James Milner
Project Director, LERRN
James Milner is a Professor of Political Science at Carleton University. He is currently Project Director of LERRN: The Local Engagement Refugee Research Network.
He is also Director of the Migration and Diaspora Studies program at Carleton University, Co-Chair of the Global Academic Interdisciplinary Network, and Canada’s first De Mello Chair.
He has been a researcher, practitioner and policy advisor on issues relating to the global refugee regime, global refugee policy, meaningful refugee participation and the politics of asylum in the global South. He has undertaken field research in Burundi, Guinea, Kenya, India, Tanzania and Thailand, and has presented research findings to stakeholders in New York, Geneva, London, Ottawa, Bangkok, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and elsewhere. He has worked as a Consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in India, Cameroon, Guinea and its Geneva Headquarters.
He is author of Refugees, the State and the Politics of Asylum in Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), co-author (with Alexander Betts and Gil Loescher) of UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection (Routledge, 2012), and co-editor of: Canada in the Global Refugee Regime (McGill-Queens University Press, 2026), Refugees’ Roles in Resolving Displacement and Building Peace: Beyond Beneficiaries (Georgetown University Press, 2019) and Protracted Refugee Situations: Political, Human Rights and Security Implications (UN University Press, 2008).
