Kim Rygiel is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the Balsillie School of International Affairs and is the former Associate Director and current Interim Director with Laurier’s International Migration Research Centre (IMRC). Her research focuses on border security, migration and citizenship politics within North America and in Europe.
She is the author of Globalizing Citizenship (UBC Press, 2010), co-winner of the 2011 ENMISA Distinguished Book Award of the International Studies Association and is co-editor, with Peter Nyers, of Citizenship, Migrant Activism and the Politics of Movement (Routledge 2012) and, with Krista Hunt, of (En)Gendering the War on Terror: War Stories and Camouflaged Politics (Ashgate, 2006). She is the author of several book chapters and journal articles, which are published in Citizenship Studies, Review of Constitutional Studies, European Journal of Social Theory and International Political Sociology. Professor Rygiel is Associate Editor of Citizenship Studies.
Professor Rygiel’s current research projects include two SSHRC funded projects:
The first “Living with others: Fostering cultural pluralism through citizenship politics,” investigates why, how and under what conditions some communities are more open to cultural difference than others; what types of projects facilitate openness to newcomers and how do citizens and non-citizens participate in these projects in ways that transform understandings of citizenship and belonging (conducted with Feyzi Baban, Trent University and collaborator Fuat Keyman, Sabanci University).
The second project, “Humanitarian Aid, Citizenship Politics, and the Governance of Syrian Refugees in Turkey,” investigates the nature of humanitarian aid responses to emergencies involving Syrian refugees in Turkey (conducted with Suzan Ilcan, University of Waterloo and Feyzi Baban, Trent University). She is also working on a co-authored book with S. Ilcan and F. Baban on this research (forthcoming, McGill-Queen’s University Press).