Elizabeth Hessek – Feedback on the JMCM Conference Participation Grant

The JMCM Conference Participation Grant allowed me to attend the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Detroit, USA.

My participation highlighted and helped foster international collaboration in the field of critical geographic research, particularly among scholars studying migration dynamics within the European Union. I presented my doctoral research on the resettlement experiences of LGBTQ refugees in France during a roundtable titled “International migration and peripheral places: exploring ‘left behindness’ through the human mobility lens.” My presentation, “‘We are special prisoners’: Queer arrivals in left-behind places,” contributed to a broader discussion on migration research in Belgium, France, Spain, the United States, and Japan. This roundtable enabled us to explore the links between cross-border migratory phenomena, and the organizers (Norma Schemschat from the University of Amsterdam and Rafik Arfaoui from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona) are currently preparing a special issue of an academic journal to share our research with a wider audience.

I also had the privilege of organizing a roundtable titled “Malleable spaces: The dynamic negotiation of identity in the margins,” which brought together early-career researchers in queer geography exploring queerness and space in diverse locations such as France, Germany, Slovenia, India, the U.S.-Mexico border, and the southeastern United States. The panelists and I remain in contact through a discussion group, where we continue to share the progress of our research. Major conferences like the AAG can seem intimidating; yet this ongoing conversation proves that they can also be places where new connections are forged beyond institutional and national borders.

Beyond the academic impact enabled by the CJMM Conference Participation Grant, it also helped me make thoughtful logistical choices. Instead of flying from Montreal to Detroit, I took Via Rail from Montreal to Windsor, Ontario, and then the Windsor Tunnel Bus to Detroit. It was important to me to use the grant to support Canada’s public transport infrastructure and to limit the environmental impact of my participation. I also made use of Detroit’s free public transport systems—the monorail, the QLINE, and its bus routes—to explore the city. Highlights of my stay outside the convention center—made possible by the CJMM Grant—included the Arab American Museum in Dearborn, the Diego Rivera murals at the Detroit Institute of Art, and a delicious meal at a Yemeni restaurant in Hamtramck.