Jay RamasubramanyamCongratulations to PhD candidate Jay Ramasubramanyam, who has been awarded a research grant from the Humanitarian Response Network (HRN) to support his cutting-edge research on global humanitarian issues!

With new drivers of displacement gaining prominence worldwide, there has been a push for an impending need to include evolving grounds of ‘persecution’ within the narrative of forced migration. It is within this evolving narrative that my research project will feature. Jay’s project will analyze the extent to which humanitarian practice in general has been adapted to extend beyond normative characterizations of forced migration to protect a new brand of “crisis migrants”. Based on past case studies from Zimbabwe, Albania, and countries in the South Pacific, Jay will analyze how emerging social, political, economic and environmental crises in contexts like Venezuela and the Maldives are impacting decisions on both internal and cross-border crisis migration.

About the Grant

The Humanitarian Response Network of Canada (HRN) is a vibrant community of practice made of 32 Canadian humanitarian organizations. The HRN seeks to share lessons learned with the view to strengthen the quality and efficiency of humanitarian action by creating a conversation around key humanitarian policy issues and practices. To support these efforts, the HRN is running a pilot program to provide six grants of $2,500 each to support graduate student research on issues relating to humanitarian policy and practice, including, but not limited to, research on:

  • Themes emerging from the World Humanitarian Summit
  • Gender and emergencies
  • Disability and inclusion in emergencies
  • Education during emergencies
  • Innovation in humanitarian practice