Professor & Director, Doctoral Program
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work
University of Toronto
Email: r.bhuyan@utoronto.ca
Tel: 416-946-5085
Websites
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work
Border(ing) Practices
Biosketch
Rupaleem Bhuyan is a second-generation immigrant settler of Assamese/Indian heritage. She was born and raised in the United States and lived and worked in France and Thailand before moving to Toronto with her family. Dr. Bhuyan has an interdisciplinary background in International Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Social Welfare.
As a social work educator and researcher, Dr. Bhuyan embraces principles of “engaged scholarship” (also known as public scholarship) by working collaboratively with communities facing intersecting forms of marginalization and oppression, to identify immediate needs that can be addressed through changes in policies and programs while envisioning and bringing about structural changes that seek to advance dignity and human rights.
As such, Dr. Bhuyan positions her scholarship as a conduit for epistemic justice by centering community-produced knowledge, developing methodologies that honour the epistemic privilege of subaltern voices, while engaging with diverse knowledges to inform social work practice and policy. To this end, she employs feminist, participatory, and action research methods to democratize the production of knowledge, de-center whiteness within social work education, and engage in multidirectional knowledge mobilization (for an illustration of Dr. Bhuyan’s work, go to https://www.migrantmothersproject.com/ and https://www.borderingpractices.com/).
Research Interests
Precarious migration; gender-based violence; structural violence; community organizing; feminist, participatory, and action research
Qualitative Teaching
As a CQ Fellow and social work faculty member, Dr. Bhuyan teaches doctoral courses in epistemology and social work research (SWK 6302H), qualitative research methods (SWK6307), and an advanced course in interpretive policy analysis and discourse analysis methodologies (SWK6007).
Selected Publications
Lairos, L., Bhuyan, R., Schmidt, C., Bergen, H., (2023). Bordering non-citizenship assemblage through migrant legibility: a conceptual framework for tracing hidden forms of legal and bureaucratic violence. International Journal of Migration and Border Studies. DOI: 10.1504/IJMBS.2023.10057239.
Bhuyan, R., Sarma, M., Azad, A.K. and Bordoloi, A. (2023).Bordering through legal non-existence: The production of de facto statelessness through Administrative Violence: The production of de facto statelessness among women and children through the National Registry of Citizens in Assam, IndiaInternational Journal of Migration and Border Studies. DOI: 10.1504/IJMBS.2023.10057915.
Schmidt, C., Bhuyan, R., Lash, R. (2022). Involuntary Family Separation for Immigrants in Canada: An intersectional analysis. Social Work Research, 46:4, 304–316. https://doi.org/10.1093/swr/svac020
Bhuyan, R. and Leung, V. (2022). Framing Migrant Resilience as a Civic Responsibility: A Case Study of Municipal and Provincial Immigrant Integration Policies in Toronto, Ontario. British Journal of Social Work. 52(2), 796-815. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcab057
Bhuyan, R. and *Braag, B. (2021). Giving advice in the shadow of deportation: Epistemologies of bordering in the context of domestic violence advocacy with immigrant spouses. Migration Studies, 9(2), 159-178. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnz025
Selected Public Dissemination as an Engaged Scholar
Bhuyan, R., Park, Y., & Lee, E. (2020). Should Journal Rankings Matter? Assigning “Prestige and Quality” in the Neoliberal Academy [Editorial]. Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work, 35(2), 157–159.
Bhuyan, R. and Píntin-Pérez, M. (2021). Dismantling the syndemic of structural violence facing migrant women: COVID-19, gender-based violence, and systemic racism [Blogpost]. Echoes. Global Migration & Health Initiative. Available at https://www.glomhi.org/–echoes/dismantling-the-syndemic-of-structural-violence-facing-migrant-women-covid-19-gender-based-violence-and-systemic-racism
Bhuyan, R., Mohammad, B. Abdullah, S. and Kaur Munica, M. (2021). Briefing Note: MCCSS on the Proposed Regulatory amendments to the CYFSA, Immigration Status. Joint submission by Border(ing) Practices: Systemic Racism, Immigration, and Child Welfare and South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario. Toronto, ON. October, 4, 2021.
Bhuyan, R., Sharma, M., Azad, A.K., Bordoloi, A. (2022). De facto Statelessness through Bureaucratic Violence: Bordering through Direct and Indirect Discrimination through the National Registry of Citizens in Assam, India [Invited lecture] presented at the 5th Annual Racial Violence Hub Virtual Workshop Series Feminist Approaches to Theorizing Genocidal Violence, Wars and Occupations, Department of Gender Studies, University of California Los Angeles. January 7, 2022. Available at https://racialviolencehub.com/2021-genocidalviolence/
Lin, K., Lima, S. and Bhuyan, R. (2018). Recognizing signs of migrant caregiver abuse and exploitation [Infographic]. Migrant Mothers Project, University of Toronto. Available at http://www.migrantmothersproject.com/infographic/
