Research projects

Geopolitical economies at “distant” borders: Migrant exploitation in Mexico. Role: PI, Postdoctoral Project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Canada (2025-2027).

Economies geopolítiques i fronteres de gènere. Role: PI, funded by Ajuntament de Barcelona [Barcelona City Council]) (2026-2027).

Charting a Global Just Transition Agenda: Decommissioning Hydrocarbons From the Niger Delta to the World. Role: Co-Applicant, PI Prof. Anna Zalik, funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Partnership Grant, Stage 1 (2026)

Refugee dreams, small town realities: Interrogating the ruralization of refugee resettlement to smaller centres in Canada. Role: Research lead, PI Prof. Jennifer Hyndman and Co-PI Dr. Bronwyn Bragg, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (2024-2025)

Moving, Waiting, Searching Across Borders: gendered geographies of violence, disappearance and contestation in southern Mexico (Role: PI, Doctoral research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (2020-2024)

Publications (selected)

Journal articles

Biorklund, L. (2026), The intimate life of borders: Violence, care, and urban refuge in southern Mexico, Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City, 1-19.

Zalik, A., Biorklund, L., & Hernandez, A. (2026). North American Neomercantilism and Energy Sector Integration: Trade disputes, green marketing, and the continental infrastructural regime, Revista Norteamérica.

Biorklund, L. (2026). Review of Memorializing Violence, Transnational Feminist Reflections, by Alison Crosby and Heather Evans (Eds). New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2025, Journal of Canadian Woman Studies-les cahiers de la femme.

Weima, Y., Biorklund, L. et al. (2026). Jennifer Hyndman's Managing Displacement, 25 years on, Political Geography.

Biorklund, L. (2025). “We pay with our life and our body:” Gendered and intimate geopolitics of vias Pa’l Norte, Political Geography, volume 119,

Biorklund, L. (2023). Undocumented Bordering Practices: Protagonism and Spaces of Making, Journal of Refugee Studies, pp. 1-25, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fead057

Biorklund, L. & Ferguson, R. (2021). Normalising the Exceptional: The use of temporary protection in transit countries to externalize borders and responsibilities, Geopolitics, 28(1), 333-363,

Ferguson, R. & Biorklund, L. (2020) ‘Better-Than-Nothing’ Approaches to Protection and the Violence of the Law in Turkey and Mexico, Oxford Monitor for Forced Migration, 9(1).

Biorklund, L. (2019). Geopolitics Humanitarian Crises: Case Study on Climate Change and Migration, in Devine, C. et al., Humanitarian Operations, Witnessing and Decarbonizing in a Warming World, The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change.

Biorklund Belliveau, L. & Schwerdtle, P. (2018) Migration and Population Displacement in Climate Change and Health: An urgent new frontier for humanitarianism. The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change.

Biorklund, L. & Hassan, A. (2016). The Journey to Dreamland Never Ends: A Refugee’s Journey from Somalia to Sweden. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 35 (2): 116-136.

Scott, T., Biorklund, L. et al. (2016) Humanitarianism and the Migration Crisis, Refugee Survey Quarterly Special Issue,35 (2): 1-136 (Co-editor of special issue).

Book chapters

Biorklund, L., & J. Hyndman (2025). Decolonizing feminist geopolitics. In The DeGruyter Handbook of Feminist Political Geography.

Biorklund, L. & J. Hyndman. (2022) Refugee Studies has Always been Critical, in Routledge Handbook of Immigration and Refugee Studies eBooks (pp. 348–357)

Non-refereed contributions

Biorklund, L., Hyndman, J., Bragg, B. (2025). Refugee dreams and realities: An analysis of RAP agency staff perspectives and experiences supporting government-assisted refugees across Canada, May 2025.

Biorklund, L. (2023). Tragedies, not accidents: Tougher Canadian and US border politics will cost more lives, The Conversation, 9 April.

Biorklund, L. (2022) La caravana de madres centroamericanas: duelo personal y agravio politico, Brujula, 27 June. 

Biorklund, L. Central America’s caravan of mothers: Personal grief and political grievance, The Conversation, 9 June 2022.

Biorklund, L. & Healy, S. From COVID-19 to the climate emergency: Lessons from this global crisis for the next one, The Conversation, 5 October 2020. 

Biorklund L. Responding to Displacement in light of Climate Change and Restrictive Policies, Médecins Sans Frontières Flash Paper Series, October 2019.

Biorklund L. Highlighting Blind Spots: Environmental Displacement and Health. Research Report. Médecins Sans Frontières, July 2018.

Biorklund L. Dying to Reach Europe: Eritreans in Search of Safety. Research and Advocacy Report, Médecins Sans Frontières, February 2017.