Migration

This seminar series brings together scholarly work and student discussion about a variety of types of movement, including displacement, deportation and emigration from the US to places where those who have been targets of intimidation, violence, and harassment might find safety.

2025-2026 speakers

Orwa Switat

Orwa Switat “Remapping Demolished Spaces and Narratives in Haifa”

Orwa Switat is an urban planning scholar with degrees in philosophy, political science and urban planning. He focuses on the status of groups in planning theory and practice. He has been a Religion and Public Life Fellow in Conflict and Peace at Harvard Divinity School and a visiting scholar in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University.

Switat has extensive experience promoting spatial justice and heritage preservation among Palestinian communities.

In his research, he integrates digitization and visualization with discourse and planning analysis to uncover hidden histories, restore lost heritages, spatialize oral histories, visualize counter-hegemonic narratives and develop innovative restorative planning approaches.


Professor Alexsia T. Chan

Alexsia Chan “Beyond Coercion: The Politics of Inequity in China” 

Alexsia T. Chan is Associate Professor of Government at Hamilton College and author of Beyond Coercion: The Politics of Inequality in China (Cambridge University Press, 2025).

Her current research examines U.S. -China competition in Southeast Asia. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

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