Questioning Crisis: Forced Migration in Theory and Practice
Speaker bios
Wendy Pearlman
Wendy Pearlman is the Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, where she also holds he Martin and Patricia Koldyke Outstanding Teaching Professorship. She is the author of two books, Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003). Her third book, We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria, will be published by HarperCollins in June 2017. It features testimonials from more than 300 displaced Syrians Pearlman has interviewed across the Middle East and Europe since 2012. Wendy holds a BA from Brown University, an MA from Georgetown, and a PhD. from Harvard.
Laura Madokoro
Laura Madokoro is Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University. She is the author of Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War along with numerous articles on the history of refugees, race and global humanitarianism. She is currently researching the history of religious and secular sanctuary offers in North America.
Itamar Mann
Itamar is a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa Faculty of Law, Israel, where he teaches primarily international law. His research focuses on human rights, refugee and migration law, international criminal law, national security, and legal and political theory. He is the author of Humanity at Sea: Maritime Migration and the Foundations of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Itamar also provides legal advice on issues related to his areas of research. He has previously worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Justice Initiative on issues related to refugee law in Europe. He has also briefly practiced human rights and criminal defense law. He is a member of the legal action committee at GLAN (Global Legal Action Network). Before moving to Haifa, Itamar was the national security law fellow at Georgetown Law Center for three years. He holds an LLB from Tel Aviv University, and LLM and JSD degrees from Yale Law School.
Antonio Spilimbergo
Antonio Spilimbergo received his Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T. Since 1997 he has worked at the IMF where he is currently Assistant Director in the European Department. He has been mission chief for Italy, Slovenia, Russia, and Turkey. His areas of interest are: migration, labor economics, and macroeconomics. His main academic publications are: “Illegal Immigration, Border Enforcement, and Relative Wages: Evidence from Apprehensions at the US-Mexico Border” (with G. Hanson). American Economic Review; “Democracy and Foreign Students” American Economic Review; “Macro Shocks and Beliefs” (With P. Giuliano) Review of Economic Studies.
Kiran Banerjee
Kiran Banerjee is the Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Columbia Global Policy Initiative and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and received his BA and MA degrees from the University of Chicago. His doctoral research focused on the normative dimensions of claims to membership as a subject of global justice, with a particular focus on statelessness and forced migration. His current work focuses on global migration governance and the role of non-state actors in responding to forced displacement. Dr. Banerjee’s research has been supported and recognized by numerous awards and fellowships, including the SSHRC/Vanier CGS and SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship. His work has been published in such venues as theJournal of International Law and International Relations, History of European Ideas, the European Journal of Political Theory, and Refuge. Dr. Banerjee’s broader research interests include international relations, migration studies, and human rights, as well as political philosophy and legal theory.
Nell Gabiam
Nell Gabiam is Assistant professor of anthropology and political science at Iowa State University. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008. Prior to starting her appointment at ISU, she was provost postdoctoral scholar at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago. She is the author of The Politics of Suffering: Syria’s Palestinian Refugee Camps, which was published in May 2016 by Indiana University Press as well as several journal articles. While her earlier research focused on the politics of humanitarian aid in Palestinian refugee camps, her more recent research has focused on the effects of the ongoing Syrian war on the country’s Palestinian population and has taken her to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, France, Sweden, and Germany.
