Madeleine Wong, Ronnie Olesker, Eloise Brezault and Cynthia Bansak of St. Lawrence University recently traveled to Africa to conduct workshops and take part in intellectual discussions as part of the New York Six Upstate-Global Collective project.

For the past two years, St. Lawrence faculty have participated in conferences, analyzed experiences at the U.S.- Canada border, visited communities along the U.S.-Mexico border, shared research findings at Colgate University, and recently visited South Africa and Kenya in the last phase of the NY6 grant.

The New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium members include Colgate University, Hamilton College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, St. Lawrence University, Skidmore College and Union College.

“Given the relevancy of border issues in upstate New York, the southern U.S. and Africa, all of the faculty members involved are now able to speak at a personal level about the policy and human rights issues that occur at various borders,” said Bansak, professor of economics.

“This has transcended our classroom discussions on the topic, and will provide an impetus to various research projects related to migration and border control,” she said.

Titled “Immigration and Human Rights: Border Issues to the North, South, and Beyond,” the NY6 project aims to create a scholarly community supporting teaching and learning around academic themes that have rich historical roots in upstate New York and are also of current consequence worldwide.

Wong, associate professor and chair of global studies, said the excursion allowed faculty to take part in discussions related to borders, immigration and the politics of belonging and would “infuse her future courses,” according to a press release from St. Lawrence.

“What continuously struck me throughout the trips was the theme ‘same but different,’” Wong said. “The challenges associated with addressing contemporary immigration and the legacies of forced removals and exclusions of particular populations in South Africa or the courageous work of human rights organizations highlighting the extrajudicial killings of young Muslim men perceived as security threats in Kenya, mirrored similar ongoing challenges in the U.S. The underlying structural causes were the same, but they manifested differently in local settings and conditions.”

Olesker, associate professor of government, said the NY6 faculty will explore how they can combine their research interests to collaborate on an edited book, so that each can contribute a chapter in their discipline.

“The very intense two-week trip allowed us to get to know our colleagues across the NY6 consortium and begin to think about ways in which we can collaborate around our interest in immigration and migration,” Olesker said.

Brezault, assistant professor of modern languages and African studies, said the experience allowed her to reflect on the relationship between architecture and history.

“The memory contained in the buildings and neighborhoods we visited was a good introduction to see the visible and less visible traces of the apartheid in people’s collective imaginary,” Brezault said.

“By underlining the importance of personal memory into today’s South African History, these images counterbalanced grand narratives about the legacy of the Apartheid regime today,” she said.

The group also visited St. Lawrence University's Kenya Semester Program (KSP) in Nairobi.

“In Cape Town, we met individuals and had first-hand interactions with experts who shared their experiences with voluntary and involuntary movements of people by international and domestic forces,” Bansak said.

“In Nairobi, we were exposed to the complicated sources of current-day tensions in Kenya through discussions with academics, Kenyan Somalis, community organizers, primary school teachers and the amazing staff of the KSP.”