Join us in welcoming Dr. Caitlyn Yates as the new CMS Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
Dr. Caitlyn Yates’ research examines the interplay of mobility, transit, border enforcement, and migration policies with a particular focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. Her current book project, tentatively titled: “Undeportable,” focuses on the mobility experiences of migrants from the African and Asian continents who travel in and through Latin America to primarily reach destinations in Canada and the United States. Yates holds a Master’s in Global Policy Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia.
We spoke to Dr. Yates about her research and her new position as CMS Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
Can you tell us a bit about your academic background and what brought you to migration studies?
I first began working on topics of mobility and migration more than 12 years ago while living in South Texas and working as a legal assistant on U.S. asylum claims. After focusing on the issue from a legal perspective, I switched gears a bit and completed a master’s in public policy, where I began to fully examine the policy and political context of migration and immigration policy. I eventually conducted my PhD in Anthropology because I felt that long-term, on-the-ground research on transit and mobility was the missing link to the research questions and challenges I was identifying in Western Hemispheric migration policy. At every turn, I have worked tirelessly to incorporate each of the different experiences and perspectives I have gained on migration and mobility to approach migration studies from the most multi-disciplinary lens possible. I believe the interdisciplinarity that migration studies offer is the best approach to studying borders, mobility, and migration dynamics.
What themes or questions are central to your current research?
My work focuses on the mobility experiences of individuals moving along Latin American migration pathways to reach destinations in Canada and the United States. More specifically, this means understanding the ways in which, for instance, Iranian, Afghan, or Cameroonian migrants’ experience mobility while moving alongside migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean who are following similar migration pathways to reach the U.S. and Canada. I am particularly interested in understanding the interplay between border externalization policies, sociality and companionship in transit, and immigrant infrastructures on individuals’ access to transit or mobility. To do so, my work examines and emphasizes the multi-faceted ways in which race and racialization, religion, and language impact mobility along Latin American migration pathways in particular ways for non-Latin American migrants moving in and through the region.
What will you be working on during your postdoctoral fellowship at CMS?
During my postdoctoral fellowship at the CMS, I plan to work on two primary projects. First, I will focus on my current book project which is tentatively titled “Undeportable”. This project stems from my doctoral research, which focused on the long, roundabout, and often overlooked experiences of non-Latin American migrants who travel in and through Latin America to primarily reach final destinations in Canada and the United States and the ways in which their journeys are simultaneously construed as both unremarkable and exceptional. Second, in collaboration with my supervisor, Dr. Irene Bloemraad, I am thrilled to continue to expand the exciting policy impact and public outreach work at the CMS, including developing a project on the experiences and challenges for undocumented and underdocumented communities in and around Vancouver.
How does your current research engage with interdisciplinary approaches?
As an anthropologist, I believe one of the most powerful and effective methods to understand migration and mobility dynamics is through deep, long-term ethnographic research. That said, I also have a background in policy analysis and legal research and have seen firsthand how rarely academic scholarship and policy analysis speak to each other in effective or collaborative ways. One of my primary professional goals has been, and continues to be, to find the bridge between academic and public-facing scholarship to inform policy, politics, and different publics. From policy briefs to op-eds to public presentations and beyond, I consistently find outlets to share my ethnographic research and findings with as many audiences as possible in the hopes of informing and advocating for more just and inclusive immigration policies.
What’s something about your research—or migration studies more generally—that you wish more people understood?
If there was one research finding I would emphasize to others, it is that irregular migration pathways are truly trajectories of last resort, driven primarily by a reduction in available visa schemes in common destination countries and the expansion of border externalization policies on a global scale. I study the migration experiences of individuals taking some of the longest, most roundabout, and most physically and emotionally taxing migration journeys in the world. Most of the individuals whose journeys I’ve followed have travelled across three continents and more than a dozen countries to reach their final destinations. People don’t just cross a jungle on foot, take a small raft across an ocean, or hike through a sparsely populated desert to give migration a try. Those often-impossible journeys are destined only for individuals who have been excluded from more formal migration systems and visa schemes and see no alternative to seek safety or stability.
When you’re not immersed in research, how do you like to spend your time?
I’m a researcher who spends a lot of time reading, writing, and sitting in meetings in front of my computer. When I’m not doing those things, I try to spend as much of my free time as possible outdoors. My favourite outdoor activities include hiking, playing tennis, and going for long walks along the ocean. For the last few years, I lived in Panama, which was a top-notch country to partake in all of these activities. That said, I am very excited to be back in BC, because it is hard to imagine a city better equipped for these activities than Vancouver and a province more appropriate to continue exploring over the next years while I am here.
