Borders & Belonging
Migration is a complex phenomenon – for individuals, it is a personal journey that can result in struggle or triumph depending on life circumstances; and for countries, it can be an economic driver, or a source of social tension or even conflict.
Host Maggie Perzyna, a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University, explores the complexity of migration with the help of leading academics and professionals working with migrants on the ground.
Season 4 of Borders & Belonging explores reflexivity: the practice of turning research back on itself to examine how we know what we know.
This season draws on the lived experiences of pioneering scholars whose work has transformed how we understand human movement across borders. We then ask each scholar to nominate an up-and-coming scholar they admire, whose research builds on, challenges, or complements their own. Join us as we trace the threads connecting scholarship across time, experience, and perspective.
For show notes and transcripts, visit: https://www.torontomu.ca/cerc-migration/borders-and-belonging/
Signal Award wins in 2023, 2024, and 2025.
Borders & Belonging
Why are so many undocumented migrants in the US Indigenous?
Every year, hundreds of thousands of migrants from Central America and Mexico make their way to the US border, fleeing violence, environmental destruction, persecution, and displacement. Many of these migrants are from indigenous groups. In the first episode of Season 2, host Maggie Perzyna explores the historical roots of this migration, and how the echoes of colonialism are shaping the journey of Indigenous migrants.
Guests: Odilia Romero, Executive Director and Co-founder, Comunidades Indígenas en Liderazgo (CIELO); Shannon Speed, Chickasaw Nation, Director, American Indian Studies Center and Professor of Gender Studies and Anthropology, UCLA; Asad L. Asad, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Stanford University and faculty affiliate, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity
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🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email bordersandbelonging@gmail.com.