Bio

Amy Argenal completed her doctorate in International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco, where she also received her Master’s in the same area of study. She received her second Masters in Human Rights from Mahidol University in Thailand, where she continued to partner with human rights activists in South East Asia, through her doctorate research focusing on human rights activism in Myanmar. Amy currently serves as the Interim Academic Director of the Master in Migration Studies Program at the University of San Francisco and is a lecturer at UC Davis in the Human Rights Studies Minor. In addition to her work, she engages in immigrant and refugee rights work and partners with local communities in Central America in their struggle to defend land and water.

Project

For the residency, I am planning to continue to explore the connection between three key causes of displacement; displacement due to extractive industries and international development projects, displacement due to climate change and displacement due to state sanctioned violence in all forms; and the struggle for the right to remain as represented by the Vamos a la Milpa campaign.

I am hoping to work on an article that offers an overview of the campaign, frames it as an alternative to migration by making connections to key root causes of migration, and speaks to the role of international solidarity as a key characteristic of the campaign.