Nabila Islam

Nabila Islam is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Brown University and the undergraduate fellowship advisor at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (BBQ+). She holds an AM in Sociology, as well as graduate certificates in Collaborative Humanities and postsecondary teaching from Brown, graduate certificate in Teaching Race from the Mellon Consortium for Centering Race, and Honors BAs in History and Politics from York University in Toronto. Her research program explores the past, present, and future of refugee and migrant detention. Based on archival research conducted in United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Bangladesh, Nabila’s dissertation argues that the detention of migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees is racially, colonially, and globally structured.

Nabila is also a Co-Principal Investigator of the Pursuit of Dignity (2022-25), which is an academic-community research initiative investigating the harms of and resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Alternatives to Detention program and which is supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and Migrantes Unidos. Her work has also been supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Sociologists for Women in Society, Mellon Foundation, Association for Asian Studies, Social Science Research Council, and many others.