Suzan Ilcan

  Professor & University Research Chair, Sociology and Legal Studies  

Suzan Ilcan
Faculty
Faculty

RESEARCH CLUSTERS

RESEARCH CLUSTERS

Suzan Ilcan

Professor & University Research Chair, Sociology and Legal Studies

(226) 772-3111 (BSIA), (519) 888-4567 | Ext. 31022 (UW)

[email protected]

UW Office: PAS 2063

BSIA Office: BSIA 210

  University Profile

SUZAN ILCAN is Professor & University Research Chair in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo and Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA). She received her PhD in Sociology from Carleton University. Before coming to the University of Waterloo, she held a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) from 2002-2011. She is currently the Special Advisor on Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Waterloo.

Suzan Ilcan’s research focuses on migration and borders, refugee policies, citizenship, and social justice. She is the author of Longing in Belonging: The Cultural Politics of Settlement (Praeger), Governing the Poor (McGill-Queen’s University Press [MQUP], with A. Lacey), The Precarious Lives of Syrians: Migration, Citizenship, and Temporary Protection in Turkey (MQUP, with F. Baban and K. Rygiel), and Issues in Social Justice: Citizenship, and Transnational Struggles (Oxford University Press, with T. Basok). She is the editor of several special issues of journals and books, including Mobilities, Knowledge, and Social Justice (MQUP). Her work has also been published in a wide range of journals including Antipode, Canadian Review of Sociology, Citizenship Studies, International Political Sociology, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Journal of Refugee Studies.

Suzan has presented many invited lectures nationally and internationally, and received several research grants in her areas of research. Her recent research projects highlight the diverse ways displaced people negotiate borders and borderlands, experience and counter precarious situations, remake “home” away from home, and engage in resettlement and community-building initiatives. These projects focus on the MENA region, Europe, and Canada.

Suzan Ilcan is co-editor of the journal Studies in Social Justice, an editorial board member of the journal Globalizations, and a board member of the International Migration Research Centre (IMRC). She is the recipient of the 2020 Arts Award for Excellence in Research and of the 2023, 2018, and 2014 Outstanding Performance Award in Teaching, Scholarship, and Service (University of Waterloo).

Among her commitments to the University of Waterloo and BSIA, she served as the elected Director of the MA Program in Global Governance, Associate Chair of Graduate Studies in Sociology, Co-Director of the Migration, Mobilities, and Social Politics (MMSP) Research Cluster, and University of Waterloo’s faculty representative on the BSIA’s Board of Directors. Suzan is the Faculty of Arts representative on the University of Waterloo’s Scholars at Risk (SAR) initiative.

Awards

  • 2021-2025. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Project Title: “Border Frictions: Shaping Transnational Relations via Migrant Journeys, Resettlement and Community Building in the Context of Syrian Displacement.” PI, with Secil Dagtas (CI, University of Waterloo). $150,369.00
  • 2023 Outstanding Performance Award in Teaching, Scholarship, and Service, University of Waterloo
  • 2020 Arts Award for Excellence in Research, University of Waterloo
  • 2018 Outstanding Performance Award in teaching, scholarship and service, University of Waterloo
  • 2017-2018. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Connection Grant Program. Project Title: “Bordering Practices in Migration and Refugee Protection.” PI, with K. Rygiel and A. Thompson. ($41,800, incl. matching funds).
  • 2015-2019. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Insight Grant Program. Project Title: “Humanitarian Aid, Citizenship Politics, and the Governance of Syrian Refugees in Turkey.” PI, with F. Baban and K. Rygiel. ($199,139).
  • 2014 Outstanding Performance Award, University of Waterloo
  • Canada Research Chair, 2007-2011
  • Canada Research Chair, 2002-2006

Select Publications

  • Ilcan, S., T. Basok and G. Candiz. 2023. “Bordering Human Rights: Displaced Peoples’ Experiences of Containment, Deportation, and Human Rights Violations.” Australian Journal of Human Rights. Forthcoming.
  • Ilcan, S., S. Dağtaş, and L. Gonzalez Balyk. 2023. “Borderland Porosities: Migratory Journeys and Migrant Politics in Lebanon and Turkey.” Journal of Refugee Studies.
  • Shamma, V., S. Ilcan, V. Squire, and H. Underhill (Eds.) 2023. Migration, Culture and Identity: Making Home Away. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Ilcan, S. and V. Squire. 2023. “Syrian Experiences of Remaking Home: Migratory Journeys, State Refugee Policies, and Negotiated Belonging”. In V. Shamma, S. Ilcan, V. Squire, and H. Underhill, Eds., Migration, Culture and Identity: Making Home Away, London: Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Ilcan, S. 2023. “Situating non-citizenship: Humanitarian aid, self-reliance schemes, and migrant agency”. In Neoliberal Contentions: Diagnosing the Present. Edited by Lois Harder, Catherine Kellogg, and Steve Patten. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  • Ilcan, S. 2022. “The borderization of waiting: Negotiating borders and migration in the 2011 Syrian civil conflict.” Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 40 (5):1012-1031.
  • Basok, T. and S. Ilcan. 2023. “Migration, Citizenship, and Human Rights.” Thomas Faist and Marisol Garcia, Eds. The Encyclopedia of Citizenship Studies. Edward Elgar Publishing. In press.
  • Baban, F., S. Ilcan, and K. Rygiel. 2021. The Precarious Lives of Syrians: Migration, Citizenship, and Temporary Protection in Turkey. Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
  • Ilcan, S. and L. Connoy. 2021. “Critical Localism and the Privatisation of Refuge: The Resettlement of Syrian Newcomers in Canada.” Refugee Survey Quarterly. Volume 40.
  • Ilcan, S. 2021. “The Border Harms of Human Displacement: Harsh Landscapes and Human Rights Violations.” Social Sciences 10: 123. Special Issue on Human Rights and Displaced People in Exceptional Times.
  • Ilcan, S. 2018. “Fleeing Syria – Border-Crossing and Struggles for Migrant Justice”. In David Butz and Nancy Cook, eds., Mobilities, Mobility Justice, and Social Justice. London, UK: Routledge.
  • Ilcan, 2018. “The Humanitarian-Citizenship Nexus: Citizenship Training in Self-Reliance Strategies for Refugees.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 100 (2): 97-111.
  • Ilcan, S., K. Rygiel and F. Baban. 2018. “The Ambiguous Architecture of Precarity: Temporary Protection, Everyday Living, and Migrant Journeys of Syrian Refugees”. International Journal of Migration and Borders. 4 (1/2): 51-70.
  • Oliver, M. and S. Ilcan. 2018. “The Politics of Protection and the Right to Food in Protracted Refugee Situations.” Refugee Survey Quarterly. 37 (4): 440-457.
  • Baban, F., S. Ilcan, and K. Rygiel. 2017. “Playing Border Politics with Urban Syrian Refugees: Legal Ambiguities, Insecurities, and Humanitarian Assistance in Turkey”. Movements: Journal für kritische Migrations- und Grenzregimeforschung.
  • Ilcan, S., M. Oliver, and L. Connoy. 2017. “Humanitarian Assistance, Refugee Management, and Self-Reliance Schemes: Nakivale Refugee Settlement”. Transnational Social Policy – Social Support in a World on the Move. Edited by Luann Good-Gingrich and Stefan Köngeter. 152-177. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Baban, F., S. Ilcan, and K. Rygiel. 2017. “Syrian refugees in Turkey: Pathways to precarity, differential inclusion, and negotiated citizenship rights”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 43 (1): 41-57.
  • Gabay, C. and S. Ilcan. 2017. “The affective politics of the Sustainable Development Goals: Partnership, capacity-building, and big data”. Globalizations. 17 (2).
  • Gabay, C. and S. Ilcan, Eds. 2017. “Leaving no one behind? The politics of destination in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals”. Globalizations. 17 (2).
  • O’Connor, D., P. Boyle, S. Ilcan and M. Oliver. 2016. ” Living with Insecurity” Food Security, Resilience, and the World Food Programme”. Global Social Policy. Published Online (29 July, 1-18pp).
  • Rygiel, K., F. Baban and S. Ilcan. 2016. “The Syrian Refugee Crisis: The EU-Turkey ‘Deal’ and Temporary Protection”. Global Social Policy. 16 (3): 315-320.
  • Ilcan, S. and K. Rygiel. 2015. ” ‘Resiliency Humanitarianism’: Responsibilizing Refugees through Humanitarian Emergency Governance in the Camp”. International Political Sociology. 9: 333-351.
  • Ilcan, S. and A. Lacey. 2015. “Enacting the Millennium Development Goals: Political Technologies of Calculation and the Counter-calculation of Poverty in Namibia”. Globalizations 12 (4): 613-628.
  • Lacey, A. and S. Ilcan. 2015. “Tourism for development and the new global aid regime”. Global Social Policy. 15(1):1 40-60.
  • Ilcan, S. 2014. “Activist Citizenship and the Politics of Mobility in Osire Refugee Camp”. Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies. In Engin Isin and Peter Nyers, Eds. London: Routledge.
  • D. O’Connor, K. Brisson-Boivin, and S. Ilcan. 2014. ” Governing Failure: Development, Aid, and Audit in Haiti”. Conflict, Security and Development. 14 (3): 309- 330.
  • Ilcan, S. 2013. Mobilities, Knowledge, and Social Justice. Edited by S. Ilcan. Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 519 pages.
  • Ilcan, S. 2013. “Paradoxes of Humanitarian Aid: Mobile Populations, Biopolitical Knowledge, and Acts of Social Justice in Osire Refugee Camp”. Mobilities, Knowledge, and Social Justice. S. Ilcan, Ed.. Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
  • Basok, T., and S. Ilcan. 2013. Issues in Social Justice: Citizenship, and Transnational Struggles. Toronto: Oxford University Press. 202 pages.
  • Ilcan, S. and R. Aitken. 2012. “Postwar World Order, Displaced Persons, and Biopolitical Management”. Globalizations. 9(5): 623-636.
  • Ilcan, S. and A. Lacey. 2011. Governing the Poor: Exercises of Poverty Reduction, Practices of Global Aid. Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press 336 pages.
  • Ilcan, S. and R. Aitken. 2011. “United Nations and Early Postwar Development: Assembling World Order”. Reading Sociology: Canadian Perspectives. In L Tepperman and A Kalyta (Eds) Toronto: Oxford University Press. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Education

  • PhD, Carleton University
  • MA, Dalhousie University
  • BA, St. Mary’s University
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