{"id":19018,"date":"2019-05-31T13:43:20","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T17:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/?post_type=cu-people&p=19018"},"modified":"2026-04-01T14:07:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:07:58","slug":"laura-madokoro","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/people\/laura-madokoro\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Madokoro"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n \n \n \n <\/h1>\n\n \n <\/header>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Specialization by time period:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

1900 \u2013 Today<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Specialization by geographical area:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

North America, Asia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biography:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Laura is an award-winning, public-facing historian, whose research explores histories of migration, refuge, displacement, and settler colonialism. In addition to her work<\/a> in the Department of History, Laura is an active member of the Migration and Diaspora Studies<\/a> program at Carleton University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 2021 \u2013 2026, Laura led The Disaster Lab<\/a>, which explored the history of disasters, humanitarianism, and migration in Canada with a focus on the notion of \u201cdiasporic disaster citizenship\u201d. With funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, she is currently embarked on two major research projects. The first explores the transnational history of the 1980s Sanctuary Movement and the second traces the contested nature of citizenship and internment across the British Empire during the Second World War.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mixed-generation settler born in Quebec\u2019s Eastern Townships, Laura rambled off along a series of different paths, including museum work in Kenya, teaching in Japan and an archivist position at Library and Archives Canada. She returned to academic life in 2007 and completed her PhD in History at the University of British Columbia in 2012 with support from SSHRC and the Trudeau Foundation. She spent the following year with the History Department at Columbia University as a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow. From 2014 to 2019 she was a faculty member with the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Elusive<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Laura is the author of the award-winning monograph Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War<\/em> (Harvard University Press, 2016), which documents the experience of Chinese refugees during the cold war and the politics of exclusion and humanitarianism among the white settler societies of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Elusive Refuge<\/em> was recognized with the Association of Asian American Studies\u2019 Best Book in the Social Sciences for 2018, the Chinese Canadian Historical Society\u2019s Ed Wickberg Prize and the 2016 Mershon Center Furniss Book Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sanctuary<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Laura\u2019s second book, Sanctuary in Pieces: Two Hundred Years of Flight, Fugitivity, and Resistance<\/em> was published by McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press in the fall 2024. Through a series of six case studies, Sanctuary in Pieces<\/em><\/a>, explores the history of migration and refuge in the city of Montreal, (known as Tiohti\u00e0:ke in Mohawk and Mooniyang in Anishnabemowin. These cases include histories of black fugitivity, exiled anarchists, war resisters from the United States, and refugees from Chile, Algeria, and Pakistan. The Canadian Historical Association awarded Sanctuary in Pieces<\/em> its 2025 CLIO Prize (Quebec Region) \u201cfor its originality, rigorous analysis, elegant prose, significance of contribution and timeliness.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to these major works, Laura is the author of a number of articles related to the history of migration and humanitarianism. She has published widely, including in Photography and Culture<\/em>, Social History \/ Histoire Sociale<\/em>, the Journal of Refugee Studies<\/em>, the Canadian Historical Review<\/em>, the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association<\/em> and the Urban History Review<\/em>. She is also co-editor, along with Francine McKenzie and David Meren, of the Dominion of Race: Rethinking Canada\u2019s International History<\/em> (UBC Press, 2017), in which she also authored a chapter on the history of Canada\u2019s ambivalent relationship to the international refugee regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As someone who cares deeply about the political implications of the historical craft, particularly as they relate to contemporary events, Laura has contributed a number of comment pieces for a variety of media outlets and sites such as The Conversation<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is also a member of the editorial collectives at activehistory.ca<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and refugeehistory.org<\/strong><\/a>, a member of the Montreal History Group \/ Groupe d\u2019Histoire de Montr\u00e9al<\/a>, Critical Refugee and Migration Studies Canada Collective, and co-director of Histoire Sociale \/ Social History. Since 2025, she has chaired the First Book Award Committee for the Immigration and Ethnic History Society. In 2020, Laura was elected a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. Laura is currently supervising a number of MA and PhD students and welcomes graduate student applications on topics related to histories of race, migration, refuge, and settler colonialism.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selected publications:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhither the refugees? International organisations and \u201csolutions\u201d to displacement, 1921-1960,\u201d with Megan Bradley, Merve Edilman and Chritopher Chanco, Refugee Studies Quarterly <\/em>(2022), https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/rsq\/hdac003<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEurocentrism and the International Refugee Regime\u201d in the Journal of Modern European History<\/em> (February 2022), https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/16118944221077423<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War<\/em>. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u201cOh, Weldon Chan! Where are you hiding?\u201d BC Studies <\/em>209 (Spring 2021): 37-62. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u201cNothing to Offer in Return\u201d: Refugees, human rights and genocide in Cambodia, 1975-1978,\u201d International Journal<\/em> 75(2) (Spring 2020): 220-236, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/0020702020933643<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u201cFrom Citizens to Refugees\u201d: Japanese Canadians and the Search for Wartime Sanctuary,\u201d Journal of American Ethnic History<\/em> 39(3) (Spring 2020): 17 \u2013 48.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExclusion by Other Means: Medical Testing and Chinese Migration to Canada, 1947-1967,\u201d Histoire Sociale, Social History<\/em> 52(105) (2019): 155-170.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUn accueil paradoxal: Le silence, le colonialisme (de peuplement), et les r\u00e9fugi\u00e9s du Sud-Est de l\u2019Asie, 1975 \u2013 1989, with Thomas Jourdan, Mondes et Migrations<\/em>, 2025. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMore Than a Face: Beyond Community,\u201d Journal of the Canadian Historical Association <\/em>31(1) (2024), 227-250, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.7202\/1112554ar<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEurocentrism and the International Refugee Regime,\u201d Journal of Modern European History<\/em> 20(1) (February 2022), 34-39, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/16118944221077423<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeril and possibility: A contemplation of the current state of migration history and settler colonial studies in Canada,\u201d History Compass 17(1) (2019): 1-8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn future research directions: Temporality and permanency in the study of migration and settler colonialism in Canada,\u201d History Compass 17(1) (2019): 1-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cL\u2019\u00e9mergence du Canada sur la sc\u00e8ne international\u201d in Les enjeux politiques contemporains: Perspectives canadiennes<\/em> edited by Jeremie Cornut, Aude-Claire Fourot, Nicolas Kenny and R\u00e9mi Leger. Montr\u00e9al: Presses de l\u2019Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Politics of Sanctuary: John Surratt, the Catholic Church and the US Civil War,\u201d in Undiplomatic History: The New Study of Canada and the World<\/em> edited by Phil Van Huizen and Asa McKercher. Montreal \u2013 Kingston: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cContested Terrain: Debating Refugee Admissions in the Cold War\u201d in A Nation of Immigrants Explained: Immigration Policy, American Society, and the World from 1924 to 1965<\/em> edited by Maddalena Marinari, Madeline Hsu and Maria Christina Garcia. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWomen at Risk: Globalization, Gendered Fear, and the Canadian State,\u201d Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (2018): 1-14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA Decade of Change: Refugee Movements from the Global South and the Transformation of Canada\u2019s Immigration Framework\u201d in Canada and the Third World: Overlapping Histories<\/em> edited by Karen Dubinsky, Sean Mills and Scott Rutherford. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTransactions and Trajectories: The Social Life of Chinese Migrant Photographs,\u201d Photography and Culture<\/em> 8(3) (2015): 325-344.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHandprints in the Archives: Exploring the Emotional Life of the State,\u201d Histoire Sociale \/ Social History 48(96) (2015): 25-43.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGlobal Displacements and Emplacement: The Forced Exile and Resettlement Experiences of Ethnic Chinese,\u201d with Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho and Glen Peterson, Introduction to the Special Issue of Journal of Overseas Chinese 10(2) (2014): 131-136.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom Settler Colonialism to the Age of Migration: Archives and the Renewal of Democracy in Canada,\u201d Archivaria 78 (2014): 153-160.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSurveying Hong Kong in the 1950s: Western Humanitarians and the \u2018Problem\u2019 of Chinese Refugees,\u201d Modern Asian Studies 49(2) (2014): 493-524.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFamily Reunification as International History: Rethinking Sino-Canadian Relations after 1970,\u201d International Journal 68 (2013): 591-608.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeeing Migrants, Selecting Refugees: A Historical Study of Chinese settlement in Canada and New Zealand,\u201d UNHCR New Issues in Refugee Research, Research Paper No. 252 (January 2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBorders Transformed: Sovereign Concerns, Population Movements and the Making of Territorial Frontiers in Hong Kong, 1949\u20131967,\u201d Journal of Refugee Studies 25(3) (2012): 407- 427.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSocial Justice, Rights and Dignity: A Call For a Critical Feminist Framework,\u201d with May Chazan, Trudeau Foundation Papers 4(2) (2012).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Slotting\u2019 Chinese Families and Refugees, 1947-1967,\u201d Canadian Historical Review 93(1) (2012): 25-56.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChinatown and Monster Homes: The Splintered Chinese Diaspora in Vancouver,\u201d Urban History Review \/ Revue d\u2019histoire urbaine XXXIX(2) (2011): 17-24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood Material: Canada and the Prague Spring Refugees,\u201d Refuge: Canada\u2019s Periodical on Refugees 6(1) (2009): 161-171.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot All Refugees Are Created Equal: Canada Welcomes Sopron Students and Staff in 1956,\u201d Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 19(1) (2008): 253-278.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent Supervisions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

MA Projects<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denie Espina, \u201cQueering Immigration: The Evolution of LGBTQIA+ Policies in Canada\u201d, MA Migration and Diaspora Studies, Carleton University, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katie Carson, \u201cTowards a Transnational Understanding of the October Crisis\u201d, MA History, Carleton University, Co-Supervision with Dr. Dominique Marshall, Awarded Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malinda Pich, \u201c\u201dNegotiate a River by Following its Bends; Enter a country by Following its Customs\u201d: The Cambodian Diaspora in Canada\u201d, MA History, Carleton University, Co-Supervision with Dr. Dominique Marshall, 2025.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lauren Rollitt, \u201cWhat\u2019s in a Partnership? Collaboration and Relationship Building Between Local History Institutions And Indigenous Communities,\u201d MA Public History, Carleton University, 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalie Amato, \u201cDiscussions of the First Canadian Citizenship Act: A Comprehensive Exploration of Inclusion and Absence,\u201d MA History w \/ Digital Humanities Spec., Carleton University, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gureena Saran, \u201cMotherland \u2013 Mother Hand\u201d: Exploring Identity, Community & The Collaborative Artistry of South Asian Women in Abbotsford, British Columbia,\u201d (Public History MA, co-supervision with Dr. James Opp), 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marvin Phung, \u201cConstructing Canadian Multiculturalism Through the Annual Reports on the Operation of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, 1988-2022,\u201d (co-supervision with Dr. Dominique Marshall), 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samantha Holmes, \u201cBeyond the Computer Centre: Exploring How Digital Resources Could Support Increased Accessibility to Records and Community Memory on the SGWU Student Occupation,\u201d (Public History MA, co-supervision with Dr. Audra Diptee), 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basma Saad, \u201cThe Representation of Iraqi Muslim Women in the Globe and Mail from 1980 to 1995,\u201d (co-supervision with Dr. Susan Whitney), 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valerie Wood, Vee in Between <\/em>and \u201cIllustrating Adoption: The Making of Vee in Between,\u201d (Public History MA, co-supervision with Dr. David Dean), 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PhD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amy Fung, “The Long Memory of Mourning: An investigation into the process of political apologies from refusal to recognition\u201d PhD Thesis, School of Canadian and Indigenous Studies, Carleton University, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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