Yvonne Su
Associate Professor
Email: yvonnesu@yorku.ca
Primary website: Personal Website
Media Requests Welcome
Dr. Yvonne Su is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Rights and Equity Studies and a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Su is a specialist in forced migration, climate change-induced displacement and queer migration. She has worked extensively with vulnerable communities in Southeast Asia and Latin America and the Caribbeans including refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, trans sex workers, indigenous communities, and 2SLGBTQIA+ folks. She has 29 peer-reviewed publications in journals like Third World Quarterly, Journal of Gender Studies, and International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction as well as more than 40 opinion pieces, newspaper articles and academic blogs in The Washington Post, The Conversation, and The Los Angeles Times.
Su has secured over $12 million in research funding and currently involved in three multi-million-dollar climate grants through Canada’s most prestigious grant competitions. She helps lead a $3.17 million NFRF project in Ghana, Bangladesh, and the Philippines that integrates multispectral imagery with community mapping to document dispossession from adaptation projects. She is a Co-Investigator on a transdisciplinary $3.1 million NFRF project examining the impact of the melting cryosphere on transportation routes and Indigenous health and well-being in the Arctic. Lastly, she is involved in a $2.5 million SSHRC Partnership Grant dedicated to documenting and sharing Canadians’ stories of surviving climate disasters. This is in addition to three minor grants on climate change that study its impacts in Bangladesh, Vietnam, the Philippines and in cities around the world.
Dr. Yvonne Su is a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an Associate Professor at York University. She is also affiliated with the UNHCR, University of Oxford, the International Migration Institute, and the Centre for Refugee Studies. An interdisciplinary scholar researching transnational issues, her expertise spans forced migration, queer migration, climate change adaptation and climate (im)mobilities. Her research adopts a policy-oriented and community-based approach, undertaking regionally contextualized social science research across the Global South, focusing on Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.
In the last five years, Dr. Su has secured over $12 million in external research funding. Her work is supported by multiple New Frontiers in Research Fund grants comparing climate change adaptation in Bangladesh, Ghana, the Philippines, the Canadian Arctic, and Alaska. She has also won multiple Social Science and Humanities Research Council grants for multi-disciplinary research in Brazil, Colombia, and the Philippines.
In Latin America, Dr. Su has been conducting high-risk research on a concept she coined, “intersecting precarity” - the combination of homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and gender-based violence - experienced by marginalized groups such as asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants. She examines this in the case of Venezuelan LGBTQ+ migrants and refugees in the unstable border cities of Pacaraima, Boa Vista, and Manaus in Brazil and Cúcuta in Colombia.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Dr. Su has spent over a decade examining the socio-ecological impacts of climate change, focusing on how social inequalities shape communities’ adaptive capacities and disaster responses. Her research on Indigenous knowledge systems and disaster risk reduction has been cited in major reports, including the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Her latest research agenda takes a transdisciplinary approach to analyzing critical minerals and global supply chains.
As an interdisciplinary migration expert with lived experiences of migration, Dr. Su is committed to critically engaged research that examines contemporary transboundary migration challenges through a Global South lens, centring marginalized communities and advancing the decolonization of research and knowledge production.
Fellowships and Appointments:
Expert, UNHCR, Global Recommendations to Prevent Loss of Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change
Visiting Fellow, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford
Fellow, International Migration Institute, University of Amsterdam
Former Director, The Centre for Refugee Studies, York University
Degrees
PhD, University of GuelphMSc, University of Oxford
Research Interests
- Climate Change Adaptation, Dispossession and Displacement: Co-constructing Solutions with Coastal Vulnerable Groups in Africa and Asia, New Frontiers in Research Fund, ($3.17 million) – Co-P.I. - 2024
- From Catastrophe to Community: A People’s History of Climate Change, SSHRC Partnership Grant Stage 1 ($20,000) - Collaborator - 2024
- Climate-Induced Displacement, Resettlement, Adaptation, and Resilience for Cities, SSHRC Partnership Development Grant ($199,000) - Collaborator - 2024
- Stories of Change: Listening to Global South Perspectives on Climate-Induced Migration, SSHRC Connection Grant ($49,945) – P.I. - 2023
- Resettlement as Climate Change Adaptation? Exploring the longer-term impacts of post-disaster resettlements in rural coastal and island communities in Eastern Samar, the Philippines, SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant ($24,487) – P.I. - 2023
- Climate Displacement Workshops and Roundtable, SSHRC Connection Grant ($50,000) – Collaborator - 2023
- Collaboratory on forced migration in Canada / Collaboratoire sur les migrations forcées au Canada, SSHRC Connection Grant ($50,000) – Collaborator - 2023
- Disaster & Health Emergency Urban Systematic Transformation Centre, York University’s Catalyzing Interdisciplinary Research Clusters Initiative ($525,000) – Co-Applicant - 2022
- Safe Expression: Giving Voice to LGBT Asylum Seekers amid COVID-19 in Brazil, SSHRC Connection Grant ($91,202) – P.I. - 2021
- At the Edge of Safety: Comparing Responses to Venezuelan LGBT Refugees in Brazil and Colombia amid COVID-19, SSHRC Insight Development Grant ($74,592) – P.I. - 2021
- Rights, Resilience and Equity During Covid-19: Women in Affected Low-Income Urban Communities in the Philippines, ERSC Impact Acceleration Grant (£7,506.48/$12,600 CAD) – Co-P.I. - 2021
- Examining the Application of Tornado Safety Policy in Ontario Public Schools to Reduce Disaster Risk, SSHRC Insight Development Grant ($64,443) – Collaborator - 2021
- COVID-19: Asylum-seeking in the Epicentre of COVID-19 – The Impact of COVID-19 on Venezuelan LGBTQI+ Asylum Seekers in Brazil, SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant COVID-19 Special Initiative ($24,961) – P.I. - 2020
- COVID-19: Displaced, Resettled, and Isolated - Impact of COVID-19 on Disaster affected Households in Resettlement Sites in Tacloban, Philippines, SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant COVID-19 Special Initiative ($24,992) – P.I. - 2020
- Youth Take Charge, Canadian Heritage ($460,000) – Collaborator - 2019
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Climate Change Adaptation, Dispossession and Displacement: Co-constructing Solutions with Coastal Vulnerable Groups in Africa and Asia
Description:Climate Change Adaptation, Dispossession and Displacement: Co-constructing Solutions with Coastal Vulnerable Groups in Africa and Asia, funded by SSHRC, UKRI and the Norwegian Research Council.
This New Frontiers in Research Fund project, under the International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation & Mitigation, is a partnership with researchers in Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Norway, Philippines and UK, including the University of Dhaka, SEI — Stockholm Environment Institute, York University, Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan, and more collaborators.
We are working closely with coastal communities in Bangladesh, Ghana, and the Philippines that are experiencing unintended negative consequences from climate adaptation. Our focus is on gendered processes of displacement and dispossession from livelihoods.
We are collaborating on the development of an intersectional framework for adaptation that challenges us to build interventions that consider the broader social, political, and ecological context of maladaptation and acknowledge the concerns of local communities.
We are also co-developing low-tech tools and platforms with the Arribada Initiative and communities to share and document their knowledge, strategies, innovations and concerns with one another and to support a truly collaborative, contextualized, and equitable framework for adaptation.
Start Date:
- Month: Mar Year: 2024
End Date:
- Month: Mar Year: 2028
Funders:
New Frontiers in Research Fund (SSHRC)
-
Summary:
The Stories of Change grant led to the creation of "Voices on the Move", a podcast series that explores the complex relationship between climate change and migration. It aims to amplify the voices and stories of researchers, climate migrants, and community leaders, especially from the Global South. As such, Voices on the Move engages with crucial voices in understanding climate injustice and exploring adaptation strategies.
Description:Voices on the Move is a podcast series exploring the complex relationship between climate change and mobility. It aims to amplify the voices and stories of researchers, climate migrants, and community leaders, especially from the Global South.
Voices on the Move offers new, thought-provoking insights into the real-life impacts and consequences of climate change on mobility and habitability. Through interviews with academics and practitioners and personal narratives from those directly affected, the series seeks to highlight the challenges faced by displaced communities and the innovative solutions emerging at grassroots levels.
The podcast features seven episodes, blending impactful stories with research insights to foster nuanced public discourse. Stories come from Afghanistan, Somalia, Kenya, Ghana, Mali, and Canada, covering topics such as climate-induced displacement, social and gender inequalities, the effect on indigenous communities, and the role of women in climate mobility.
Featuring experts like Nassim Majidi, Yvonne Su, François Gemenne, Will Greaves, Mo Hamza, and more, this essential series aims to reshape the conversation around “climate migration” and provide important perspectives and expertise for a more nuanced debate.
The series is co-produced by Migration Matters, York University, Samuel Hall, and the HABITABLE Project and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The podcast is hosted by the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research at York University.
- Month: Oct Year: 2023
End Date:
- Month: Sep Year: 2025
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
LGBT Venezuelan refugees are one of the most vulnerable and overlooked groups in one of the largest and most underfunded crises in modern history. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 5.4 million people have left Venezuela due to violence, persecution and poverty, and the number of Venezuelans seeking refuge worldwide has increased by 8,000 per cent since 2014 (UNHCR, 2020). Many have fled to neighbouring Colombia and Brazil, which automatically grant refugee status to Venezuelan asylum seekers. However, protection gaps, poor funding as well as political and social tensions mean LGBT folks face unprecedented levels of homophobia, xenophobia, extreme violence and exploitation in their place of refuge (IOM, 2020; Valiquette, Su and Felix, 2020). Yet, an unlikely beacon of hope lies in the middle of the Amazon, at Casa Miga, Brazil’s only LGBT refugee centre. And in the border city of Cúcuta in Colombia, where La Casa que Abraza (The House that Hugs), provides a safe space for Venezuelan LGBT refugees in a region still facing insecurity from the country’s internal armed conflict. Both centres are run by LGBT people for LGBT people with the aim to provide services and assistance to LGBT refugees. But despite the significance of the essential service these institutions are providing, they remain scarce, underfunded and understudied. The aim of this study is to shine a light on the significance of peer-to-peer support for Venezuelan LGBT refugees in Brazil and Colombia.
Start Date:
- Month: Aug Year: 2021
End Date:
- Month: Jul Year: 2023
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
As COVID-19 causes nations to close their borders, asylum seekers are trapped and becoming targets of violence. A particularly precarious group are Venezuelan LGBTQI+ asylum seekers in Brazil, a global epicentre for COVID-19 with the highest infection rate and the second highest coronavirus deaths. Since 2015, more than 5 million have fled Venezuela and 264,000 have applied for asylum in Brazil. Under COVID-19, Venezuelan LGBTQI+ asylum seekers now face more challenges, including the loss of livelihood and an increased risk of gender-based violence, exploitation and abuse. Thus, research on the social impacts of COVID-19 will be important so policy makers can understand the protection gaps that existed for these asylum seekers during the pandemic.
This project builds on an existing partnership with Casa Miga, the only LGBT refugee centre in Brazil and one of the only centres in Latin America. Casa Miga is a LGBT-run non-profit shelter that is located in Manaus, one of the hardest hit city in Brazil by the coronavirus. The situation is increasingly dire as the public health care system in Manaus is completely over capacity with a shortage of ventilators, medical supplies and COVID-19 tests.
As the first foreign researchers to study Casa Miga, we can make novel and timely contributions to help Casa Miga address the challenge of a lack of capacity to undertake research to produce policy recommendations for politicians and humanitarian actors to help their residents. The sensitive nature of research on vulnerable groups is what has made this an understudied subject, but this is why this research needs to be done. At a time when vulnerable populations like Venezuelan LGBTQI+ asylum seekers are falling through the cracks, it is important to bring attention to the protection gaps that exist and the assistance that they need to survive, be healthy and feel safe.
Start Date:
- Month: Sep Year: 2020
End Date:
- Month: Aug Year: 2022
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
As Southeast Asia’s COVID-19 hot spot, the Philippines has implemented one of the world’s strictest lockdowns. The highly urbanized city of Tacloban, home to 250,000 people, has enforced strict community quarantine measures that has greatly limited the ability of citizens to work, travel and access their basic needs. Tacloban is also still recovering from Typhoon Haiyan’s destruction in 2013, the strongest storm ever recorded. With tens of thousands of people displaced to resettlement sites on the city’s outskirts with limited access to health services, livelihoods, transportation, COVID-19 is a clear threat to their lives and livelihoods.
The vulnerability of disaster-affected households is exacerbated by the double isolation of being forcibly displaced as well as COVID-19 quarantine measures. Working closely with the Church, this study is the first and only formal academic study so far, to examine how COVID-19 has deepened disaster-affected households’ vulnerabilities. Researchers will conduct key informant interviews, surveys and focus group discussions across four COVID-19 affected resettlement sites. This research will contribute to the advancement of knowledge and produce social benefits by collecting timely data on marginalized resettlement communities. Specifically the short-term outcomes are: 1) rapid research on the most pressing needs of disaster-affected households in resettlement sites amid COVID-19, 2) identification of how COVID-19 has deepened pre-existing vulnerabilities faced by these households and 3) the co-creation of recommendations for how to prioritize limited resources to mitigate the impact of subsequent waves of the virus. The potential long-term benefits and outcomes as a result of the knowledge mobilization activities are 1) a stronger understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 and how it has deepened the existing vulnerabilities faced by on disaster-affected households in resettlement sites by politicians, humanitarian actors and the general public, 2) a consideration of the co-created recommendations by local, national and humanitarian actors, and 3) more media and academic interest in studying and assisting this precarious and neglected population.
Start Date:
- Month: Dec Year: 2020
End Date:
- Month: Nov Year: 2022
Funders:
SSHRC
Dr. Yvonne Su is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Rights and Equity Studies and a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Su is a specialist in forced migration, climate change-induced displacement and queer migration. She has worked extensively with vulnerable communities in Southeast Asia and Latin America and the Caribbeans including refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, trans sex workers, indigenous communities, and 2SLGBTQIA+ folks. She has 29 peer-reviewed publications in journals like Third World Quarterly, Journal of Gender Studies, and International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction as well as more than 40 opinion pieces, newspaper articles and academic blogs in The Washington Post, The Conversation, and The Los Angeles Times.
Su has secured over $12 million in research funding and currently involved in three multi-million-dollar climate grants through Canada’s most prestigious grant competitions. She helps lead a $3.17 million NFRF project in Ghana, Bangladesh, and the Philippines that integrates multispectral imagery with community mapping to document dispossession from adaptation projects. She is a Co-Investigator on a transdisciplinary $3.1 million NFRF project examining the impact of the melting cryosphere on transportation routes and Indigenous health and well-being in the Arctic. Lastly, she is involved in a $2.5 million SSHRC Partnership Grant dedicated to documenting and sharing Canadians’ stories of surviving climate disasters. This is in addition to three minor grants on climate change that study its impacts in Bangladesh, Vietnam, the Philippines and in cities around the world.
Dr. Yvonne Su is a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an Associate Professor at York University. She is also affiliated with the UNHCR, University of Oxford, the International Migration Institute, and the Centre for Refugee Studies. An interdisciplinary scholar researching transnational issues, her expertise spans forced migration, queer migration, climate change adaptation and climate (im)mobilities. Her research adopts a policy-oriented and community-based approach, undertaking regionally contextualized social science research across the Global South, focusing on Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.
In the last five years, Dr. Su has secured over $12 million in external research funding. Her work is supported by multiple New Frontiers in Research Fund grants comparing climate change adaptation in Bangladesh, Ghana, the Philippines, the Canadian Arctic, and Alaska. She has also won multiple Social Science and Humanities Research Council grants for multi-disciplinary research in Brazil, Colombia, and the Philippines.
In Latin America, Dr. Su has been conducting high-risk research on a concept she coined, “intersecting precarity” - the combination of homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and gender-based violence - experienced by marginalized groups such as asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants. She examines this in the case of Venezuelan LGBTQ+ migrants and refugees in the unstable border cities of Pacaraima, Boa Vista, and Manaus in Brazil and Cúcuta in Colombia.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Dr. Su has spent over a decade examining the socio-ecological impacts of climate change, focusing on how social inequalities shape communities’ adaptive capacities and disaster responses. Her research on Indigenous knowledge systems and disaster risk reduction has been cited in major reports, including the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Her latest research agenda takes a transdisciplinary approach to analyzing critical minerals and global supply chains.
As an interdisciplinary migration expert with lived experiences of migration, Dr. Su is committed to critically engaged research that examines contemporary transboundary migration challenges through a Global South lens, centring marginalized communities and advancing the decolonization of research and knowledge production.
Fellowships and Appointments:
Expert, UNHCR, Global Recommendations to Prevent Loss of Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change
Visiting Fellow, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford
Fellow, International Migration Institute, University of Amsterdam
Former Director, The Centre for Refugee Studies, York University
Degrees
PhD, University of GuelphMSc, University of Oxford
Research Interests
Awards
- Climate Change Adaptation, Dispossession and Displacement: Co-constructing Solutions with Coastal Vulnerable Groups in Africa and Asia, New Frontiers in Research Fund, ($3.17 million) – Co-P.I. - 2024
- From Catastrophe to Community: A People’s History of Climate Change, SSHRC Partnership Grant Stage 1 ($20,000) - Collaborator - 2024
- Climate-Induced Displacement, Resettlement, Adaptation, and Resilience for Cities, SSHRC Partnership Development Grant ($199,000) - Collaborator - 2024
- Stories of Change: Listening to Global South Perspectives on Climate-Induced Migration, SSHRC Connection Grant ($49,945) – P.I. - 2023
- Resettlement as Climate Change Adaptation? Exploring the longer-term impacts of post-disaster resettlements in rural coastal and island communities in Eastern Samar, the Philippines, SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant ($24,487) – P.I. - 2023
- Climate Displacement Workshops and Roundtable, SSHRC Connection Grant ($50,000) – Collaborator - 2023
- Collaboratory on forced migration in Canada / Collaboratoire sur les migrations forcées au Canada, SSHRC Connection Grant ($50,000) – Collaborator - 2023
- Disaster & Health Emergency Urban Systematic Transformation Centre, York University’s Catalyzing Interdisciplinary Research Clusters Initiative ($525,000) – Co-Applicant - 2022
- Safe Expression: Giving Voice to LGBT Asylum Seekers amid COVID-19 in Brazil, SSHRC Connection Grant ($91,202) – P.I. - 2021
- At the Edge of Safety: Comparing Responses to Venezuelan LGBT Refugees in Brazil and Colombia amid COVID-19, SSHRC Insight Development Grant ($74,592) – P.I. - 2021
- Rights, Resilience and Equity During Covid-19: Women in Affected Low-Income Urban Communities in the Philippines, ERSC Impact Acceleration Grant (£7,506.48/$12,600 CAD) – Co-P.I. - 2021
- Examining the Application of Tornado Safety Policy in Ontario Public Schools to Reduce Disaster Risk, SSHRC Insight Development Grant ($64,443) – Collaborator - 2021
- COVID-19: Asylum-seeking in the Epicentre of COVID-19 – The Impact of COVID-19 on Venezuelan LGBTQI+ Asylum Seekers in Brazil, SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant COVID-19 Special Initiative ($24,961) – P.I. - 2020
- COVID-19: Displaced, Resettled, and Isolated - Impact of COVID-19 on Disaster affected Households in Resettlement Sites in Tacloban, Philippines, SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant COVID-19 Special Initiative ($24,992) – P.I. - 2020
- Youth Take Charge, Canadian Heritage ($460,000) – Collaborator - 2019
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Climate Change Adaptation, Dispossession and Displacement: Co-constructing Solutions with Coastal Vulnerable Groups in Africa and Asia
Description:Climate Change Adaptation, Dispossession and Displacement: Co-constructing Solutions with Coastal Vulnerable Groups in Africa and Asia, funded by SSHRC, UKRI and the Norwegian Research Council.
This New Frontiers in Research Fund project, under the International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation & Mitigation, is a partnership with researchers in Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Norway, Philippines and UK, including the University of Dhaka, SEI — Stockholm Environment Institute, York University, Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan, and more collaborators.
We are working closely with coastal communities in Bangladesh, Ghana, and the Philippines that are experiencing unintended negative consequences from climate adaptation. Our focus is on gendered processes of displacement and dispossession from livelihoods.
We are collaborating on the development of an intersectional framework for adaptation that challenges us to build interventions that consider the broader social, political, and ecological context of maladaptation and acknowledge the concerns of local communities.
We are also co-developing low-tech tools and platforms with the Arribada Initiative and communities to share and document their knowledge, strategies, innovations and concerns with one another and to support a truly collaborative, contextualized, and equitable framework for adaptation.
Project Type: FundedRole: Co-PI
Start Date:
- Month: Mar Year: 2024
End Date:
- Month: Mar Year: 2028
Funders:
New Frontiers in Research Fund (SSHRC)
-
Summary:
The Stories of Change grant led to the creation of "Voices on the Move", a podcast series that explores the complex relationship between climate change and migration. It aims to amplify the voices and stories of researchers, climate migrants, and community leaders, especially from the Global South. As such, Voices on the Move engages with crucial voices in understanding climate injustice and exploring adaptation strategies.
Description:Voices on the Move is a podcast series exploring the complex relationship between climate change and mobility. It aims to amplify the voices and stories of researchers, climate migrants, and community leaders, especially from the Global South.
Voices on the Move offers new, thought-provoking insights into the real-life impacts and consequences of climate change on mobility and habitability. Through interviews with academics and practitioners and personal narratives from those directly affected, the series seeks to highlight the challenges faced by displaced communities and the innovative solutions emerging at grassroots levels.
The podcast features seven episodes, blending impactful stories with research insights to foster nuanced public discourse. Stories come from Afghanistan, Somalia, Kenya, Ghana, Mali, and Canada, covering topics such as climate-induced displacement, social and gender inequalities, the effect on indigenous communities, and the role of women in climate mobility.
Featuring experts like Nassim Majidi, Yvonne Su, François Gemenne, Will Greaves, Mo Hamza, and more, this essential series aims to reshape the conversation around “climate migration” and provide important perspectives and expertise for a more nuanced debate.
The series is co-produced by Migration Matters, York University, Samuel Hall, and the HABITABLE Project and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The podcast is hosted by the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research at York University.
Project Type: FundedStart Date:
- Month: Oct Year: 2023
End Date:
- Month: Sep Year: 2025
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
LGBT Venezuelan refugees are one of the most vulnerable and overlooked groups in one of the largest and most underfunded crises in modern history. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 5.4 million people have left Venezuela due to violence, persecution and poverty, and the number of Venezuelans seeking refuge worldwide has increased by 8,000 per cent since 2014 (UNHCR, 2020). Many have fled to neighbouring Colombia and Brazil, which automatically grant refugee status to Venezuelan asylum seekers. However, protection gaps, poor funding as well as political and social tensions mean LGBT folks face unprecedented levels of homophobia, xenophobia, extreme violence and exploitation in their place of refuge (IOM, 2020; Valiquette, Su and Felix, 2020). Yet, an unlikely beacon of hope lies in the middle of the Amazon, at Casa Miga, Brazil’s only LGBT refugee centre. And in the border city of Cúcuta in Colombia, where La Casa que Abraza (The House that Hugs), provides a safe space for Venezuelan LGBT refugees in a region still facing insecurity from the country’s internal armed conflict. Both centres are run by LGBT people for LGBT people with the aim to provide services and assistance to LGBT refugees. But despite the significance of the essential service these institutions are providing, they remain scarce, underfunded and understudied. The aim of this study is to shine a light on the significance of peer-to-peer support for Venezuelan LGBT refugees in Brazil and Colombia.
Project Type: FundedRole: P.I.
Start Date:
- Month: Aug Year: 2021
End Date:
- Month: Jul Year: 2023
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
As COVID-19 causes nations to close their borders, asylum seekers are trapped and becoming targets of violence. A particularly precarious group are Venezuelan LGBTQI+ asylum seekers in Brazil, a global epicentre for COVID-19 with the highest infection rate and the second highest coronavirus deaths. Since 2015, more than 5 million have fled Venezuela and 264,000 have applied for asylum in Brazil. Under COVID-19, Venezuelan LGBTQI+ asylum seekers now face more challenges, including the loss of livelihood and an increased risk of gender-based violence, exploitation and abuse. Thus, research on the social impacts of COVID-19 will be important so policy makers can understand the protection gaps that existed for these asylum seekers during the pandemic.
This project builds on an existing partnership with Casa Miga, the only LGBT refugee centre in Brazil and one of the only centres in Latin America. Casa Miga is a LGBT-run non-profit shelter that is located in Manaus, one of the hardest hit city in Brazil by the coronavirus. The situation is increasingly dire as the public health care system in Manaus is completely over capacity with a shortage of ventilators, medical supplies and COVID-19 tests.
As the first foreign researchers to study Casa Miga, we can make novel and timely contributions to help Casa Miga address the challenge of a lack of capacity to undertake research to produce policy recommendations for politicians and humanitarian actors to help their residents. The sensitive nature of research on vulnerable groups is what has made this an understudied subject, but this is why this research needs to be done. At a time when vulnerable populations like Venezuelan LGBTQI+ asylum seekers are falling through the cracks, it is important to bring attention to the protection gaps that exist and the assistance that they need to survive, be healthy and feel safe.
Project Type: FundedRole: P.I.
Start Date:
- Month: Sep Year: 2020
End Date:
- Month: Aug Year: 2022
Funders:
SSHRC
-
Summary:
As Southeast Asia’s COVID-19 hot spot, the Philippines has implemented one of the world’s strictest lockdowns. The highly urbanized city of Tacloban, home to 250,000 people, has enforced strict community quarantine measures that has greatly limited the ability of citizens to work, travel and access their basic needs. Tacloban is also still recovering from Typhoon Haiyan’s destruction in 2013, the strongest storm ever recorded. With tens of thousands of people displaced to resettlement sites on the city’s outskirts with limited access to health services, livelihoods, transportation, COVID-19 is a clear threat to their lives and livelihoods.
The vulnerability of disaster-affected households is exacerbated by the double isolation of being forcibly displaced as well as COVID-19 quarantine measures. Working closely with the Church, this study is the first and only formal academic study so far, to examine how COVID-19 has deepened disaster-affected households’ vulnerabilities. Researchers will conduct key informant interviews, surveys and focus group discussions across four COVID-19 affected resettlement sites. This research will contribute to the advancement of knowledge and produce social benefits by collecting timely data on marginalized resettlement communities. Specifically the short-term outcomes are: 1) rapid research on the most pressing needs of disaster-affected households in resettlement sites amid COVID-19, 2) identification of how COVID-19 has deepened pre-existing vulnerabilities faced by these households and 3) the co-creation of recommendations for how to prioritize limited resources to mitigate the impact of subsequent waves of the virus. The potential long-term benefits and outcomes as a result of the knowledge mobilization activities are 1) a stronger understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 and how it has deepened the existing vulnerabilities faced by on disaster-affected households in resettlement sites by politicians, humanitarian actors and the general public, 2) a consideration of the co-created recommendations by local, national and humanitarian actors, and 3) more media and academic interest in studying and assisting this precarious and neglected population.
Project Type: FundedRole: P.I.
Start Date:
- Month: Dec Year: 2020
End Date:
- Month: Nov Year: 2022
Funders:
SSHRC
