas, concerns, or questions. As always, we welcome your ideas, feedback, and financial support as we continue this important work.  

Wishing you a healthy and relaxing summer, 

Katrina Burgess 
Director, Henry J. Leir Institute for Migration and Human Security 

Our Impact

Our Programs

Hopes, Fears, and Illusions, which seeks to understand how migrants process information and assess risk during their journeys north through the Americas, will send 8 Fletcher research assistants to begin data collection in Tijuana and Tapachula, Mexico; Paso Canoas and Los Chiles, Costa Rica; and Necoclí, Riohacha, and Ipiales, Colombia. The pilot project received a Tufts Springboard Grant in January.

Digital Portfolios of the Poor (DPP) has completed and is now analyzing 2,000 interviews in India and Kenya using tech-led methods such as automated phone interviews and machine learning. The team will soon begin data collection in Nigeria and Pakistan. With DPP partner Decodis, Leir also published a case study detailing the usefulness of technology for qualitative research at scale. This project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Journeys Project published From Economic Violence to Economic Safety: The Financial Lives of Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants in Colombia, sharing key insights from field research conducted last summer. It also published  Financial Biographies, Vol II – Second Edition, which includes new interviews in Colombia and the United States, and Anargiros Z. Frangos, Jr.'s (F22) capstone, Coyotes, Tandas, and a Quest for Closure: Conversations with Recent Immigrants from Puebla, Mexico.

Refugees in Towns Project hosted the Race and Migration Symposium. Research conducted by Fletcher research assistants in partnership with the Hello Neighbor Network grounded the event, which provided a space for migrants and refugees to share their own experiences with race in the U.S. It also explored how organizations and advocates can foster more welcoming communities and expand racially informed resettlement programming. RIT also published a Dhaka, Bangladesh case report and a series of reflections from Tibet.

The Leir Briefing Room launched in April, providing clear, concise information on foundational elements of migration and human security. The clearinghouse includes key terms, key data, and briefs by Leir's expert faculty. The site will be continuously updated.
 
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Our People

We are pleased to welcome a new Senior Fellow: Joy Olson, an independent consultant and former Executive Director of the Washington Office on Latin America. An expert on migration and human security in the Americas, Joy brings vast experience with Washington, DC-based advocacy and applied research. This semester, we also welcomed two new affiliated faculty: Marcia Moreno-Baez, Lecturer at the Fletcher School; and Anjuli Fahlberg, Assistant Professor in the Tufts Sociology Department. Besides lending us their substantive expertise, they bring new methodological strengths to Leir, specifically GIS mapping and participatory action research.

Faculty Updates

Katrina Burgess was promoted to the rank of Professor.

Carlos Alvarado Quesada published an op-ed in The Hill titled, "What Biden’s deeply troubling asylum limit means for the economy."

John Cerone was awarded the 2023 Cooper Union Alumni Association's Peter Cooper Public Service Award.

Bridget Conley and Alex de Waal, with Catriona Murdoch and Wayne Jordash QC, published the edited volume Accountability for Mass Starvation: Testing the Limits of the Law, (Oxford University Press). Daniel Maxwell contributed the article, "Humanitarian Challenges and Implications for Famine Early Warning Systems."

Alex de Waal published, "Sudan’s Descent Into Chaos: What Washington and Its Arab Partners Must Do to Stop the Shootout," in Foreign Policy.

Anjuli Fahlberg, with Maya Velasquez, Harper Wise, and Tori Simon, published "Tangential Movements: How feminist organizing against gender-based violence offers an alternative avenue for protesting drug violence in Latin America," in World Development. She also published "Decolonizing Sociology Through Collaboration, Co-Learning and Action: A Case for Participatory Action Research," in Sociological Forum.

Dyan Mazurana, with Dr. Anastasia Marshak and Fletcher PhD candidate Kinsey Spears, published "Sex, age (and more) still matter: Data collection, analysis, and use in humanitarian practice" in collaboration with UN Women and CARE. The report assesses the impact of the landmark report on sex-, age-, and disability-disaggregated data (SADD) published a decade ago and offers new recommendations to realize the collection and use of such data.

Dyan Mazurana and Kimberley Theidon, with Fletcher PhD candidate Dipali Anumol, published the edited volume Challenging Conceptions: Children Born of Wartime Rape and Sexual Exploitation (Oxford University Press). 

Chidi Odinkalu published numerous op-eds with respect to the Nigerian presidential election. He also published "Article III of the OAU Refugee Convention in Context: the Emergence of Subversion in the African Inter-State System," in Refugee Survey Quarterly.

Featured Spring 2023 Events

Alumni Spotlight 

 
Subin Mulmi (F20)
Subin studied gender and human rights during his time at Fletcher and completed his capstone on the social and financial journeys of Nepali migrants en route to the US. After graduating from Fletcher, Subin briefly worked for Mercy Corps Nepal as the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Advisor. After leaving Mercy Corps. Subin joined Nationality for All (NFA) as Executive Director. NFA is a regional organization promoting the right to nationality in the Asia Pacific region. Under his leadership, NFA adopted a feminist approach to addressing statelessness in the region by creating more spaces for stateless activists and stateless-led organizations to engage in strategic decision-making processes in the national, regional, and global spheres. As a member of the UNHCR-led Taskforce of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness and the Global Movement on Statelessness, Subin has been advocating to strengthen the fair and meaningful participation of persons with lived experience of statelessness and to center the needs and interests of stateless people.

Featured Leir-Supported Student Research


Emma Bixler, MALD 2024 candidate, will intern with and conduct research for the Women's Earth Alliance in Kenya and Tanzania, examining how women-led groups are shaping the environmental justice movement in East Africa.

Makélé Saïdi, GMAP 2023 candidate, will intern with the United Nations Environment Programme to examine the impact of climate change as a driver of migration and labor mobility. 

Alyssa Scheiner, MALD 2024 candidate will conduct research in Denver, Colorado examining the impact of water scarcity perception on an individual's or household's decision to migrate into or out of urban areas.
 
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