91porn

Nov. 4, 2025

Following a successful first term as a tier two Canada Research Chair, Bree Akesson’s position has been renewed for an additional five-year term. Akesson, a professor of Social Work at 91porn, is the Canada Research Chair in Global Adversity and Well-Being.

The Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program attracts and retains some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds. Chairholders receive research funding, including support for student researchers. 91porn is currently home to 13 CRCs.

Below, Akesson reflects on her research accomplishments to date and her priorities for the next five years.

What is the focus of your research program?

My research examines how families survive in the face of extreme adversities; specifically war, climate-induced disasters and displacement. I am interested in how these overlapping adversities affect parents and children during sensitive developmental periods, such as the perinatal period and early childhood. My goal is to generate knowledge that helps humanitarian workers, policymakers and communities respond to the everyday realities of families in crisis.

Most recently, I have been working with Rohingya refugee families displaced from Myanmar and living in Bangladesh. My research team, including Ashley Stewart-Tufescu from the University of Manitoba and community partners from the Hope Foundation for Women and Children of Bangladesh, uses collaborative family interviews, drawing and an interactive life story board methodology to learn about their everyday lives.

What accomplishments are you proud of from your first term as a CRC?

During my first term as a CRC, I launched the Global Adversity and Well-Being Research Group. I also established the Mapping Stories Global Research Lab, funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which provides tools for researchers and students to create dynamic, interactive stories of individuals and families impacted by global adversity.

My research, including my 2022 book From Bureaucracy to Bullets: Extreme Domicide and the Right to Home co-authored by Andrew Basso, served as the inspiration for a United Nations report by the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing (SRRAH), Balakrishna Rajagopal. I was invited to join a panel discussion with the SRRAH and the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice, which informed the SRRAH’s presentation to the UN Security Council. State representatives voted to endorse domicide as a distinct crime under international law.

What are priorities for your second CRC term?

I will focus on long-term work with refugee communities facing the compounding effects of political violence, forced displacement and environmental disasters. This includes ongoing partnerships with Rohingya communities in Bangladesh and Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza. My priorities are to deepen this line of research using human rights frameworks, expand the participatory approaches I use with families and creatively mobilize the research findings.

What impact do you hope to make through your research?

I hope to help shift global attention from crisis response to family recovery – to understand that family well-being is the foundation for peace and resilience in humanitarian settings. My research will inform policy and practice for humanitarian agencies and governments, ensuring that the everyday experiences of families shape the systems meant to support them.