Open to BSIA, Laurier and UW faculty and students
Balsillie School PhD candidates Hari KC and Allison Petrozziello reflect on their experiences designing and carrying out feminist research methodologies with Nepali women migrant workers and Haitian migrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic, respectively.
Hari KC’s doctoral dissertation explores the ways in which gender operates as a governing code in Nepal’s labour migration governance. He conducted his fieldwork in multiple sites in Nepal, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to explore Nepal’s gender-biased migration policy as a window onto the larger gendered processes of power, politics and governance within the context of neoliberal globalization. His presentation will focus on what he calls a “multi-sited global ethnography” and share reflections on his experience of operationalizing the feminist methodology in the field.
Allison Petrozziello’s doctoral research investigates what she calls “birth registration as bordering practice” wherein increasing restrictions on mobility and ID issuance place documentation out of reach for migrant women’s children. The project tracks exclusionary birth registration practices around the world in order to produce a global inventory, with more in-depth case study research in the Dominican Republic. Her presentation will focus on the feminist methodological approach incorporated into the research design, as well as reflections on her Dominican field work during COVID times.
About the speakers
Hari KC is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. His doctoral dissertation examines labour migration governance with a focus on Nepali women migrant workers in the Persian Gulf countries. Hari has previously worked in a variety of roles in diverse areas, such as academia, media, development and diplomacy in Nepal and Canada. He has contributed a number of journal articles and book chapters that address various social and gender justice issues, such as those of women, migrant workers, Dalits, and people with disabilities with a regional focus on South Asia. Hari also contributes op-eds to Nepal’s dailies. He holds two master’s degrees in English from the University of Waterloo and Tribhuvan University, and also a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo.
Allison Petrozziello is a feminist migration researcher and human rights advocate who is pursuing a PhD in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. A specialist in gender, migration, human rights, and development, Ms. Petrozziello has over 15 years of experience in applied research and international development work in Central America and the Caribbean with stakeholders ranging from grassroots NGOs to the United Nations. Her academic work has been published in International Migration, Gender & Development, and The Statelessness and Citizenship Review. Ms. Petrozziello is a Trillium scholar who is affiliated with Laurier’s International Migration Research Centre, the International Development Research Centre (doctoral fellow), and the Caribbean Migrants Observatory (OBMICA, Dominican Republic). She holds a BA in Women’s Studies from Smith College and an MA in International Development & Social Change from Clark University.
