International Development in the Longue Durée
2022-10-19 10:00 - 11:20 (America/Toronto) | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
International development, both as an idea and a practice, has much deeper historical roots than are often recognized. In this panel, the speakers and discussants analyze neglected dimensions of its long and contested evolution, exploring continuities and discontinuities over the longue durée.
Panelists
Eric Helleiner, Professor, Political Science, University of Waterloo
Matthew Watson, Professor of Political Economy, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
Catherine Weaver, Associate Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin and Fulbright Fellow at the Balsillie School
Discussants
Colin Chia, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Political Science, University of Waterloo
Jess Underwood, PhD Candidate, University of Warwick

Restoring a Strained Global Security Architecture Policy Conference
2022-10-21 08:30 - 17:30 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated East-West tensions and raised the prospect of an expanded conflict directly involving NATO, cracks in the global security architecture were apparent long before the present crisis. Arms racing reminiscent of the Cold War has become a prominent feature of relations among major powers, a renewed push to increase military spending can be observed in several countries, and emerging technologies are rapidly being integrated into military applications and weapons systems. Multiple, overlapping security challenges demand the urgent and concerted attention of the international community, including a role for Canada and Canadian foreign policy.
Panelists
Jacob Benjamin – Doctoral candidate, BSIA
Adele Buckley – Board of Directors, CPG
Julie Clark – Doctoral candidate, BSIA
Robin Collins – Board of Directors, CPG
Tim Donais – Associate Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University, BSIA
Cesar Jaramillo – Executive Director, Project Ploughshares; Chair, CPG
Ellen Judd – Professor, University of Manitoba; Board of Directors, CPG
Veronica Kitchen – Associate Professor, University of Waterloo, BSIA
Matt Korda – Senior Research Associate, Federation of American Scientists; Associate, CPG
Branka Marijan – Senior Researcher, Project Ploughshares; Member, CPG
Peggy Mason – President, Rideau Institute; Board of Directors, CPG
Paul Meyer – Adjunct Professor, Simon Fraser University; Board of Directors, CPG
Jill Sinclair – Fellow, BSIA
Jeremy Paltiel – Professor, Carleton University
Allison Pytlak – Programme Manager, WILPF; Associate, CPG
Tariq Rauf – Vice-Chair, CPG
Ernie Regehr – Senior Fellow, The Simons Foundation; Member, CPG
David Welch – Professor, University of Waterloo, BSIA
Jennifer Simons – President, The Simons Foundation
Erika Simpson – Associate Professor, Western University; Board of Directors, CPG
Andrew Thompson – Senior Fellow, CIGI; Adjunct Assistant Professor, BSIA
Jessica West – Senior Researcher, Project Ploughshares; Member, CPG
The conference will open with a virtual keynote address by Ambassador Bob Rae, Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations.
Register for the conference at https://CPG-BSIA-policy-conference-2022.eventbrite.ca

This event is co-hosted by the Canadian Pugwash Group and the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

Carceral Afterlives: Prisons, Detention, and Punishment in Postcolonial Uganda Book Launch
2022-10-25 12:00 - 13:00 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Drawing upon social history, political history, and critical prison studies, this book analyzes how prisons and other instruments of colonial punishment endured after independence and challenges their continued existence.
In Carceral Afterlives, Katherine Bruce-Lockhart traces the politics, practices, and lived experiences of incarceration in postcolonial Uganda, focusing on the period between independence in 1962 and the beginning of Yoweri Museveni’s presidency in 1986. During these decades, Ugandans experienced multiple changes of government, widespread state violence, and war, all of which affected the government’s approach to punishment. Bruce-Lockhart analyzes the relationship between the prison system and other sites of confinement—including informal detention spaces known as “safe houses” and wartime camps—and considers other forms of punishment, such as public executions and “disappearance” by state paramilitary organizations.
Through archival and personal collections, interviews with Ugandans who lived through these decades, and a range of media sources and memoirs, Bruce-Lockhart examines how carceral systems were imagined and experienced by Ugandans held within, working for, or impacted by them. She shows how Uganda’s postcolonial leaders, especially Milton Obote and Idi Amin, attempted to harness the symbolic, material, and coercive power of prisons in the pursuit of a range of political agendas. She also examines the day-to-day realities of penal spaces and public perceptions of punishment by tracing the experiences of Ugandans who were incarcerated, their family members and friends, prison officers, and other government employees. Furthermore, she shows how the carceral arena was an important site of dissent, examining how those inside and outside of prisons and other spaces of captivity challenged the state’s violent punitive tactics.
Using Uganda as a case study, Carceral Afterlives emphasizes how prisons and the wider use of confinement—both as a punishment and as a vehicle for other modes of punishment—remain central to state power in the Global South and North. While scholars have closely analyzed the prison’s expansion through colonial rule and the rise of mass incarceration in the United States, they have largely taken for granted its postcolonial persistence. In contrast, Bruce-Lockhart demonstrates how the prison’s transition from a colonial to a postcolonial institution explains its ubiquity and reveals ways to critique and challenge its ongoing existence. The book thus explores broader questions about the unfinished work of decolonization, the relationship between incarceration and struggles for freedom, and the prison’s enduring yet increasingly contested place in our global institutional landscape.
If you would like to order a copy online, please use the promotional code CARC (50% off the hardcover and 30% off the paperback, valid between October 15th-28th).
About the speakers
Katherine Bruce-Lockhart is an assistant professor of history at the University of Waterloo and a faculty member at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her work critically examines the afterlives of colonial carceral institutions and wider global histories of punishment. Katherine’s research has appeared in the Journal of Eastern African Studies, the Journal of World History, Incarceration, History in Africa, and the edited collection Decolonization and Conflict: Colonial Comparisons and Legacies. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming edited collection Decolonising State & Society in Uganda: The Politics of Knowledge and Public Life.
Ato Quayson is the Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies and Professor of English at Stanford. Professor Quayson has published 6 monographs and 8 edited volumes. His monographs include Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing (1997), Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice, or Process? (2000), Calibrations: Reading for the Social (2003), and Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation (2007). Professor Quayson curates Critic.Reading.Writing, a YouTube channel on which he discusses various topics in literature, urban studies and the humanities in general. He was President of the African Studies Association (2019-2020) and is an elected Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada, and of the British Academy.
Derek R. Peterson is Ali Mazrui Collegiate Professor in the History Department and the Department of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He was formerly Director of the African Studies Centre and Fellow of Selwyn College at Cambridge University. His scholarly work is about the intellectual and cultural history of eastern Africa. Peterson is a Fellow of the British Academy; in 2017 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
Moses Khisa is an Associate Professor (with tenure) of Political Science and Africana Studies, Co-Chair of the Uganda Studies Group of the African Studies Association, and a Research Associate with the Centre for Basic Research in Kampala, Uganda. He is also a weekly columnist for the Daily Monitor newspaper. Dr. Khisa has published Rethinking Civil-Military Relations in Africa (Co-edited with Christopher Day) and Africa’s New Global Politics (with Rita Kiki Edozie), along with numerous articles.
This event is held in partnership with the Department of History, University of Waterloo and the Tshepo Institute for the Study of Contemporary Africa, Wilfrid Laurier University.

Food Security at Emerging Urban Spaces in India
2022-10-26 09:00 - 10:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Presenter:
S. Irudaya Rajan, International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD), India

Coauthors:
Chetan Choithani, National Institute of Advanced Studies, India
Abdul Jaleel CP, National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, India
This talk examines the important public policy issue of contemporary significance of linkages between migration, urbanization and food and nutrition security in India, within the wider context of post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda. It responds to the call by Crush (2013, p. 62) to bridge the “massive institutional and substantive disconnect” that currently exists between the two prominent development agendas of migration and food security. The geographic focus is on the lower echelons of India’s urban system comprising erstwhile rural regions which have witnessed rapid urbanization over the past few years. This urban growth is fast changing the sources of food security for millions of Indians, and rising land demands to accommodate future urban growth will put more pressure on the agri-food systems. The research reviews the implications of this urban growth for food security in India and identifies the relevant policy issues that may help promote SDG targets of food security and inclusive urbanization.
About the speaker
Prof. S. Irudaya Rajan is Chairman of the International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD), Kerala and former professor at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Kerala. Currently, he is the chair of the KNOMAD (The Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development,) a World Bank working group on internal migration and urbanization. He was one of the expert committee members to advise the Government of Kerala on COVID-19. He has published in international journals on the social, economic, demographic, psychological and political implications of migration on individuals, community, the economy and society. Since 2010, he has been the editor of the annual series India Migration Report and, since 2017, the South Asia Migration Report published by Routledge. He was the founding Editor in Chief, for Migration and Development.
Panelists
Chetan Choithani, National Institute of Advanced Studies, India
Abdul Jaleel CP, National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, India
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.

2nd Annual International Migration Conference: “Food (In)Security and Migrants on the Move”
2022-10-27 08:15 - 2022-10-28 13:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
The International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD) and the MiFOOD Network of the Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) in partnership with the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the International Migration Research Centre (IMRC) are jointly hosting an International Migration Conference to discuss the highly topical issue of the relationship between food insecurity and international and internal migration. The program will address four main themes: (a) food security precarity of mobile populations during COVID-19 in Asia and Africa; (b) the food security challenges confronting forced migrants (asylum-seekers and refugees) in the Global South; (c) the migrant food environment in cities of the South; and (d) rural-urban linkages and food security in China and Africa. The Conference features presentations and case studies from a wide variety of locales by leading international scholars and experts on migration and food security. The Conference also features Professor Daniel Tevera of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa and Professor Kavita Datta of the Queen Mary University of London.
Recording of Day 1 https://youtu.be/iiczSWWbBd8
Recording of Day 2 https://youtu.be/6vbW9PrlOV0
PROGRAM
Download the Program with Abstracts

Conduits of Exclusion: Institutions and Ethnic Elite State Capture in post-2003 Iraq
2022-11-02 12:00 - 13:00 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
What explains ethnic elite state capture following externally imposed democratization in post-2003 Iraq? State institutions, as the primary conduits of power relations, structure and dictate the process of political inclusion and exclusion in divided societies. In divided, post-colonial polities like Iraq, the dual processes of ethnic exclusion from the state and ethnic mobilization against the state, are preconditioned by historically contingent institutional constraints that shaped subsequent patterns of exclusion across time. This book offers a historical institutionalist explanation of ethnic elite state capture to endogenize the conditions that structure conflict and mobilization in divided societies. Viewing state capture and dominance as core survival strategies for controlling and governing highly fractionalized societies, it demonstrates that the ethnicization of governance during democratic transitions is an outcome of historical antecedents embedded in exclusion and repression as mechanisms of reproduction that structure group grievances and distrust among disparate ethnic elites.
About the speaker
Shamiran Mako is an assistant professor of international relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. For the 2022-2023 academic year, she is Canada Research Chair Fulbright Scholar at the Balsillie School of International Affairs where she is completing a book on institutions and ethnic conflict in Iraq. Her research focuses on international relations and comparative politics of the Middle East, with a substantive emphasis on foreign intervention, ethnic conflict, political violence in divided societies, and institutions and statebuilding. She is the author of After the Arab Uprisings: Progress and Stagnation in the Middle East and North Africa, with Valentine Moghadam (Cambridge University Press, 2021), and co-editor of State and Society in Iraq: Citizenship under Occupation, Dictatorship, and Democratisation, with Benjamin Isakhan and Fadi Dawood (I.b. Tauris 2017). Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, International Politics, Lawfare, among others.

Asia’s Temporary Migration Regime in (Post-)Pandemic Times
2022-11-08 16:00 - 17:00 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
In pre-pandemic times, the labour migration regime in Asia based on principles of enforced transience is largely dependent on the ease and low cost of transnational mobility across national borders. Stalled mobility in COVID-19 times has both deepened the precarity that transient migrant workers face and also laid bare the unsustainability of the temporary migration for nation-states. At the same time, the pandemic presents an opportunity to reconfigure and move temporary migration toward a more sustainable and equitable basis. This could involve offering visas and contracts of longer duration and selective pathways towards residency status to reduce ‘churning’, incorporating migrant workers into national healthcare safety nets to improve migrant welfare and societal resilience, and careful recalibration of using automation and technological substitutes to augment migrant labour.
About the speaker
Brenda S. A. Yeoh FBA is Raffles Professor of Social Sciences, Department of Geography, as well as the Research Leader of the Asian Migration Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Her research interests include the politics of space in colonial and postcolonial cities, and she also has considerable experience working on a wide range of migration research in Asia, including key themes such as cosmopolitanism and highly skilled talent migration; gender, social reproduction and care migration; migration, national identity and citizenship issues; globalising universities and international student mobilities; and cultural politics, family dynamics and international marriage migrants. She has published widely in these fields.
Co-hosted with the International Migration Research Centre.

Who Do You Think You Are, and Who Gets to Decide? Are you Black, Indigenous, or Afro-Métis?
2022-11-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Webinar link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83927272359?pwd=[REDACTED]
Perhaps like most Afro-Metis or Black-and-Indigenous people, George Elliott Clarke never questioned his Indigenous heritage. He always knew about it, had it verified by a genealogical check, and never thought about it as a means to dodge taxes or demand “rights.” So, he was very surprised when Indigenous people and others called him a “tribal wanna-be” and thought that he was laying claim to an identity that could not be his. That’s when he started to do some digging into the official definition of who can or cannot be “Metis” and discovered that it is extremely problematic–in terms of territoriality, trading history, and, especially, “race”; that it is a bureaucratic definition based on Eurocentrism, sexism, and ahistoricism; and is, in fact, impossible to police. Clarke recognizes the existence of a central, Prairies-based, Metis Nation in Canada. But he also holds that there is more than one, and the others–Eastern, Acadian, “Afro,” etc.– need not look or sound like the one “Nation” endorsed by the Federal Government. Join us for a conversation with George and the distinguished Afro-Canadian historian Wendell Adjetey as we explore the complexities of the question, “Who do you think you are, and who gets to decide?”
About the speakers
The 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17), George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1960. A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Clarke has also taught at Duke, McGill, UBC, and Harvard. His recognitions include the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Fellowship (US), the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry, the Premiul Poesis (Romania), the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry (US), and International Fellow Poet of the Year, Encyclopedic Poetry School [2019] (China). His acclaimed titles include Whylah Falls (1990, translated into Chinese), Beatrice Chancy (1999, translated into Italian), Execution Poems (2001), Blues and Bliss (selected poems, 2009), I & I (2008), Illicit Sonnets (U.K., 2013), Traverse (2015), and Canticles II (MMXX) (2020).
Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey (Nii Laryea Osabu I, Oblantai Mantsè, Atrékor Wé) is William Dawson Chair, assistant professor, and specialist in post-Reconstruction U.S. history and the history of the African Diaspora in North America and the Atlantic World at McGill University. He is the author of Cross-Border Cosmopolitans: The Making of a Pan-African North America (UNC Press). Dr. Adjetey is working on two new book projects. One examines how revolutionary messianism in Black liberation movements in the United States and beyond inspired Western governments to pursue counter-revolutionary, counter-insurgent, and genocidal measures to thwart African-centered self-determination. His other project unearths notions of just war theory, abolitionism, and humanitarianism in the context of nineteenth-century warfare along the Gulf of Guinea Coast. Dr. Adjetey earned the Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in History and African Americans Studies at Yale University.

WatPEG Roundtable: "Trade Policy Contestation in North America and Europe: Diverging or Converging Trends?"
2022-11-14 12:00 - 13:20 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Event link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89282515688?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 892 8251 5688
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Trade policy contestation has become more salient in North America and Europe over the past decade. The extent to which this trend has been driven by similar factors, however, is far from clear. In Europe, contestation appears to result primarily from increasing politicization of trade policy in particular, and European integration more generally. Civil society mobilization, party politics and regional units constitute a complex configuration of factors challenging established practices and goals of trade policy in the post-Lisbon era. In North America, by contrast, contestation has not exposed trade policy-making in a similar way to the dynamics of mass politics like in Europe. Rather, current challenges are more contingent upon shifting policy preferences of federal governments, most notably the resurgence of variants of neo-mercantilism or the Trudeau government’s progressive trade agenda.
This panel takes stock of these trends through a comparative lens. Participants discuss the degree of continuity and change in European and North American trade policy developments, the driving forces behind convergent and divergent patterns as well as the potential medium- and long-term implications of contestation for future directions of trade policy.
Panelists:
Patrick Leblond, Associate Professor, Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa and CIGI Senior Fellow
Christopher Kukucha, Professor, University of Lethbridge
Marcela López Vallejo, Department of Pacific Studies of the University Center of Social Sciences and Humanities of the University of Guadalajara
Maria Garcia, Senior Lecturer and Acting Head of the Department of Politics, Languages & International Studies, University of Bath

Dead In the Water or More Relevant Than Ever? The Sustainable Development Goals In Turbulent Times
2022-11-15 16:00 - 17:30 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Event link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88310742765?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 883 1074 2765
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Halfway through their 15-year implementation period, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are in trouble, knocked off course by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite this, the key challenges that the SDG’s seek to address – from poverty to food security to climate change – have not gone away. This workshop brings together researchers working on various aspects of the 17 SDGs, and invites them to reflect on their own research and on the extent to which the Goals still offer a viable roadmap for sustainable global development.
Featuring
Alison Blay-Palmer, UNESCO Chair on Food, Biodiversity and Sustainability Studies
Colleen Loomis, School of International Policy and Governance
Debora VanNijnatten, Department of Political Science and North American Studies
Carrie Wright, Faculty of Education and BSIA Fellow
Chair: Alistair D. Edgar, Associate Professor of Political Science
Co-hosted by Wilfrid Laurier University.

Transparency Traps: Global Development and the Politics of Aid Data
2022-11-16 12:00 - 13:00 | Room 1-42, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Watch this event live: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83361460244?pwd=[REDACTED]
How much international aid is actually reaching the poor, in the world today and who is really benefiting from the billions of dollars spent each year in the name of global sustainable development? The truth is that we cannot easily answer these simple, but important questions. Why not?
Transparency Traps: Global Development and the Politics of Aid Data unravels the promises and perils of the so-called transparency revolution in international development. Based on extensive participant observation, over 550 interviews, and fieldwork in 14 countries, this book focuses on international efforts to establish accountability standards and improve access to data on over $150 billion in annual aid each year. Ultimately, this research shows that realizing the promise of aid transparency faces numerous challenges: vast supplies of data that are ultimately neither accessible nor useful to aid recipients, riddled with errors and disinformation, and falling far short of providing the kind of aid accountability and effectiveness theorized by its advocates.
Transparency Traps: Global Development and the Politics of Aid is ultimately a tell-tale story not just about development aid, but also about the big data and the Data for Development Revolution. Yet it also generates lessons about how we achieve both the means of transparency and the ends of data-driven decision making that can lead to greater accountability, equity, empowerment, and policy effectiveness in global development — if only we engage in critical self-reflection along the way.
About the speaker
Dr. Kate Weaver is Associate Professor and Associate Dean (on leave) at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and co-director of Innovations for Peace and Development at The University of Texas at Austin. She currently holds the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Kate’s research focuses on global economic governance and international development. Specifically, she writes widely on the politics of aid data, transparency and accountability, the power and pathologies of development data, and representation and reform in international financial institutions. Outside of her academic work, Kate serves on the executive boards of Bread for the World and the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty and works with several other non-profits and foundations on issues of global climate change, food insecurity and nutrition.

CANCELLED: This IS Evidence
2022-11-17 19:00 - 20:30 | Room 1-43, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
What happens when undocumented Bangladeshi and Pakistani men in Greece pick up their cell phones to record their lives as migrant agricultural workers? From mid-2018 – late-2021, four groups of South Asian migrant men collaborated with myself, a researcher working on migrant precarity in Greece, to take photos, videos, and record audio testimonies about their work and living conditions. They used cellphones and WhatsApp, a free phone app, to share testimonies, and have closed group discussions about the images and stories they were collecting.
The keynote elaborates on the process of this collaboration that has culminated in a travelling multi-media exhibition and a digital archive. I discuss the lessons learnt from the adaptation of Photovoice strategy, an arts-based social justice tool, as the migrant workers struggled with COVID-19 lockdowns with attendant job loss, increased workplace precarity, heightened state surveillance, and public discourses pathologizing them as disease-carriers. I speak about the challenges and strengths of an uneasy co-ethnic insider-outsider identity and also strategies that the men and myself adopted to somewhat overcome the (dis)privileges that we embodied. I conclude by discussing the men’s participation as an act of resistance against their dehumanization, and othering.
Dr. Kukreja’s multi-media exhibition, ‘This IS Evidence‘, a co-creative work by groups of undocumented South Asian male migrants in Greece, is hosted by the International Migration Research Centre and the Balsillie School of International Affairs and will be on display at the BSIA. The keynote on Thursday November 17, 2022, is being held in conjunction with the second annual Queen’s-BSIA International Migration and Mobilities Graduate Seminar (Queen’s-BSIA IMMGS) on Friday, November 18, 2022 at the Balsillie School of Internal Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University. The theme of this year’s Symposium is Borders and (Un)Bordering: Analyzing Migration and Mobility Through Pandemic Times. The QB-IMMGS is supported by the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the School of Graduate Studies, Queen’s University. For further details please visit the Symposium website. https://wp3.its.queensu.ca/gsmmwww/or send an email to: qbimmgss@gmail.com.
About the speaker
Reena Kukreja is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies with cross appointment to Gender Studies Department and affiliation with the Cultural Studies Program at Queen’s University, Canada. Her research interests and filmmaking practice is focused on migration and development, gender, marriage migration, masculinities, political economy, caste, and collaborative research methods. She has directed several award-winning documentaries on rural women in India and South Asia.

Food Care Chains and Commensality in Pandemic Times: Migrant Domestic Workers’ Relational Food (In)security in Southeast Asia
2022-11-29 09:00 - 10:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Join the webinar with this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82047245179?pwd=[REDACTED]
Speaker:
Chand Somaiah, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Coauthors:
Brenda Yeoh, National University of Singapore
Kristel Acedera, National University of Singapore
Theodora Lam, National University of Singapore
Abstract:
Host to a million migrant workers including around 250,000 migrant domestic workers, Singapore’s urban social exclusion of low-waged migrant workers was a pre-pandemic faultline which was exacerbated as Covid-19 peaked, exposing migrant workers to greater health and social risks than the average Singaporean. As pandemic conditions led to intensified surveillance and decreased mobility, many migrant domestic workers had to forego visits back to their home countries, endure confinement to their employers’ home, and in some cases, had their day off privileges withdrawn. This talk draws upon findings from 55 qualitative interviews with migrant domestic workers (MDWs) based in Singapore around themes surrounding their migration, food security, and carework. We employed a transnational lens to look not just at MDWs’ own experiences around securing access to food for themselves, but also for left-behind children and family members back home in Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar. We focus on developing within studies of food (in)security, the concept of foodcare which offers ‘low-income mothers an alternative to the logic of capital for their demonstration of self-worth’ (Parsons et al. 2020). We extend this concept in conjunction with the classic idea of global care chains (Hochschild 2000) to propose the idea of transnational foodcare chains. This distinctly agentic, migrant, and maternal food labour is being done under exceptional times of global pandemic-induced heightened social distancing, economic precarity, and limited travel. The foodcare chains that emerged are dually oriented. We argue that firstly, these foodcare chains are multi-relational (i.e. in relation not just to children but to other left-behind family members too) across transnational space, paralleling the relationality of the family migration project. Secondly, foodcare chains are also emplaced horizontally, extending to fellow migrant domestic worker friendships forged in Singapore. To “get the real taste of Indonesia”, for example, and satiate the yearning for comfort foods from home, MDWs spend effort in recreating home food for themselves and their friends in migrant contexts. Thirdly, this paper also reveals how under pandemic conditions, foodcare chains also enter the domain of health and healthcare as food became evoked as medicine.
About the speaker:
Dr. Chand Somaiah holds a joint appointment as a Research Fellow with the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore; and Yale-NUS College. Her research interests include intimate citizenship practices such as foodwork, and embodied, emplaced and intersectional subjectivities vis-à-vis migration. Since 2017, she has been working on collaborative mixed-methods research projects which investigate the impacts of parental absence on left-behind children and families from sending communities of international labour. Currently she is involved in projects which focus on well-being, food practices, and food security among migrant domestic workers in Singapore and their children. Her work has been published in a range of peer-reviewed journals including Global Networks; Ethnic and Racial Studies; Journal of Youth Studies; Emotion, Space and Society; Journal of Intercultural Studies; and South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies.
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.

Climate, Conflict & the Search for Peace: A Report Back from COP 27 in Egypt and Tour of Russia, Finland, Latvia, Poland and Romania
2022-12-06 12:00 - 13:00 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Tamara Lorincz will share her insights as an observer delegate at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. She was on the delegation of the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), which is a member of the Climate Action Network International and the Women Gender Constituency of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. She will discuss loss and damage financing and the new initiatives on transparency and climate responses for sustainable peace (CRSP). In this context, she will also talk about her academic research on military emissions in global climate governance. After Egypt, Tamara has gone on a tour of Russia, Finland, Latvia, Poland and Romania to learn more about these countries and to meet people to talk about their perspectives on the war in Ukraine and NATO expansion. She has been invited to speak at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and at a public event in Helsinki. Her tour is motivated by peacebuilding and citizen diplomacy.
About the speaker
Tamara Lorincz is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University. She is currently the convenor of the Environment Working Group of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Tamara graduated with an MA in International Politics & Security Studies from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom in 2015. She is the recipient of the Rotary International World Peace Fellowship. She is a member of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and on the board of World Beyond War and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Tamara has an LLB/JD and MBA specializing in environmental law and management from Dalhousie University. She is the former Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Environmental Network and co-founder of the East Coast Environmental Law Association. For several years she was on the national board of Ecojustice Canada and the Nova Scotia Minister’s Round Table on Environment and Sustainable Prosperity.

"Get Away from the Target: Rescuing Migrants from the Libyan Coast Guard" Screening and Discussion
2022-12-08 17:00 - 18:30 | Room 1-42, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Register on Eventbrite: https://get-away-from-the-target-screening.eventbrite.ca

As part of the Waterloo Region Migration Film Festival 2022 (#WRMigFest ), the International Migration Research Centre (IMRC), in collaboration with Immigration Partnership Waterloo Region, invite you to a screening of the Emmy-award winning documentary “Get Away from the Target: Rescuing Migrants from the Libyan Coast Guard”, by Ed Oud and Will Miller. The documentary is part of The Outlaw Ocean Project, a non-profit journalism organization founded and directed by Ian Urbina. This 30-minute film will be followed by a panel discussion.
Description of Movie
“ ‘There is nothing more difficult than feeling lost and astray in the middle of nowhere.’ Those were the words of the captain of a Doctors Without Borders rescue ship on the Mediterranean last spring. The boat, with videographer Ed Ou of The Outlaw Ocean Project aboard, spent three weeks looking to save the lives of migrants crossing the sea from Africa to Europe, from misery to maybe the miracle of job, a bed, a meal. Finding the migrants wasn’t hard. Rescuing them before they were captured by the Libyan Coast Guard was deeply challenging. The Libyans had guns and faster boats, and, it turned out, a sense of mission that traced itself to the immigration policies of the European Union.
The EU has for years partnered with Libya to solve its migrant crisis by giving the Libyan Coast Guard the task of capturing the desperate before they reach European shores. Ou, with a blend of daring and grace, documented the daily contest—the threats from the Coast Guard, the urgency to get rafts and lifejackets to those stranded, the fear that colored every lost moment—for those whom the Coast Guard could catch first would be returned to the notorious gulag of migrant jails in Libya.”
– From the Outlaw Ocean Project
Panelists
Dr. Michael Gordon is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University and Co-Editor of Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees. His research focuses on irregularized migration and border control efforts in Europe, particularly the role of civil society search and rescue NGOs operating in the Central Mediterranean Sea.
Dr. Maissaa Almustafa is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Glendon Political Science and a Research Fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research at York University, Toronto and an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo and Vice Chair of Board of Directors Kitchener Downtown Community Health Centre/Sanctuary Refugee Health Centre (the Health Centre). Her research focuses on forced displacement, statelessness, refugees’ experiences, and the impact of refugees’ journeys on their lives and wellbeing.
Dr. Kira Williams is Coordinating Data Scientist at Haven: the Asylum Lab, Wilfrid Laurier University and a data scientist, policy analyst and statistician whose work has focused on Mapping the Relationship between Border Enforcement, externalization, migration by boat and deaths in the Central Mediterranean Sea.

Inside the Black Box with Canadian Climate Institute
2023-01-16 12:30 - 13:30 | Room 1-43, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
What is the Canadian Climate Institute? Come learn from Senior Research Associate Anna Kanduth about working for the Canadian Climate Institute and how they inform Canadian Climate Policy.
About the speaker
Anna Kanduth has diverse experience in provincial and federal government and the not-for-profit sector, having worked as a policy analyst and project coordinator in a range of areas including clean technology, healthcare, and the arts. Anna has previously worked as a Policy Analyst with Natural Resources Canada and Ontario’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport. She holds a MA in Public Policy from the University of Toronto.
Presented by the BSIA Environment and Resources Research Cluster.
This event will be held under Chatham house rules. Recordings are not permitted.

Ukraine Photo Exhibit and Launch
2023-01-17 11:30 - 12:30 | ON
Almost a year ago February 24th Russia invaded Ukraine, causing the biggest war in the middle of Europe since World War II, breaking the lives of millions of people and destroying their homes and civilian infrastructure. The Ukrainian Photo Exhibit was created by Ukrainian students of UW to raise awareness and highlight the impact that the war in Ukraine is having on academics and civilians. Students show how people from Ukraine are standing, showing incredible resilience and resistance in the face of a cruel enemy. They want to share how they are continuing to live, love and hope even in war conditions. Students will share their personal stories aiming to show that fighting for freedom and democracy isn’t easy.
The Ukrainian Photo Exhibit will be on display in the Balsillie lobby from January 9 to 20, 2023 and we encourage you to visit it and show your support.
On January 17th, Ukrainian students will share first-hand experiences with the war in their country, and guests can experience VR tours of Ukraine before and after the full-scale war, enjoy Ukrainian culture and try some Ukrainian treats.
The exhibition is organized by the Ukrainian student community at UW and University for Ukraine (#U4U) Fundraising. U4U is a grassroots humanitarian fundraising initiative by students, staff, and faculty from the University of Waterloo. It aims to show our solidarity and provide relief for the victims of the war in Ukraine through major Canadian charities.
Click here to donate.

Deploying Feminism: The Role of Gender in NATO Military Operations
2023-01-18 12:00 - 13:00 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
In Deploying Feminism, Stefanie von Hlatky tells the story of how the military has been delegated authority to advance gender equality as part of their activities, while simultaneously tackling increasingly complex threats. Drawing upon fieldwork and interviews, she illustrates how NATO, the world’s foremost alliance, has even embedded these ideas in the planning and execution of its missions. For troops deployed on NATO missions, this often means seeking out women in their operating area to improve intelligence gathering activities. While this helps the mission, does it help women and conflict-affected communities? Because of the military’s focus on operational effectiveness above all else, von Hlatky argues that there is a distortion of Women, Peace and Security norms, as gender equality concerns fade into the background. Looking at NATO’s ongoing operations in Iraq, Kosovo, and the Baltics, Deploying Feminism details the process by which Women, Peace and Security norms are militarized and put at the service of operational effectiveness. Further, it shows why an adjustment is necessary for gender equality to become a true planning priority.
About the speaker
Stéfanie von Hlatky is the Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Gender, Security, and the Armed Force and the Associate Dean (research) of the Faculty of Arts and Science at Queen’s University. Prior to joining Queen’s, she held positions at Georgetown University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., Dartmouth College and ETH Zurich. Her research focuses on alliance politics, multinational operations and the Women, Peace and Security agenda. She has published two books with Oxford University Press, four edited volumes and over 40 articles and chapters on topics such as why and how democracies fight wars, how global norms affect military practices, and Canadian defence policy. Her latest book is titled Deploying Feminism: The Role of Gender in NATO Military Operations (Oxford University Press 2023).

Transnational Social Space and Homosexuality: How gay men in Haiti get involved in intimate relationships with migrant partners across the Haitian diaspora
2023-01-23 12:30 - 13:30 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Since the beginning of their migration to the Americas and Europe in the 1950s, Haitian transnational migrants have ensured the socio-economic survival of non-migrants in Haiti. They have done so by sending over three billion US dollars annually to their families and friends back home. While Haitian migrants are often perceived as having a positive economic impact on the country, some are criticized for engaging in sexual behaviours, such as homosexuality, seemingly infringing on ‘traditional’ Haitian family values in a largely conservative ‘Christian’ society. This revives old debates about migrants’ role in using their money to normalize homosexual relationships and pervert sexual morality and acceptable gender norms among non-migrants in Haiti. According to these debates, local men in Haiti are involved in intimate relationships with Haitian gay migrants because of their precarious socioeconomic status on the Caribbean Island and not necessarily because they may be gay. Although homosexuality has always existed in Haiti, and romantic/intimate relationships between gay men in Haiti and those abroad have long existed, these relationships have rarely been studied in sociological research on Haitian migrations. To fill this gap, this paper examines how the inequality of resources between Haitian migrants and non-migrants intersects with homosexuality and space to shape the perception of Haitian gay migrants as desirable romantic/intimate partners for gay non-migrants in Haiti. Drawing on 11 months of ethnography and 44 interviews in Northern Haiti, this paper shows that transnational migration, homosexuality, and spatiality significantly shape how local men in Haiti look for and get involved in intimate relationships with gay Haitian migrants. In doing so, this paper contributes to the transnational migration literature by showing how homosexuality shapes the dynamics of transnational relationships between migrants in the Caribbean and non-migrants in the Americas and Europe.
About the speaker
Carlo Handy Charles is a dual Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at McMaster University and Geography at the CNRS-LC2S, Université des Antilles. His dissertation examines how gay men in Haiti navigate transnational romantic and intimate relationships with their migrant partners across the Haitian diaspora in the United States, Canada, France, Dominican Republic, and Brazil. He has won over 20 awards for his research and leadership, including the SSHRC-Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Scholarship, and a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship at Convergence Migrations Institute (CNRS-Collège de France, Paris). He is a Sessional Faculty in Sociology at McMaster. He is also a former Public Policy Advisor to the City of Toronto, a playwright, and a policy columnist. His work has appeared in several academic journals and mainstream media in Canada and internationally.

Urban Household Food Security and its Relationship to Resource Access Disruptions under Covid-19
2023-01-24 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Covid-19 has introduced significant disruptions in the extent to which households can access to basic services and resources in cities around the world. Previous studies have indicated a predictive relationship between the consistency of resource access and food access among urban households. These investigations, however, have predominantly been isolated to Southern Africa and have not accounted for other dimensions of food security. To test whether these results are observable outside Southern Africa and with a more multidimensional measure of food security, this investigation proposes a method for building an index of urban household food access, utilization and stability. The scores for the constructed index are then compared across household survey samples collected from five cities in the Global South. The investigation then assesses the predictive relationship between the consistency of household resource access and this more multidimensional index of food insecurity. While the general trend of inconsistent resource access predicting food insecurity is confirmed, there are geographic differences in the strength and quality of this relationship. These findings suggest that the resource access disruptions inflicted by Covid-19 will likely have a heterogeneous impact on urban food security dependent upon the affected resource and the city in which a given household resides.
About the speaker:
Cameron McCordic is an Assistant Professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo. Cameron’s research interests focus on sustainable urban development, urban food security, and social vulnerability within cities. In particular, Cameron is interested in the systems that give rise to sustainable development and compounding vulnerability within cities. In pursuit of this research focus, Cameron has collaborated with communities, private enterprises, municipal leaders and academics to find innovative research methods that can be used to investigate urban issues through a community-based research framework.
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.

PhD Dissertation Defence: "Xenophobic Citizenship, Unsettling Space, and Constraining Borders: Assembling Refugee Exclusion in South Africa’s Everyday"
2023-01-26 13:00 - 16:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Jennifer Kandjii‘s dissertation defence.
Abstract
This dissertation investigates how myriad actors, including the state, citizens, civil society, refugees, and the media, intersect to shape refugee experiences in urban centers in South Africa. Building on six months of ethnographic fieldwork, it focuses on refugee lived experiences in this context to determine the actors, their relations, processes, and factors that condition refugees’ everyday existence. This dissertation argues that we cannot understand refugee experiences in the urban context without attending to the relations among a multiplicity of actors, their interpretations of social phenomena related to refugees, and the meanings that emanate from these different actors as they forge to condition the day-to-day living of refugees. Furthermore, it argues that situating refugees’ everyday lives as the object of the study reveals how exclusionary practices are constructed, enacted, tolerated, reinforced, and challenged in contingent moments. In this mundanity where daily life is constituted and experienced, we see how collectives of various actors, imbued with multiple rationalities and enacting distinct yet intersecting processes, induce outcomes greater than the sum of their individual parts. Indeed, when refugees manage to escape the gaze of the state, they fall prey to that of citizens—whose aggressive actions are tolerated and emboldened by the state. Furthermore, the media mediates these state-citizen, citizen-refugee, and refugee-state connections, framing them and the attendant discourses that form social attitudes. The convergence of all these actors’ interests, perspectives, actions, and processes has devastating consequences for refugees’ everyday acts of shopping, walking, studying, or simply living. Notwithstanding these compounding acts of exclusion from access to rights, services such as healthcare and education, and physical space, refugees expose herculean acts of agency and resistance when navigating local and national refugee regimes and traversing everyday space. These heroic ways of being include strategies to claim asylum, obtain refugee status and documentation, secure economic and other resources, negotiate social services, escape police and citizen brutality, and avoid expulsion. By expulsion, I mean the multiple ways that myriad actors seek to force out refugees from territorial geography. These include, but are not limited to, deportation by the government, violent xenophobic force by locals, and institutional extra-legal processes for determining refugee status.

This dissertation combines assemblage thinking and critical citizenship and migration scholarship concepts of citizenship, space, and borders to analyze the experiences of people who are pushed to the edges of society and live in constant fear of violence and spatial expulsion. It contributes to critical citizenship and migration scholarship in three ways. First, it demonstrates that conditions of uncertainty, precarity, and vulnerability result from the confluence of multiple actors who enact processes that reinforce each other in cyclical ways, rather than just being a product of institutional actors (such as the state). This means that refugees and other non-citizens are made to seem like “immanent others” not only by the state but also by ordinary citizens and the media. In what I call “assembling refugee exclusion,” I show how a collective of actors portray refugees as burdens and threats—individuals who are undeserving of rights but should be exorcised from the nation’s imagination and physical location—regardless of their legal status and formal documentation. Assembling refugee exclusion reveals how the confluence of multiple actors, as opposed to a single actor, induces overburdening pressure on the wellbeing of refugees, resulting in more negative health and socioeconomic effects.

Second, it exposes how nation-building and identity formation, constructed at the expense of individuals on the fringe of society, such as refugees and excluded others, can be more than acts of state practice. State and non-state actors unite behind citizenship ideas to exclude and expel the imagined other. Thus, refugees’ identity and physical presence in urban areas are inextricably tied to nation-building, belonging, citizenship, and entitlement to rights and services. By jettisoning refugee protection under national and international refugee law, the state panders to citizens’ exclusionary interests and discriminatory feelings to foster collective national identity and pride. Simultaneously, with collective values regarding citizenship, I argue that non-state actors are emboldened to use language to distinguish themselves from the other, establishing hierarchical relationships and moral categories that lead to modes of bordering action and xenophobic violence against the other. Furthermore, this form of exclusionary language is reinforced through media discourse and public communication creating a continuous loop of difference. While this qualitative case study uncovers a slew of discrimination against refugees stemming from the attitudes of multiple actors accumulating in everyday space, I find that exclusionary practices coexist with powerful forms of refugee agency that are both enabled and restricted in specific moments and spaces. Therefore, third and finally, the dissertation contributes to citizenship and migration scholarship by delving into how agency emerges from complex relationships of micro and macro politics, demonstrating how refugees leverage support from non-government organizations (NGOs), their communities, and allies not only to challenge exclusionary state discourses and actions but also to enact strategies and navigate spaces constructed and populated by a variety of relational actors. Overall, the dissertation asks us to consider how a myriad of actors, both state and non-state, and meanings derived from their perceptions and interpretations of citizenship, space, and borders intersect to shape the lived experiences of refugees. This question prompts policymakers, scholars, and practitioners to consider the implications of this convergence of players for refugee governance and refugee protection in the twenty-first century.

Supervisor: Dr. Suzan Ilcan
Committee Members: Dr. Jonathan Crush and Dr. Margaret Walton-Roberts
Internal/external Examinar: Dr. Cameron McCordic
External Examiner: Dr. Luin Goldring
There are limited spaces available to attend the defence. Email events@balsillieschool.ca if you would like to attend.

Inside the Black Box with Natural Resources Canada
2023-01-30 12:30 - 13:30 | Room 1-43, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
How does the government of Canada make decisions about energy and the energy transition in Canada? Come hear from Peter Massie, Manager in Strategic Policy and Techno-Economic Analysis at Natural Resources Canada on how the government makes decisions, what factors influence decision making, and how the government conducts research. Peter will also provide a behind the scenes look at what it is like working for NRCan.
About the speaker
Peter Massie has over 8 years experience with Natural Resources Canada in roles ranging from the Office of Energy Research and Development, Petroleum Resources Branch, and Electricity Resources Branch. He has a M.A. in Sustainable Energy Policy, Energy Policy from Carleton University, and entered the Government of Canada through the prestigious Policy Analyst Recruitment and Development Program (PARDP).
Presented by the BSIA Environment and Resources Research Cluster.
This event will be held under Chatham house rules. Recordings are not permitted.

The Age of Anarchy: Navigating a World Where Everyone is Connected and No One is in Charge
2023-02-01 19:00 - 20:30 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Watch the webinar here, starting at 7pm EST: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87970665431?pwd=[REDACTED]

The old international system may be struggling but a new more decentralized, diffused and democratized global system is emerging. John Hancock will examine how unprecedented access to information, technological empowerment, and global integration is reshaping world politics – and ask what we can expect from a complex, turbulent global system that’s increasingly run, not by the G7 or the G20, but by the G8 billion.
About the speaker
John Hancock works at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland, where he has served as senior policy advisor to the Director-General, representative to the IMF and World Bank, and head of policy development. He spearheaded the launch of the WTO’s Aid-for-Trade Initiative, as well as the recent ‘Joint Initiatives’ on investment facilitation and other emerging issues. John is a Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Prior to joining the WTO, John was senior advisor to Canada’s trade minister. He holds a PhD from Cambridge University, has written and spoken frequently on international issues.

Challenges Before India's 'New' Political Economy: Matching Democracy with Growth
2023-02-06 12:30 - 14:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
India’s ‘New Political Economy’ in the recent years has been characterized by a continued thrust towards economic reforms and sustained economic growth, ascendance of rightwing politics driven by religious and cultural nationalism and the resilience of its democracy through its vibrant institutions. The three however intersect with each other in ways which are very different from the ways in which Indian political economy was characterized in its early years. The story of contemporary India and how it copes up with its challenges are relevant for the rest of the world as well, as the country seeks to position itself as a global player. The lecture attempts to map these multiple layers of India in transition.
About the speaker
Professor Rahul Tripathi has been teaching political science at Goa University for the last twenty years. He holds a doctorate in South Asian Studies from School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He also taught courses on India at College of International Nihon University, Mishima Japan. He has worked in the area of International Political Economy, South Asia and International Relations. He is a member of International Political Economy Society and Indian Political Economy Association.

The Unfree Market of Care Work
2023-02-09 13:00 - 14:30 | Hybrid, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
The accelerated market of care has resulted in the increased dependency of families on migrant women’s labor. Yet this increased demand has not created a free market of care but instead an unfree market. Across the globe, countries that rely on migrant care workers have created an unfree labor regime of legal infantilization that render them dependents of the employer that sponsors their visa. Countries infantilize migrant care workers by legally binding them to one employer as a live-in worker with little flexibility to change employers. This is the case across the globe with Europe being no exception. My talk provides a global overview of the legal infantilization of migrant care workers, describes how this legal status renders them vulnerable to forced labor and human trafficking, and theorizes our understanding of their unfreedom.
About the speaker
Rhacel Salazar Parreñas is the Florence Everline Professor of Sociology and Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California. She is a Visiting Professor at Princeton in 2022-2023. Her research engages the fields of labor, migration, gender, and globalization. She is currently writing a book The Trafficker Next Door: How Domestic Employers Exploit Forced Labor for Norton.

The Structure of the Civilian Casualty Response to Aerial Bombardment
2023-02-13 12:00 - 13:00 | Hybrid – Zoom and room 123, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
The link to attend virtually will be emailed on the day of the event.
The German aerial bombardment of the United Kingdom (May 1940 to March 1945) resulted in massive urban damage in the targeted towns and cities and substantial civilian casualties (fatal and severely injured) including 60,595 fatalities. In the 69-month bombardment German forces utilised aerial bombing (1940-1944), V1 cruise and V2 ballistic missiles (1944-1945), and in a spatially limited area of England’s south-east coast, long-range heavy artillery (1940-1944) in weaponry that was dominated by wide-area high explosives (HE). Data extracted from documents in the UK National Archives (Kew) show that HE impacts resulted in civilian death largely as a result of building (mainly dwelling houses) damage and destruction caused by surface blast effects. At the national (United Kingdom) scale fatal casualties consisted of 26,923 men (44% of total), 25,399 women (42% of total) and 7,736 children (13% of total). Women and children together as a group suffered 33,135 fatalities (55%) of the total whilst making up 64% of the exposed population. In comparison to the demographic structure of the population at risk (obtained from the 1939 National Register and annual reports of the Registrar General) men were over-represented in the fatality total, women were approximately proportionately represented and children were under-represented. As the bombardment developed the proportion of men in the fatality total declined at the expense of women whilst that of children remained more-or-less the same. During the missile phase, women were particularly exposed to daytime missile impacts on busy streets, shops, and markets making up 49% of the civilian fatalities. The under-representation of children in the total fatalities represents the success of passive defence measures (shelter and evacuation) introduced to protect this vulnerable group. High-resolution data for the geographic entity of England & Wales showed similar results but also illustrated the hyper-vulnerability of the aged (>65 years of age) to the explosive impact of weapons in urban areas. London was the primary target of the bombardment; this is shown by the fact that 49% (29,890) of the fatal casualties in the entire bombardment took place in the London Civil Defence Region (LCDR) whilst 31% (18,688) of the total fatalities occurred in the County of London in an area of only 303 km2 forming the core of the LCDR dartboard. The most intense phases of the bombardment were the Blitz (aerial bombing from September 1940 to May 1941) and the missile attack of June 1944 to March 1945. 50,250 civilians lost their lives (83% of the total in the bombardment) in these two phases of the attack. We conclude that 1) that passive defence measures (shelter and evacuation) were highly effective in reducing fatal casualties in children in the population at risk, 2) despite this success, women and children together as a group bore the brunt of the bombardment suffering 55% of the total fatalities, and 3) the mortality pattern in British civilians is consistent with the view that the German attack involved indiscriminate use of HE weapons that resulted in battlefield-scale civilian casualties in urban areas targeted in the bombardment. Fatal civilian casualties resulting from the bombardment made up 17% of the United Kingdom’s total loss of life (military and civilian) in WW2.
About the speaker
Dr. Stephen G. Evans is Professor, Conflict and Catastrophe Systems in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo and a Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Dr. Evans is interested in the occurrence and behavior of catastrophic landslides, landslide dams, glacial hazards, tsunami and other natural disasters, hazard assessment (including magnitude and frequency) and risk analysis. Recently, in his investigation of the 2011 Japan tsunami, he became interested in the architecture and behavior of urban damage systems. His research utilises the application of geospatial modelling, advanced remote sensing techniques and the use of Geographical Information Systems.

Transforming Urban Food Systems in Secondary Cities in Africa
2023-02-28 10:00 - 11:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Countries across Africa are rapidly transitioning from rural to urban societies. The challenge of building inclusive and sustainable cities in the context of rapid urbanization hinges on addressing urban food security challenges. Creating food secure cities and resilient urban food systems is key to promoting health, prosperity, equity, and ecological sustainability. The expansion of Africa’s urban population is taking place largely in secondary cities, which is a real knowledge gap in policy-oriented academic research. A recently published open access book features diverse case studies that shed light on broad concepts including governance, sustainability, health, economic development, informality and inclusivity. Please join us for brief presentations and Q & A with the editors and four contributing authors.
Co-editors Liam Riley and Jonathan Crush will provide an overview of the context of the book and the wider trends shaping urban food systems in African secondary cities. Dan Tevera will present his chapter, “Secondary Cities and Urban Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Ndeyapo Nickanor will present her chapter, “Food Insecurity, Food Sourcing and Food Coping Strategies in the O-O-O Urban Corridor, Namibia .” Andrea Brown will present her chapter, “Co-Productive Urban Planning: Protecting and Expanding Food Security in Uganda’s Secondary Cities.” Alexander Fomin Legwegoh will present his chapter, “Hunger in an Agricultural City: Exploring Vulnerability in Dschang, Cameroon.” The presentations will be followed by a Q & A session.
About the Panelists:
Andrea M. Brown, Associate Professor and Chair, Political Science and North American Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Jonathan Crush, Professor, Balsillie School of International Affairs and Research Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and Professor Extraordinary at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa
Alexander Fomin Legwegoh, Independent Researcher, London, Ontario, Canada
Ndeyapo M. Nickanor, Executive Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, Engineering and Natural Science, University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia
Liam Riley, Researcher, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Daniel Tevera, Professor, Department of Geography, Environmental Studies and Tourism, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.

Escaping Dystopia: Rebuilding a Public Domain
2023-02-28 12:30 - 14:00 | Hybrid – Zoom and room 143, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
The link to attend virtually will be emailed on the day of the event.
In his new book Escaping Dystopia: Rebuilding a Public Domain, Stephen McBride offers a sharp, “big picture” analysis of contemporary crises. Instead of portraying major transformative challenges as rather uncontrollable “exogenous shocks”, he sheds light on their systemic roots and critically discusses the potential of three basic options as escape routes from a dystopian future.
According to Randall Germain (Carleton University), Escaping Dystopia “clearly identifies the challenges facing us, and what we can do about them. It should be required reading for everyone who wants to advance change.”
More about the book:
https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/escaping-dystopia
https://theconversation.com/on-the-brink-global-crises-ranging-from-climate-to-economic-meltdown-demand-radical-change-190641
About the speaker
Stephen McBride is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Public Policy and Globalization at McMaster University. His research focuses on comparative public policy, globalization and political economy.
Heather Whiteside, BSIA Fellow and Associate Professor, University of Waterloo, will provide comment.

Balancing Sustainable Development, Mining and Climate Change in Mongolia
2023-03-02 12:00 - 13:00 | Hybrid – Zoom and room 143, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Mongolia is a developing and landlocked country between the Russia to the North, and the People’s Republic of China to the South. In 1992, Mongolia became a democracy with a third neighbor policy. At this point Mongolia’s journey began to the transition to a market economy from a centrally planned economic system. Sustainable development became an important consideration and is currently guided by “Vision 2050”, the Mongolian long-term development policy.
Mongolian economy is largely based on agriculture and mining. The livestock sector numbers over 70 million animals while mining is home to some of the world’s largest developed and undeveloped mining projects for copper, gold, coal, and rare earth which are subject to the challenges of social license, climate change and the global need of critical minerals.
Balancing economic interests and sustainability is difficult. The importance of ensuring the balance is underscored by the fact that Mongolia is one of the countries experiencing the rise in temperatures from climate change. The country is a signatory of the Paris agreement aimed at reducing GHG emissions by 22.7% in 2030.
In this session, Mr.Surakhbayar Galsan, Mongolian Sustainable Development Expert with an extensive experience in Mongolian multi-sector policy development and investment attraction, will speak about Mongolia’s aspiration to keep building the sustainable development through policy, funding, and institutional challenges along with creating more development opportunities.
About the speaker
Surakhbayar Galsan, L.L.M., is the Managing Director of the Mongolian boutique management consulting firm “BlackRock Partners” LLC, Member of the Board of the “Mining Law Study Foundation” NGO, Chairman of the Board of the “R&D centre for Climate Change and Sustainable Development” NGO, Coordinator of the “Natural Resources & Environmental Law Initiative in Asia” programme at the School of Law of the National University of Mongolia (NUM), and Lecturer on “Environment and Mineral Laws” at the “German-Mongolian Institute for Resource and Technology of Mongolia”. He has served as an advisor to the Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry of Mongolia and was a Member of the Board of the Mongolian National Mining Association NGO.
He is passionate about facilitating sustainable development, green investment, climate resilience and social safeguard initiatives and the integration thereof into legislation, policies, plans and programs that benefit current and future generations in Mongolia. He has contributed to drafting numerous of legislation documents including the Minerals Law (versions 2006, 2013 and 2021), the Mining law (2017), the Law on Mineral Sector’s Transparency (2021), and the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment (2022).
His work experience involves multi-million dollars domestic and foreign invested projects in various sectors in addition to international development programmes funded by the governments of Canada, Australia, WB, EBRD, ADB, GCF, UN-CTCN, UNDP, GIZ, EU, USAID, and WV.
Surakhbayar Galsan earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the School of Law, National University of Mongolia and a Master of Laws degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, New York, USA. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Law, NUM.

In Conversation with Mustafa Aydin on the Latest Developments in Turkey
2023-03-07 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Join Dr. Mustafa Aydin for a conversation about the damage, recovery and the responses to the earthquake in Turkey.
About the speaker
Mustafa Aydın is a Professor of International Relations at Kadir Has University (Istanbul), and the President of International Relations Council of Turkey. Previously, he worked at Ankara University (1994-2005), Economy and Technology University (2005-2009) and Kadir Has University (since 2010), where he served as the Rector of the University (2010-2018). He was guest researcher/lecturer at Michigan (1998), Harvard (2002, Fulbright fellow), and Athens (2003, Onassis Fellow) universities, as well as at the Richardson Institute for Peace Studies (1999, UNESCO Fellow), the EU Institute for Security Studies (2003), and the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (2018). He is a member of International Studies Association, Turkish Atlantic Council, European Leadership Network, Greek-Turkish Forum, and European Academy of Art and Sciences. Prof. Aydın’s areas of interest include international politics, foreign policy analysis, security issues related to Central Asia, Caucasus, the Black Sea, and the Middle East, as well as Turkish foreign and security policies.
