Jenny Francis

After escaping from a small town in the interior of BC, Jenny spent eleven years traveling and working in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. When she returned to Canada in 2001 she began studying at university in an attempt to make sense of some of the many things she'd seen and experienced but not understood. Thus she completed a BA in History at UBC in 2006 and an MA in Human Geography in 2009. Following on from her participatory MA research project examining the housing experiences of African refugees in Metro Vancouver and a related study of services for immigrant youth, Jenny's PhD research will look at the experiences of refugee youth in the Canadian criminal justice system in Winnipeg and Vancouver. A key aim of her project is always that the research produced directly and indirectly benefits the young immigrants who help make it. When she's not studying or volunteering for local anti-racist, anti-poverty non-profit organizations you might find her cycling, doing origami, dancing rueda de casino, camping, hanging out with friends, or cuddling with the two cats who share her East Vancouver apartment. Please contact her at jenois (at) telus (dot) net for more information.

Yolande Pottie-Sherman

Although she considers Syracuse, New York her home, Yolande has spent more than half of her life in Canada: in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Quebec and now, British Columbia. She received her BA from McGill University in geography and political science in 2006 and her MA in geography from Queen’s University in 2008 under the supervision of Dr. Audrey Kobayashi. Her doctoral research examines the role of public marketplaces as spaces of exchange in plural societies, focusing on the Chinese night market phenomenon in Metro Vancouver. Vancouver’s two night markets, one in the downtown historic Chinatown and the other in the ‘new Chinatown’ of Richmond, are re-creations of a Chinese cultural form that has existed since the 9th century. These spaces are both economic and social, providing opportunities for entrepreneurs and serving as a significant evening social space, while implicated in Vancouver’s tourist economy and bound up in broader discourses of Chinatown, race, multiculturalism, public space, and the new cultural economy. Her research considers the significance of these spaces and the role they play in Vancouver’s Chinese, Asian, and broader communities. For more information, please contact Yolande at yolandep (at) interchange (dot) ubc (dot) ca.

Luna Vives

Luna Vives was born in Granada, Spain, and did her undergraduate studies in Sociology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She moved to Vancouver to do her M.A. in the Department of Geography at UBC under the joint supervision of Drs. Dan Hiebert and David Ley. In her MA thesis she explored the changes in Spanish immigration and citizenship laws since 1985, and the impact of such changes on the migration experience of Argentineans to Spain. For her PhD she will build on her previous research to explore issues related to gender, race and migration to Southern Europe, this time focusing on Sub-Saharan migration to Spain. In addition to her own research, in recent years Luna has worked with Dr. Dan Hiebert on several projects dealing with migration, employment equity, and homelessness in Canada. If you would like to know more about Luna's work feel free to contact her at lunavives (at) gmail (dot) com.