Borders & Belonging cover art

Borders & Belonging

Borders & Belonging

Written by: CERC Migration
Listen for free

Migration is a complex phenomenon – for individuals, it is a personal journey that can result in struggle or triumph depending on life circumstances; and for countries, it can be an economic driver, or a source of social tension or even conflict.

Host Maggie Perzyna, a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University, explores the complexity of migration with the help of leading academics and professionals working with migrants on the ground.


Season 4 of Borders & Belonging explores reflexivity: the practice of turning research back on itself to examine how we know what we know.


This season draws on the lived experiences of pioneering scholars whose work has transformed how we understand human movement across borders. We then ask each scholar to nominate an up-and-coming scholar they admire, whose research builds on, challenges, or complements their own. Join us as we trace the threads connecting scholarship across time, experience, and perspective.


For show notes and transcripts, visit: https://www.torontomu.ca/cerc-migration/borders-and-belonging/

Signal Award wins in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

© 2026 Borders & Belonging
Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Anna Triandafyllidou on migration governance, feat. Letizia Palumbo
    Apr 21 2026

    From growing up in a changing Greece to becoming one of the leading voices in migration research, Anna Triandafyllidou reflects on how her work on migration governance, identity and belonging took shape. She is joined by Letizia Palumbo, whose work on labour and exploitation brings into focus how policies shape and often constrain the everyday realities of migrant life. Together, they discuss why migration policies often fail to reflect lived realities, and how labour systems and identity narratives shape that divide.

    Guests: Anna Triandafyllidou, Scientific Director, Global Migration Institute, Toronto Metropolitan University; Letizia Palumbo, Researcher, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

    🎧 Follow Borders & Belonging on LinkedIn.

    🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email bordersandbelonging@gmail.com.

    Show More Show Less
    41 mins
  • Nina Glick Schiller on transnationalism, feat. Karina Quintanilha
    Apr 7 2026

    What happens when migration can no longer be understood within the borders of a single nation-state? Nina Glick Schiller reflects on the ideas and experiences that shaped her pioneering work on transnationalism and the power structures that shape mobility. She is joined by Karina Quintanilha, whose research explores how law, labour and inequality shape migrant lives across local and global scales.

    Together, they discuss why migrants are never simply “between” places and how transnational ties are structured by power and inequality.

    Guests: Nina Glick Schiller, Professor Emeritus, University of Manchester and University of New Hampshire; Karina Quintanilha, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of São Paulo.

    🎧 Follow Borders & Belonging on LinkedIn.

    🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email bordersandbelonging@gmail.com.

    Show More Show Less
    41 mins
  • Andreas Pott on spatial reflexivity, feat. Christine Lang
    Mar 24 2026

    From dreaming of Olympic glory on the track to reshaping how migration studies thinks about space and knowledge, sociologist Andreas Pott reflects on the intellectual detours and shifting perspectives that led him to question the very categories migration researchers take for granted.

    He is joined by Christine Lang, whose work on skilled migration in the health sector illustrates what it looks like to step back from dominant policy framings and study how migration and the spaces around it are socially produced in the first place.

    Guests: Andreas Pott, Professor of Geography and Deputy Director, Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, University of Osnabrück; Christine Lang, Researcher in Migration and Urban Studies, Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, University of Osnabrück.

    🎧 Follow Borders & Belonging on LinkedIn.

    🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email bordersandbelonging@gmail.com.

    Show More Show Less
    36 mins
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet