Congratulations to Professor Tahseen Shams who recently received a 2020-2021 Bissell-Heyd Research Fellowship for the Centre for the Study of the United States at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. The goal of her research is to examine and elaborate on the impacts of racial and social injustice, drawing from immigrants' experiences in the United States and Canada.
Professor Shams plans to study the ways in which international and transnational social inequalities intersect with race and ethnicity to affect immigrants' life experiences and identities. For her fellowship period, she will work on her next book project Searching for Halal Love, which aims to study immigrants' marital lives. She will examine what native-born North Americans and immigrants think about dating and marriage as well as the factors that motivate them to form friendships and relationships. The research will be conducted via interviews and the analysis of manuscripts.
For her research event, Professor Shams proposes to have a one-day conference consisting of three research-based panels as well as one discussion forum, which will include distinguished scholars from various disciplines. The conference will aim to situate topics of race, immigration, and nationalism within a globalized context. Each panel will have invited guests, a U of T faculty, and a graduate student. Faculty members and students from the Munk School of Global Affairs as well as other departments are widely invited to attend the event.
The first panel of the conference will discuss the types of racism in the US and abroad. The second panel will discuss the severe impacts of surveillance. The third panel will discuss racial disparities in the context of health crises. Lastly, the discussion forum will talk about ways in which the academia can build and bolster solidarity amongst minority groups both in schools and within a globalized context.
Professor Shams is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of Toronto, with teaching responsibilities on the St. George Campus. Her research focuses on immigration, globalization, race, ethnicity, and nationalism.