Yvonne Su
Assistant Professor
Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies
Email: yvonnesu@yorku.ca
Primary website: Personal Website
Attached CV
Media Requests Welcome
Accepting New Graduate Students
Dr. Yvonne Su is the Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies. 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 26 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 National Observer.
Su has secured over $8 million in research funding and currently holds a $3.1 million NFRF international grant (co-PI) looking at the unintended consequences of climate change adaptation projects from a gender and displacement perspective and two SSHRC (PI) grants on climate change and mobility research. She takes an interdisciplinary, participatory and decolonial approach to scholarship that is focused on developing strong partnerships with local communities, NGOs, and policymakers.
Dr. Yvonne Su is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies at York University. Dr. Su is an interdisciplinary migration and international development scholar with research expertise on forced migration, queer migration, post-disaster recovery, climate change adaptation, climate change-induced mobility, migrant remittances, and social capital. Dr. Su holds a PhD in Political Science and International Development from the University of Guelph and a Masters in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford.
Dr. Su has published 26 peer-reviewed journal articles in high-ranking academic journals such as the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Third World Quarterly and Regional Environmental Change. Her commitment to making her research accessible so it can have a larger impact on policy, means almost half of her publications are Open Access.
Dr. Su has over a decade of experience researching post-disaster recovery, climate change adaptation and climate change-induced mobility in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Canada and Greenland. Her current research is focused on examining the unintended consequences of climate change adaptation in terms of gender, dispossession and displacement in the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Ghana. Dr. Su will execute this research as part of her role as Co-PI on a three-year $3.17 million New Frontiers in Research Fund grant she received in 2024. This collaborative project aims to co-create an intersectional framework for adaptation that challenges us to build interventions that consider the broader social, political and ecological context of maladaptation and that acknowledges the concerns of local communities.
An emerging area of research is the under-researched topic of climate change-induced internal displacement and migration. Specifically, she is researching this topic in Canada, the Philippines and Indonesia. In Canada, Dr. Su is focused on internal displacement from wildfires. In the Philippines and Indonesia, Dr. Su is focused on examining how the green revolution of electric cars in the Global North is impacting the climate change adaptation capabilities of indigenous communities on the frontlines of climate change.
Since 2019, Dr. Su has undertaken high-risk research into the homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and gender-based violence experienced by Venezuelan LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants in the unstable border cities of Pacaraima, Boa Vista, and Manaus in Brazil and Cúcuta in Colombia. As an interdisciplinary migration expert with a family history of displacement, Dr. Su’s research agenda is dedicated to asking contemporary migration questions within the context of Global South migration with a focus on vulnerable groups in marginalized communities and the decolonization of research and knowledge creation.
Dr. Su’s research program is designed to inform public policy and advocacy and she has had substantial success communicating her work. For example, her research was cited by R4V, the Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela in their 2021 policy plan used by 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and nearly 200 organizations around the world. Her research was also cited by major international organizations like the IPCC and IOM. And her research findings have been shared with the UNHCR, the UNFPA, Brazil’s Coordinator-General for the National Committee of Refugees, and the Brazilian military. She also presented the findings to Jennifer May, Canada’s former Ambassador to Brazil, including a document with 44 recommendations that Venezuelan LGBT asylum seekers had for the Government on how to improve protection for them. The findings were also presented to the President of Guyana, his Excellency Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, in discussions of Guyana’s response to Venezuelan asylum seekers. Moreover, she was invited to write a country report and act as an expert witness for a gay Venezuelan man’s asylum case in the United States in 2023. The asylum seeker was successful with their case, and she has since been invited to write country reports and be an expert witness for other Venezuelan asylum seekers.
Dr. Su is also committed to knowledge mobilization as such she is eager to share her research and have had 127 public appearances including 57 in television, radio and print and 23 invited lectures and 47 conference presentations to date. In addition, she has 48 other publications (3 book reviews, 4 newspaper articles and 41 academic blogs) and her articles on The Conversation Canada have over 420,000 reads and have been referenced by both President Obama and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Her 2023 article on Canada’s costly housing market leaving international students open to exploitation was cited by the Canadian Senators’ Report “Strengthening the Integrity of Canada’s International Student Program,” which is being used to guide the re-structuring of Canada’s higher education programs.
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, 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
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
Minville, G., and Su, Y. (2024). Fires and Floods: Examining Internal Climate Migration in Canada. In C., Clark-Kazak (Ed.). Forced Migration in/to Canada: From Colonization to Refugee Resettlement. McGill–Queen’s University Press. (Open Access)
Su, Y., & Thayaalan, S. (2024). Empty Pantries: The Death of Survival Myths Among Typhoon Haiyan Survivors in Resettlement Sites during COVID-19. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. (Open Access)
Cuaton, G., Su, Y., Katic, P., & Yarmine, M. (2024). Unpacking water governance dynamics and its implications for household water security in post-disaster resettlement communities in the Philippines. Geoforum.
Su, Y., & Thalaalan, S. (2023). Forced Resiliency: Bayanihan Narrative Masks Insufficient Support for Typhoon Haiyan Survivors in Resettlement Sites during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Philippines Sociological Review, 71, 113-137.
Su, Y. (2023) No One Wants to Hire Us: The Intersectional Precarity Experienced by Venezuelan LGBTQ+ Asylum Seekers in Brazil during COVID-19. Anti-Trafficking Review. (Open Access)
Cuaton, G., and Su, Y. (2023). Promises and pitfalls of social capital to climate change adaptation of an Indigenous Cultural Community in the Philippines. Third World Quarterly.
Su, Y. (2022). Networks of Recovery: Remittances, Social Capital and Post-Disaster Recovery in Tacloban City, Philippines. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 67. (Open Access)
Pacoma, A. J., Su, Y., & Genotiva, A. (2022). Resilience Unfiltered: Local Understandings of Resilience after Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban City, Philippines. Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 4(1), 14-24. (Open Access)
Augsten, L., Gagne, K., and Su, Y. (2022). The Human Dimensions of The Climate Risk and Armed Conflict Nexus: A Review Article. Regional Environmental Change, 22(42).
Su, Y., and Valiquette, T. (2022). ‘They kill us Transwomen’: Migration, Informal Labour and Sex Work among Trans Venezuelan asylum seekers and undocumented migrants in Brazil during COVID-19. Anti-Trafficking Review. (Open Access)
Surviving Overlapping Precarity in a “Gigantic Hellhole”: A Case Study of Venezuelan LGBTQI+ Asylum Seekers and Undocumented Migrants in Brazil amind COVID-19
Uneven Recovery: A Case Study of Factors Affecting Remittance-Receiving in Tacloban, Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan
Valiquette, T., Su, Y., and Scheidweiler, G. (2021). Unwelcomed: Examining Brazil’s Broken Promise to Venezuelan refugees amid COVID-19. Humanitarian Alternatives. (Open Access)
Indigenous Peoples and the COVID-19 Social Amelioration Program in Eastern Visayas, Philippines: Perspectives from Social Workers
Local-indigenous knowledge on disaster risk reduction: Insights from the Mamanwa indigenous peoples in Basey, Samar after Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines
Selling the Dead”: More Dignified Options Needed to Assist Widows in Post-Disaster Recovery after Typhoon Haiyan
Whose Views Matter in Post-disaster Recovery? A Case Study of “Build Back Better” in Tacloban City After Typhoon Haiyan
A Tide that Does Not Lift All Boats: The Surge of Remittances in Post-Disaster Recovery in Tacloban City, Philippines
Dr. Yvonne Su is the Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies. 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 26 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 National Observer.
Su has secured over $8 million in research funding and currently holds a $3.1 million NFRF international grant (co-PI) looking at the unintended consequences of climate change adaptation projects from a gender and displacement perspective and two SSHRC (PI) grants on climate change and mobility research. She takes an interdisciplinary, participatory and decolonial approach to scholarship that is focused on developing strong partnerships with local communities, NGOs, and policymakers.
Dr. Yvonne Su is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies at York University. Dr. Su is an interdisciplinary migration and international development scholar with research expertise on forced migration, queer migration, post-disaster recovery, climate change adaptation, climate change-induced mobility, migrant remittances, and social capital. Dr. Su holds a PhD in Political Science and International Development from the University of Guelph and a Masters in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford.
Dr. Su has published 26 peer-reviewed journal articles in high-ranking academic journals such as the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Third World Quarterly and Regional Environmental Change. Her commitment to making her research accessible so it can have a larger impact on policy, means almost half of her publications are Open Access.
Dr. Su has over a decade of experience researching post-disaster recovery, climate change adaptation and climate change-induced mobility in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Canada and Greenland. Her current research is focused on examining the unintended consequences of climate change adaptation in terms of gender, dispossession and displacement in the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Ghana. Dr. Su will execute this research as part of her role as Co-PI on a three-year $3.17 million New Frontiers in Research Fund grant she received in 2024. This collaborative project aims to co-create an intersectional framework for adaptation that challenges us to build interventions that consider the broader social, political and ecological context of maladaptation and that acknowledges the concerns of local communities.
An emerging area of research is the under-researched topic of climate change-induced internal displacement and migration. Specifically, she is researching this topic in Canada, the Philippines and Indonesia. In Canada, Dr. Su is focused on internal displacement from wildfires. In the Philippines and Indonesia, Dr. Su is focused on examining how the green revolution of electric cars in the Global North is impacting the climate change adaptation capabilities of indigenous communities on the frontlines of climate change.
Since 2019, Dr. Su has undertaken high-risk research into the homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and gender-based violence experienced by Venezuelan LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants in the unstable border cities of Pacaraima, Boa Vista, and Manaus in Brazil and Cúcuta in Colombia. As an interdisciplinary migration expert with a family history of displacement, Dr. Su’s research agenda is dedicated to asking contemporary migration questions within the context of Global South migration with a focus on vulnerable groups in marginalized communities and the decolonization of research and knowledge creation.
Dr. Su’s research program is designed to inform public policy and advocacy and she has had substantial success communicating her work. For example, her research was cited by R4V, the Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela in their 2021 policy plan used by 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and nearly 200 organizations around the world. Her research was also cited by major international organizations like the IPCC and IOM. And her research findings have been shared with the UNHCR, the UNFPA, Brazil’s Coordinator-General for the National Committee of Refugees, and the Brazilian military. She also presented the findings to Jennifer May, Canada’s former Ambassador to Brazil, including a document with 44 recommendations that Venezuelan LGBT asylum seekers had for the Government on how to improve protection for them. The findings were also presented to the President of Guyana, his Excellency Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, in discussions of Guyana’s response to Venezuelan asylum seekers. Moreover, she was invited to write a country report and act as an expert witness for a gay Venezuelan man’s asylum case in the United States in 2023. The asylum seeker was successful with their case, and she has since been invited to write country reports and be an expert witness for other Venezuelan asylum seekers.
Dr. Su is also committed to knowledge mobilization as such she is eager to share her research and have had 127 public appearances including 57 in television, radio and print and 23 invited lectures and 47 conference presentations to date. In addition, she has 48 other publications (3 book reviews, 4 newspaper articles and 41 academic blogs) and her articles on The Conversation Canada have over 420,000 reads and have been referenced by both President Obama and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Her 2023 article on Canada’s costly housing market leaving international students open to exploitation was cited by the Canadian Senators’ Report “Strengthening the Integrity of Canada’s International Student Program,” which is being used to guide the re-structuring of Canada’s higher education programs.
Degrees
PhD, University of GuelphMSc, University of Oxford
Research Interests
Awards
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
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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
All Publications
Minville, G., and Su, Y. (2024). Fires and Floods: Examining Internal Climate Migration in Canada. In C., Clark-Kazak (Ed.). Forced Migration in/to Canada: From Colonization to Refugee Resettlement. McGill–Queen’s University Press. (Open Access)
Su, Y., & Thayaalan, S. (2024). Empty Pantries: The Death of Survival Myths Among Typhoon Haiyan Survivors in Resettlement Sites during COVID-19. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. (Open Access)
Cuaton, G., Su, Y., Katic, P., & Yarmine, M. (2024). Unpacking water governance dynamics and its implications for household water security in post-disaster resettlement communities in the Philippines. Geoforum.
Su, Y., & Thalaalan, S. (2023). Forced Resiliency: Bayanihan Narrative Masks Insufficient Support for Typhoon Haiyan Survivors in Resettlement Sites during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Philippines Sociological Review, 71, 113-137.
Su, Y. (2023) No One Wants to Hire Us: The Intersectional Precarity Experienced by Venezuelan LGBTQ+ Asylum Seekers in Brazil during COVID-19. Anti-Trafficking Review. (Open Access)
Cuaton, G., and Su, Y. (2023). Promises and pitfalls of social capital to climate change adaptation of an Indigenous Cultural Community in the Philippines. Third World Quarterly.
Su, Y. (2022). Networks of Recovery: Remittances, Social Capital and Post-Disaster Recovery in Tacloban City, Philippines. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 67. (Open Access)
Pacoma, A. J., Su, Y., & Genotiva, A. (2022). Resilience Unfiltered: Local Understandings of Resilience after Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban City, Philippines. Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 4(1), 14-24. (Open Access)
Augsten, L., Gagne, K., and Su, Y. (2022). The Human Dimensions of The Climate Risk and Armed Conflict Nexus: A Review Article. Regional Environmental Change, 22(42).
Su, Y., and Valiquette, T. (2022). ‘They kill us Transwomen’: Migration, Informal Labour and Sex Work among Trans Venezuelan asylum seekers and undocumented migrants in Brazil during COVID-19. Anti-Trafficking Review. (Open Access)
Surviving Overlapping Precarity in a “Gigantic Hellhole”: A Case Study of Venezuelan LGBTQI+ Asylum Seekers and Undocumented Migrants in Brazil amind COVID-19
Uneven Recovery: A Case Study of Factors Affecting Remittance-Receiving in Tacloban, Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan
Valiquette, T., Su, Y., and Scheidweiler, G. (2021). Unwelcomed: Examining Brazil’s Broken Promise to Venezuelan refugees amid COVID-19. Humanitarian Alternatives. (Open Access)
Indigenous Peoples and the COVID-19 Social Amelioration Program in Eastern Visayas, Philippines: Perspectives from Social Workers
Local-indigenous knowledge on disaster risk reduction: Insights from the Mamanwa indigenous peoples in Basey, Samar after Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines
Selling the Dead”: More Dignified Options Needed to Assist Widows in Post-Disaster Recovery after Typhoon Haiyan
Whose Views Matter in Post-disaster Recovery? A Case Study of “Build Back Better” in Tacloban City After Typhoon Haiyan
A Tide that Does Not Lift All Boats: The Surge of Remittances in Post-Disaster Recovery in Tacloban City, Philippines
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