Centering Migration Research to Cultivate Knowledge, Creativity and Community: Lessons from the Summer Institute for Migration Research Methods – Irene Bloemraad and Jenny Van Hook

Posted: 1/9/2025 (CSDE Seminar Series)

When: Friday, Jan 17, 2025 (12:30-1:30PM)

Where: 360 Parrington Hall and on Zoom (register here)

1-on-1 meetings: 223 Raitt Hall (sign up here)

We are looking forward to hosting Irene Bloemraad from The University of British Columbia &  Jennifer Van Hook from Penn State University on Friday, Jan. 17 in Parrington Hall 360 and on Zoom. This seminar is co-sponsored by the Population Health Initiative. In addition, there are opportunities to meet 1-1 with Dr. Schwandt throughout the day. Sign up here!

How do we nurture a creative, vibrant and skilled new generation of researchers? And how do we accomplish this while also plugging the “leaky” pipeline that sees a disproportionate number of women and people of color leave academia across the educational trajectory?[1] We draw on our time organizing and running the Summer Institute for Migration Research Methods (2018-2024) to share our experiences. We found that centering migration research as the core topic of the Institute avoided disciplinary and methodological silos. The Institute was deeply interdisciplinary and capacious in valuing a range of data and methods. Having migration research as the focus allowed participants to build real breadth in their knowledge, and also stretch their creativity and create a sense of community. Participants learned skills, they practiced research design, they engaged in frank conversations about navigating research careers, and they found social support for their work and struggles. We will provide an overview of the Summer Institute and lessons learned.

Irene Bloemraad holds the President’s Excellence Chair in Global Migration at the University of British Columbia and is a professor of Political Science and Sociology. She also co-directs the UBC Centre for Migration Studies and the Boundaries, Membership and Belonging program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Bloemraad studies how migrants become incorporated into the political communities where they live, and the consequences of migration for politics and national membership. Her research has been published in journals spanning sociology, political science, history, and ethnic/ migration studies; she has authored or co-edited five books on citizenship, immigrant protest, and civic organizations. Prior to her appointment at UBC in July 2024, Bloemraad spent two decades at the University of California, Berkeley, where she held the Class of 1951 Chair in Sociology, the Thomas Barnes Chair in Canadian Studies, and founded the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative. From 2018 to 2024, Bloemraad co-organized the Summer Institute for Migration Research Methods with Dr. Jennifer Van Hook.

Jennifer Van Hook is a Roy C. Buck Professor of Sociology and Demography, Director of the Population Research Institute (PRI), and a Co-Funded Faculty at the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) at Penn State University. She is interested in demography, immigrant integration, and health. One part of her work is to use demographic methods to estimate the size, characteristics, and dynamics of the unauthorized foreign-born population. Another part of her work focuses on the health and well-being of immigrants and their children. She is currently working on a project that uses linked U.S. Census data to better understand the assimilation process as it unfolded for Mexican immigrants across the twentieth century. In this project, she is asking questions such as: Did Mexican immigrants and their descendants differ from other immigrant groups, such as the Italians and Irish, in educational attainment and mobility during the 1940s and 1950s?  Have their chances improved following the reforms of the civil rights era? Finally, how do the results connect to contemporary policy debates about how American society can expand opportunities for future immigrants and their children? Overall, this work engages in core debates currently confronting American society about whether it can successfully integrate increasingly diverse waves of newcomers.