Migrant worker segregation doesn’t work: COVID-19 lessons from Southeast Asia

by Peter Vandergeest, Melissa Marschke, and Peter Duker Many public health researchers have looked to the Asia-Pacific region, including countries like Thailand, for lessons on successful pandemic management. These countries have demonstrated how it is possible to minimize community spread and thus also reduce the need for lockdowns. However, recent COVID-19 outbreaks in Thailand and nearby countries also offer warnings

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New research on impacts of COVID-19 on migrant workers in seafood supply chain

Research on the impacts of COVID-19 on migrant workers in the seafood supply chain is the focus of a new article published in Maritime Studies last month. Peter Vandergeest, Philip F. Kelly, Peter Duker and Mallory MacDonnell (Geography) and their co-researchers in the University of Ottawa and the United States are members of Work at Sea, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

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Explaining labour relations in the global fishing industry

Over the past five years a series of scandals concerning slave-like working conditions on fishing vessels have provoked global efforts to improve working conditions for fishery workers.  Yet initiatives that seek to improve working conditions are hampered by a lack of empirical evidence and explanatory analysis of the dynamics that lead to such unacceptable working

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The business case for a short, sharp shutdown and why it likely won't work in Canada

Peter Vandergeest, an Asia specialist at Toronto's York University and founding director at the York Centre for Asian Research, is irritated that critics put the region's situation with the virus down to autocratic governments and an obedient population. He said that certainly doesn't apply to Thailand, a place he has often visited for his research

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Work at Sea: Explaining Labour Relations in the Global Fishing Industry

Principal Investigator: Peter Vandergeest/Co-Investigator: Philip Kelly. Funding: SSHRC Insight Grant. Term: 2019-2024. The research sets out to examine marine fisheries work, focusing on fisheries based out of Thailand and Taiwan that have been identified as having large numbers of migrant workers and instances of labour abuse. In particular, it aims to understand labour issues as

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