The ANU Law Reform and Social Justice program is proud to host the launch of a Special Issue of the Refugee Survey Quarterly and the Reimagining Migrant Justice project which centre lived experience in refugee and migrant decision-making.

A keynote address by Dr Veronica Fynn Bruey will explore the project's potential and challenges as it seeks to disrupt and innovate decisions which impact on the lives of refugees and migrants. This will be followed by a panel discussion with Dr Saba Vasefi, University of Sydney; Dr Neeraja Sanmuhanathan, University of Notre Dame; Tina Dixson, ANU and co-founder of Queer Sisterhood Project; and Dr Kim Huynh, Deputy Director of the ANU Research School of the Humanities.

Refreshments will be served before and after the event.

About the speakers

Dr. Veronica Fynn Bruey holds six degrees with over 25 years of research experience in 30 countries. She's authored five books, several book chapters, and journal articles. She is the PI of the Transnational Indigeneity, Patriarchy and Displacement (t-IDP); the founder/editor-in-chief of the Journal of Internal Displacement; co-lead of Displaced Peoples Network; lead of the Disrupting Patriarchy and Masculinity in Africa, the co- Chair of the Africa Interest Group of the American Society of International Law, and the founder of the Voice of West African Refugees at the Buduburam Refugee Settlement in Ghana. Currently, she is an Africa-Oxford Fellow, 2023-24; Director of Flowers University Global Health Science; faculty affiliate at Seattle University School of Law; research affiliate at University of London’s Refugee Law Initiative; part-time lecturer at the University of Alberta, and assistant professor of legal studies at Athabasca University. Dr Fynn Bruey is an Indigenous Liberian migrant and war survivor.

Tina Dixson (Chair) is a co-founder of the Forcibly Displaced People Network and the Queer Sisterhood Project with experience as a policy officer in LGBTIQ affairs and representing civil society at CEDAW. She is currently completing her doctorate at ANU focusing on the lived experiences of queer refugee women.

Dr Saba Vasefi is a multi-award-winning scholar-journalist, poet, and documentary filmmaker who writes on the human impacts of Australia’s immigration and border policies. She is an academic at the University of Sydney, an Honorary Postdoctoral Associate at Macquarie University, Sydney Peace Foundation executive council member and the Red Room Poetry’s Writing in Resistance editor. Her current research at the Washington-based Center for Human Rights in Iran concentrates on the Islamic Republic of Iran's extrajudicial and arbitrary executions.

Dr Neeraja Sanmuhanathan is a Senior Sexual Assault Counsellor with NSW Health providing trauma informed counselling support to those impacted by sexual violence, and a lecturer within the Master of Counselling program at the University of Notre Dame. Neeraja’s doctoral thesis explored Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and intergenerational trauma following Sri Lanka’s 30 year civil war. She has worked with asylum seekers and refugees impacted by sexual violence, displacement, and torture.

Dr Kim Huynh, Deputy Director of the ANU Research School of the Humanities, is a teacher, writer, researcher and broadcaster who helps people tell their stories. Kim's latest book on Australia's Refugee Politics in the 21st Century (Routledge) develops ways to enhance national security, refugee rights and social cohesion. Kim published a collection of stories about contemporary Vietnam entitled Vietnam as if ... (ANU Press). His biography of his parents Where the Sea Takes Us (HarperCollins) attracted academic and literary acclaim. He co-authored Children and Global Conflict (Cambridge University Press) and co-edited The Culture Wars (Palgrave-McMillan).