Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work and Detroit School of Urban Studies
About
Dr. Odessa Gonzalez Benson is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan (U-M) School of Social Work and is faculty with the U-M Detroit School of Urban Studies. Her areas of research are: refugee resettlement policy-practice, refugee/migrant-led organizations, participatory approaches to urban governance with migrants, state-civil society relations, and critical policy studies. "Frontiers, A transdisciplinary urban research collaborative on migration and resettlement," is a research team led by Dr. Gonzalez Benson along with other faculty in Urban Planning and Social Work. She pursues interdisciplinary work integrating social welfare and community perspectives with refugee studies and urban studies, particularly within the context of 'new refugee destinations' such as Michigan and the broader midwest. She draws upon years of engagement with refugee communities, diverse education and work experiences, and her personal path as a 1.5-generation immigrant to inform and motivate her research. She has a PhD in social welfare from the University of Washington, an MSW from Arizona State University, and a BA from the University of the Philippines-Diliman.
Current Work:
A current study focuses on documenting and understanding the organizational life of refugees and immigrants in Michigan (metro Detroit and Grand Rapids) and their functions, institutional links and socio-spatial location. This study will examine the range of assistance provided by migrant-run organizations, and how they are linked with other institutions and resources around them. Applying community-based participatory principles, data are from surveys, interviews, visual ethnographic approaches, and GIS mapping.
A second project by Dr. Gonzalez Benson, in partnership with a migrant advocacy organization in Tunisia, documents in an online platform the lives and stories of "missing migrants," those who have been lost to the Mediterranean Sea and to the migration path, as shared by their family.
Dr. Gonzalez Benson also pursues critical discourse analyses of refugee policy, and comparative studies of refugee policy-practice in the US and Canada.
Research Area Keyword(s):
Refugee resettlement, civil society, refugee policy, migrant-run organizations
