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Eleanor Paynter, a researcher and postdoctoral fellow with Cornell’s Migrations initiative, received the International Studies Association’s 2021 Lynne Rienner Publishers Award for Best Dissertation in Human Rights in a ceremony on April 12.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants embark on treacherous journeys each year, yet most of their stories go untold or are reduced to statistics. Paynter is working to learn and share the lived experiences of these migrants. She completed her dissertation, “Witnessing Emergency: Testimonial Narratives of Precarious Migration to Italy,” at Ohio State University in 2020.
Paynter’s work is pathbreaking, critical and urgent, according to Rachel Beatty Riedl, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies director, the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Award recipient builds Migrations community at Cornell cornell.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cornell.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
December 11, 2020
Across more than 200 immigration detention centers in the United States, tens of thousands of adults and children are experiencing heightened risk of COVID-19 infection and outbreak. Overcrowding and subpar hygiene and medical care make infectious disease outbreaks in these facilities common.
Two Cornell researchers are part of a multi-institution team arguing that the solution is the safe release of detainees into their communities.
“The kind of prolonged immigration detention that is the default in the United States – and which has only increased during the past four years – has long been at odds with fundamental rights and public health,” said Ian Kysel, visiting assistant clinical professor at Cornell Law School and co-author of the report. “But the mass detention of immigrants during this pandemic is even more shockingly disproportionate because it puts the entire community – especially detained immigrants and detention facility staff – at much