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
The Link4skills Navigator and Demographic modelling, feat. Sandra Leitner and Michaela Potančoková
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In this bonus episode, Sandra Leitner and Michaela Potančoková unpack the logic behind labour force modelling and what it reveals about Europe's demographic and migration future.
Drawing on the Link4Skills Navigator, a tool built to map labour market data, skills partnerships, and demographic trends across countries, they discuss why migration is not a panacea for population aging, how Germany's long-declining fertility rates are quietly driving one of the EU's most urgent labour shortages, and why today's migrant-sending countries like Poland and Romania will soon confront shortages of their own. The conversation also turns to the gap between research and policy, and why long-term evidence so often struggles to keep pace with short-term political cycles.
Guests: Sandra Leitner, Senior Economist, Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies; Michaela Potančoková, Senior Research Scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis; Justyna Szalanska, Manager, Skills Alliance Poland.
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🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email bordersandbelonging@gmail.com.
