Current Projects
These are current projects I work on independently as well as through the Center on Forced Displacement at Boston University.
My dissertation looks at environmental displacement in the United States and the populations who live in disaster prone areas. The main question driving my study is: why do people stay in disaster prone areas? Through a series of case studies, I am examining factors that prompt people to continue living in disaster prone areas. I am also investigating their motivations to engage in community organizing and advocacy work. The goal of this study is to contribute to immobility and social movement theories, while at the same time contributing crucial perspectives from immobile populations on climate adaptation policies and disaster management strategy.
Border Externalization and Anti-Immigrant Movements
Together with my colleagues at the BU Center on Forced Displacement, I am working on an edited volume on border regimes titled US and EU Border Externalization Regimes: The Lines They Draw. Our project is an interdisciplinary, accessible, and comprehensive study of the EU-Serbia and US-Mexico Border. We consider the spaces inhabited by migrants in Mexico and the Western Balkans, the manifestations of various forms of violence (structural and physical), and the models of care, particularly access to health care, implemented at these sites. We examine the landscape, economies, protests, and the forms of creativity that emerge in the border regime. This book will be coming out in 2023.
​
My chapter looks at anti-immigrant activists and movements and how externalization impacts their connections and activities across borders.