THE LAB
Haven: the Asylum Lab is a project designed to preserve, share and analyse obscured data surrounding immigration and border issues worldwide. Based at University of Toronto Scarborough, Professor Alison Mountz created the project with three aims: to serve as physical lab space for working with immigration- and border-related data, to host an online data catalogue for protecting and disseminating these data and to establish a broader, public network for working with such data.Through data curation, preservation and best practises in data management, the lab provides a literal Haven for immigration- and border-related data.
Data
The data menu allows access to our growing data catalogue, which come in two forms: datasets and “data drops”. Datasets include data on specific immigration and border issues, whereas data drops include both such data as well as a variety of related resources surrounding the dataset itself. Each month, Haven will release a new data drop in conjunction with researchers on important topics in immigration and border issues, such as asylum seeking and refugees, immigration detention, irregular border crossings and deportation and expulsion, among other things.
Participate
You can participate in the Haven network by sharing your own data, become part of the Haven network by affiliation, or you can join a smaller community of conversations about immigration data. You can also visit the lab [link to visit] to use Haven’s resources.
Learn
You can parse the data and learn more about immigration related data by listening to our podcasts, watching our webinars on methods and methodologies, and reading other materials. Haven’s purpose in sharing these resources is not only to promote shared data, but to move to incorporate wider publics into understanding, using and telling stories with them.
THE TEAM
Alison Mountz
Professor, Department of Human Geography
University of Toronto
Interests: political geographies of migration and displacement, border studies, geographies of detention, political asylum, and war resistance,
island studies
Alison researches how people cross borders, access asylum, survive detention, resist war, and create safe havens. She advises student research on migration and displacement, borders, and political and feminist geographies.
Kira Williams
Coordinating Data Scientist, Department of Human Geography
University of Toronto
Interests: borders, migration, political geography, methodology, statistics
Kira’s research focuses on illegalised migration, borders, and methodology, with special attention to analysing how states deploy space to alter the physical, social, and political spaces of international migrants.
Ana Visan
PhD Candidate
Balsillie School of International Affairs
Interests: borders, technology, migration, security, human geography
Ana’s research explores the ramifications of how governments, in particular the European Union’s and its member states governments, use technological tools for the surveillance of external borders.
Kate Motluk
PhD Candidate
University of Toronto
Interests: forced migration, externalization, refuge, islands, detention, and carceral control
Kate conducts research on a number of issues related to forced migration and carceral control. She is particularly interested in the spatial relationships and dynamics that drive mobility and immobility. Prior to graduate school, Kate worked in the refugee non-profit sector in Toronto.