Research Guides: POLS 289: Refugees and Forced Migrants (HC): Background Information

Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are a particularly useful resource when doing research. They address the issues involved in a particular question and the debates among scholars. They map out the intellectual terrain succinctly and give you the major landmarks in terms of key authors and significant titles for greater understanding.

Annual Reviews
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Covers significant developments in many social science fields including political science, sociology, law, and anthropology.
Pertinent literature reviews for this class include:
"Assimilation and the Second Generation in Europe and America: Blending and Segregating Social Dynamics between Immigrants and Natives" Annual Review of Sociology 2019
"Cross-Border Migration and Social Inequalities" Annual Review of Sociology 2016
"Divergent Destinies: Children of Immigrants Growing Up in the United States" Annual Review of Sociology 2019
"Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Contentious Issue" Annual Review of Criminology 2018
"Immigration Law beyond Borders: Externalizing and Internalizing Border Controls in an Era of Securitization" Annual Review of Law and Social Science 2014
"The Sociology of Refugee Migration" Annual Review of Sociology 2018
"Understanding Immigration Detention: Causes, Conditions, and Consequences" Annual Review of Law and Social Science 2019
Oxford Bibliographies Online
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Extensive annotated bibliographies on specific topics in many social science fields written by scholars. Essays of interest now available include:
"Drug Trades in Latin America" 2017
"Immigration and International Relations" 2017
"Immigration Politics and Policy in the United States" 2017
"Migration to the United States 2017
"Politics of the US-Mexico Border" 2018
Oxford Bibliographies Online Latino Studies Now Available
Essays include:
Rio Grande
Transnational Politics
White-Latino Relations

Dissertations & Theses
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ProQuest Dissertations and Theses is a collection of scholarly research in the Humanities and Social Sciences that consists of citations to over 5 million dissertations and theses with 2.5 million full-text dissertations that are available for download. Coverage is from 1861 to the present day.
Examples of theses about deportation include:
The Lived Experiences of Documented Latina Wives after the Deportations of their Husbands. Audrey Ventour-Ford. Northcentral University, 2018.
An Evaluation of Integration Programs for Deportees in Latin America and the Caribbean. Junius Warren. Northeastern University, 2015
Today's Runaway Slaves: Unauthorized Immigrants in a Federalist Framework. Allan Colbern. University of California, Riverside, 2017.
"Paperless Citizens": Perceptions and Practices of Citizenship among Salvadoran Retornados. Kelly Maginot. Michigan State University, 2019.

Background Readings

Oxford Handbooks (Free access for Covid-19 period)
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Offers rich resources in every subject area. Each Handbook provides thorough introductions to topics, critical surveys of the current state of scholarship, and thoughtful suggestions for new research questions. Enter search terms to find essays in handbooks dealing with your topic.
Example: Search (ice OR "Immigration and Customs Enforcement") deport*
Resulting essays include:
The Manufacturing of the US-Mexico Border Crisis
Maria Cristina Morales
The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises (2018)
"Acculturative Stress and Bicultural Stress: Psychological Measurement and Mental Health"
Andrea Romero and Brandy Piña-Watson
The Oxford Handbook of Acculturation and Health (2017)
Oxford Encyclopedia of Mexican History and Culture
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This new work provides a compendium of the best available scholarship on Mexico. Themes include politics and economics, combined with powerful articles on biography, environment, gender, and culture. Unique to this work are articles on digital sources.
Pertinent articles include:
"Digital Resources: The Documented Border" By Celeste de Bustamante Gonzalez and Veronica Reyes-Escudero
"The Drug Trade in Mexico" By Aileen Teague
World Scholar: Latin America & the Caribbean
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This online research database includes scholarly articles, brief topical news, primary sources, and statistics concerning major issues in Latin American culture and history.

Political Handbook of the World
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A collection of comprehensive country profiles containing detailed information on each nation's political history, government, leadership structure, elections, and political party system. Also included: profiles of intergovernmental organizations, development banks, and the agencies and specialized bodies of the United Nations.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Border Studies
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The Ashgate Research Companion to Migration Law, Theory and Policy
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Protest Cultures : A Companion
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Web Resources

CALS Asylum Case Research Guide
This research guide from Georgetown University Law Library explains how to research asylum cases and track human rights conditions by country. Includes many open access resources. However, we do not have access to the specialized law resources including ebooks and the Westlaw database. Note that you can access the Hein Online database through the Tripod catalog.
Central American Migration Research Initiative
This initiative at American University sponsors several research projects including Central American Refugee and Policy Assistance Project, Temporary Protected Status Reports, and Country Conditions in Central America and Asylum Decision-Making.
Conferencia Regional sobre Migración
Includes documents and reports from a regional organization of Central American and North American nations.
Journalist's Resource - Immigration
Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy provides these guides for investigative journalists. Authors summarize the issues, provide context, explain recent research tends and cite expert sources.
U. S. and Mexican Government Sources: Crime and Justice
Yale University Library presents links to organizations and websites.
U.S. Federal Documents: Immigration/Border Studies
This resource list from Northwestern University links to many open government websites and documents.