What new directions are your research taking, and in what ways do they reshape your understanding of international migration?

My research interests, from the 1980s until the beginning of the 2000s, focused on transnationalism, migration and family, children of migrants, and identity issues. Various factors (my teaching experience at Université Lyon 2 between 1996 and 1998, research on Muslim migrants, social debates on secularism) have reoriented my interests towards contemporary religion (including religion, migration and religious pluralism). Since my retirement from teaching in September 2023, I have continued my research in the field of contemporary religion. However, I have continued supervising PhD and master’s theses on migration until May 2025 (including topics such as single-parent refugee families, Syrian and Armenian diasporas, etc.).

How has the field of migration studies evolved within the political and disciplinary context of your country in recent years, particularly with regard to methodologies, research objects, and theoretical frameworks? What is the place of scientific knowledge in public debates on migration?

There is an increasing amount of multi-sited research, even among PhD students. We observe the agency of migrants (including refugees) and their resilience as well as the barriers they face. Migration is treated in terms of mobility/immobility in much research. In Canada and in Québec, the main research issues are about deskilling and temporary migration (and the issues related to rights, racialization, and discrimination). As well, studies on educated migrants, referred to as “middling migrants”, occupy some researchers (migrants are more educated than the general population). Finally, migrants with a precarious status or undocumented migrants, as well as asylum seekers and refugees, continue to be objects of research for many specialists, for example, at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Diversity and Democracy (CRIDAQ) at the Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM), at the Institut universitaire SHERPA and elsewhere. We can also mention the Research Chair on the Politics of Immigration, at Concordia University (Montréal), directed by Mireille Paquet as well as the Canada Research Chair in Global Migration Processes at Université Laval, held by Danièle Bélanger. Islamophobia is a focus for many researchers, especially relating to political discourse and social debates on secularism in Québec.

How would you characterize the current publishing landscape in your country in the field of migration studies? What types of journals, formats, or readerships presently structure the circulation of knowledge in this domain?

I know more about the situation in Québec. University presses publish a large part of books on migration (Presses de l’Université de Montréal, series Pluralismes, Presses de l’Université du Québec, Presses de l’Université Laval). Concerning journals, we especially highlight Diversité urbaine (Université de Montréal). Other journals publish issues on immigration and migrants: Enfances, familles, générations or Lien social et politique. In Canada, there is the journal Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques canadiennes, published by the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association (CESA) in Calgary (Alberta). I do not know much about the situation in English-speaking Canada.

Moreover, we no longer talk about accommodation issues that used to concern as much disabled people and religious minorities of Christian tradition as Muslim immigrants. Research on interculturalism “has taken over” and its definition varies from one author to another.

How do you engage, in your research, with emerging modes of publishing and “journal-making” (open access, artificial intelligence, etc.)?

In general, Canada, through its policy of funding of scientific journals, fosters open access. For research groups, centers and teams, podcasts and videoconferences made available online are widely used to disseminate the results of research to non-academic audiences; for example, those produced by the Centre d’expertise sur le bien-être et l’état de santé physique des réfugiés et des demandeurs d’asile (CERDA) and the SHERPA University Institute. Generally, the dissemination of scientific knowledge is becoming increasingly valued.