MIGRATION & REFUGEES INITIATIVE
KEOUGH SCHOOL OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS
Investment: $250,600
The Migrant and Refugee Studies Initiative seeks to address the world’s record and growing number of forcibly displaced persons by studying the relationship between forced migration and its drivers: environmental change, war, ethnic cleansing, genocide, poverty, and persecution. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to found a Migrant Studies Center, which will advance the University’s institutional goals and Catholic mission.
Professor Eva Dziadula and Notre Dame students leave after meeting with migrants at “The Sacred Family" shelter in Apizaco state of Tlaxcala, Mexico.
Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, the Center will build upon Notre Dame’s previously established global presence to serve as a source of data, research, and policy ideas for international, supranational, national, and local policymakers.
This initiative will connect researchers to policymakers, agencies with strong policy agendas, policy influencers, publications, speaking opportunities, research processes, and working groups.
FACULTY HIGHLIGHT
Abby Cordova, an Associate Professor of Global Affairs at the Keough School, played a central role in the Latin American public opinion project, which studies migration triggers. Her work has demonstrated that migration deterrence policies—a staple of developed countries—do not in fact deter. Potential migrants understand the dangers and conditions they are likely to encounter on their journeys. Professor Cordova also studies migration through the lens of gender. New data confirms how violence against women drives migration, particularly from communities with high levels of violence, organized crime, and police involvement in criminal activity. Her research points the way to more empirically grounded and humane migration policies.
