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I hold a BA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Sociology from Dartmouth College, a master’s degree in geography from Hunter College – CUNY, and a PhD (2003) in geography from the University of British Columbia. Prior to joining Laurier, I was assistant and associate professor in geography at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University (2003-2011) and the 2009-2010 Mackenzie King Research Fellow with the Canada Program at Harvard University.
My work explores the tension between the decisions, displacements, and desires that drive migration and the policies and practices designed to regulate migration. You can see a complete list of my publications on my Google Scholar profile. Some are also listed on my webpage at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.
At Laurier, I direct the International Migration Research Centre. I also edit a journal called Environment & Planning C: Politics & Space.
The main focus of my recent research is the search for safe haven and erosion of access to political asylum and related struggles over detention. Broadly, I am interested in the relationships between border enforcement and human migration; legal geographies and territoriality. Recent projects include the Island Detention Project, a CAREER grant funded by the National Science Foundation to study the role of islands and border enforcement off the shores of Australia, Europe, and North America. I am also researching shifting landscapes of asylum and meanings of safe haven for US war resisters who migrated to Canada during US-led wars in Vietnam and Iraq. In 2019, I began a new, collaborative, cross-border project to study the recent spike in asylum-seeking across the land border that divides Canada and the United States.
- Canada Research Chair in Global Migration (2011- present).
- Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada (inducted 2016).
- William Lyon Mackenzie King Chair, Canada Program, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University (2015-2016).
- Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography, Association of American Geographers for Seeking asylum: Human smuggling and bureaucracy at the border (2011).
- Stanley D. Brunn Young Scholar Award, Association of American Geographers (2010).
- Helen Wilkinson Reynolds Award, Dutchess County Historical Society (2010).
- Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award, Syracuse University (2009).
- Faculty & Staff Inspiration Award, Syracuse University (2006).
- Chancellor’s Award for Public Service, Syracuse University (2006).
I advise students working in the fields of global migration, border studies, and political geography. Recent and current advisees are studying the relationships between law, governance, territoriality, borders, detention, and human mobility. I also advise students working on topics in feminist and urban geography.
- Molomot, L and A Mountz (2019) Safe Haven (feature length documentary film, 79 minutes)
- Mountz, A (Spring 2020) The death of asylum: hidden geographies of the enforcement archipelago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Loyd, J and A Mountz (2018) Boats, Borders, and Bases: Race, the Cold War, and the Rise of Migration Detention in the United States. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
- Maillet, P, A Mountz, K Williams (2018) Exclusion through imperio: entanglements of law and geography in the waiting zone, excised territory and search and rescue region. Social & Legal Studies 27(2): 142-163.
- Mountz, A (2017) Island detention: affective eruption as trauma’s disruption. Emotion, Space and Society 24: 74-82.
- Maillet, P, A Mountz, K Williams (2016) Researching detention, asylum-seeking, and unauthorized migration: the challenges of, and limits to, field work in confined locations and wide-open spaces. Social and Cultural Geographies 18(7): 927-950.
- Loyd, J, E Mitchell-Eaton, A Mountz (2016) The militarization of islands and migration: tracing human mobility through US bases in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Political Geography 53: 65-75.
- Mountz, A (2015) In/visibility and the securitization of migration: shaping publics through border enforcement on islands. Cultural Politics 11(2): 184-200.
- Mountz, A. Political Geography II: Islands and Archipelagos. Progress in Human Geography.DOI: 10.1177/0309132514560958. (2014)
- Mountz, A. “Shrinking spaces of asylum: Vanishing points where geography is used to inhibit access to asylum.” Australian Journal of Human Rights19(3): 29-50. (2013)
- Mountz, A. “Political Geography I: Reconfiguring geographies of sovereignty.” Progress in Human Geography37(6): 829-841. (2013)
- Mountz, A, K Coddington, RT Catania, J Loyd. “Conceptualizing detention: Mobility, containment, bordering, and exclusion.” Progress in Human Geography37(4): 522-541. (2013)
- Mountz, A. “The enforcement archipelago: Detention, haunting, and asylum on islands.” Political Geography30: 118-128. (2011)
- Mountz, A. Seeking asylum: Human smuggling and bureaucracy at the border.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (2010)
Contact Info:
T: 226.772.3143
F: 226.772.3002
Office location: Balsillie School of International Affairs - 248
Languages spoken: English, Spanish