Just Futures – Just Futures for everyone

Explore our projects

We are an action research collective on displacement, migration and urban studies. Explore our projects!

Migrant model of care

GRAND RAPIDS

Missing Migrants

TUNISIA

Migrant-run organizations

DETROIT

PhotoVoice after disaster

JAPAN

Social inclusion & PhotoVoice

PORTUGAL & AZORES

Planning Socially Just Cities

BRAZIL

Environmental Displacement

PHILIPPINES

Decentering Social Work

SPAIN

Migrant Model of Care

Immigrant- and Refugee-Run Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) —managed by and for migrants —are frequently small, informal, financially unstable, and thus often invisible to healthcare, housing and human services providers. Research demonstrates that Migrant-Run (Immigrant + Refugee) CBOs are undercounted and underfunded, generating civic inequalities compared to their counter partners.

Grand Rapids

MICHIGAN

Migrant-run organizations

This university-community partnership will document, examine and theorize about the activities of immigrant and refugee run organizations (IROs) in Metro Detroit, and move towards public impact and practice applications. This collaborative research aims to yield insights that rethink conventional approaches about social services and urban governance with immigrants and refugees within the specific urban context of Detroit.

Detroit

MICHIGAN

Responding with ‘climate refugees’ in the Philippines

Climate-induced or environmental displacement as a global issue is anticipated only to intensify over time in tandem with climate change; practitioners and policymakers are developing responses and interventions. Social Work as a profession has taken on that challenge: to “create social responses to a changing environment” is one of the Grand Challenges of Social Work. In response to that call, this project seeks to examine local practices and traditionality-based models of intervention that address environmental displacement.

Ilocos Norte

PHILIPPINES

Legal Institutions & the Planning Process:

How does the Brazilian Judiciary Power manage disputes between the constitutional rights to housing and a healthy environment in São Paulo’s informal settlements? By contrast, how do planners in city government use the courts to advance and enforce their plans on litigation involving informality and the environment? What are the indicators of access to justice for informal dwellers? Using the city of São Paulo as a field site, Pimentel Walker and Arquero de Alarcón investigate how state agents within the Judiciary Power provide answers to a wicked problem of the Global South.

São Paulo

BRAZIL

Mediterranean Ocean

Missing migrants of the Mediterranean

Weiser Hall 5th Floor Art Gallery February 7, 2020–March 25, 2020

Missing Migrants of the Mediterranean shares the stories of Tunisia’s missing migrants and the voices of their families through works of data visualization created by students at the School of Information. The exhibition is part of a collaborative action research project by members of The School of Social Work, School of Information, Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and Association La Terre Pour Tout.

Tunis

TUNISIA

Heavy Baggage.
PhotoVoice Project in the Aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster

"In front of the Sendai Station three months after the disasters. My grandson greeted me and carried my backpack. He has avoided direct impact of the disasters. However, when I think of the baggage of burden and responsibility to be shouldered by the next generation concerning nuclear energy plants and radiation, my heart aches and I feel like screaming."
Emi, June 2011

Sendai City

Miyagi Prefecture, JAPAN

Transatlantic Action Research through PhotoVoice

This project addresses an important challenge facing our society today—how to promote social inclusion and justice in the era of increasing diversity and disparity. Using PhotoVoice, a participatory action research methodology , the project provides participants with a unique and challenging opportunity to engage in the examination, documentation, and dissemination of pressing social issues.

Lisboa

PORTUGAL

Decentering Social Work Education through PhotoVoice

Our 3-country project team has been busy creating an interactive online PhotoVoice course in three languages (Portuguese, Spanish, and English). The purpose of this project is to identify and address practice and education challenges faced by social work students and practitioners in different countries and across social work systems and educational contexts.

Castilla–La Mancha

SPAIN

HomeElena Godin2022-04-20T13:56:57-04:00

Grand Rapids Tragedy

Just Futures Action Research Collective reflection on the fatal shooting of Patrick Lyoya, a 26-years old resettled Congolese refugee, by Grand Rapids police.

READ THE STATEMENT

Missing Migrants of the Meditteranean Exhibit

An Exhibit to share the stories of Tunisia’s missing migrants and the voices of their families through works of data visualization created by students at the School of Information.

Weiser Hall Art Gallery

February 7, 2020–March 25, 2020

Research

Just Futures is an action research collective on displacement, migration & urban studies. We use diverse methodologies, including participatory approaches, critical policy analyses and arts-based methods, for scholarly inquiry that aims to be relevant, meaningful and transformative.

Explore All There Is To See

By bringing the migrant into closer view, our global transdisciplinary research collective aims to help make palpable the intertwining of migration with the histories, structures, policies, and cultural contexts that are at play. The knowledges formed reach towards a more full understanding of the human experience of migration, and the agency and action that accompany it.

Publications

Media

Conferences

Who We Are: Faculty

Odessa Gonzalez Benson, Project PI

Ana Paula Pimentel Walker

Mieko Yoshihama

Who We Are: Students

Alexandra Judelsohn

Allison Kelly

Bader AlBader

Christopher Sanjurjo Montalvo

Courtney Marsden

Jessy Perez

Leila Asadi

Michael Payne

Naganika Sanga

Sophee Langerman

Yessine Baalouche

Antonio Siciliano
U-M Alumni

Charlotte Burnett
U-M Alumni

Kativon Makary
U-M Alumni

Juan Ricardo Munoz-Ponce
U-M Alumni

Maki Usui
U-M Alumni

Neetu Rajkumar Nair
U-M Alumni

Shih-Ya Chang
U-M Alumni

Sura Shlebah
U-M Alumni

Suzana Haidar
U-M Alumni

Community

Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services

Association la terre pour tous

Bhutanese Community for Michigan

congolese_community

Michigan Banyamulenge Community

Photo Credit: Office of Refugee Resettlement

University of Michigan Partners

Faculty Collaborators

Vadim Besprozvany, U-M School of Information

James Ellis, U-M School of Social Work

Elena Godin, U-M School of Information

Jody Lori, U-M School of Nursing

Alain Mukwege, U-M School of Nursing

Michelle Munro Kramer, U-M School of Nursing