I conduct critical, interdisciplinary research on international migration and adult/higher education in Global North settler-colonial contexts. My research has focused on international students, the internationalization of higher education, refugee resettlement, and citizenship education. As a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant since 2014, I have applied expertise in Canadian immigration and citizenship policy and law. I also have professional experience in evaluation, assessment, public policy analysis, and curriculum design.
My current postdoctoral research focuses on citizenship. It includes projects related to narratives of citizenship, naturalization ceremonies, and individual and structural barriers to citizenship acquisition with Antje Ellermann and Vince Hopkins. It is part of cluster of research on citizenship and belonging in a globalized and digitalized world within the multi-institution Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides research program, funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.
My PhD dissertation focused on edugration (an amalgamation of ‘education’ and ‘migration’). It argued that the recruitment of post-secondary international students as (im)migrants has, in some contexts, become a distinct three-step economic immigration process, shifting the role of higher education in society. It framed edugration as a ‘wicked problem’ and thought through its ethical complexities and paradoxes in the Canadian context, particularly related to settler colonialism, surveillance, border imperialism, and mobility justice.
My MA thesis probed the meaning of refugee ‘integration’ by examining the experiences of refugees resettled from Aceh to Metro Vancouver five years after arrival. It was conducted in coordination with Immigrant Services Society of BC and the Acehnese Canadian Community Society.
I have also worked on additional refugee resettlement research and curriculum design projects with Immigrant Services Society of BC and the AMSSA in Vancouver, as well as the Cultural Orientation Resource Center at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington D.C.
In 2007-08 I held a Fulbright grant in Ankara, Turkey where I studied in the Department of Communication and Design at Bilkent University.
This infographic summarizes edugration in the Canadian context:
