Becca Heller — co-founder and executive director of the International Refugee Assistance Project — provides the keynote address for Moving Subjects Week at The Ohio State University. This week-long series of events was hosted by the Migration, Mobility and Immobility Project, a part of the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme.

In this address, Heller discusses her personal experiences and the work IRAP has done to explain how and why refugees and migrants seek safety in third countries, what processes and legal norms are available to them and how perceptions of “crisis” are being politicized to keep people out. Engaging the dominant narratives about who refugees are, this talk provides a vision for how to confront rising xenophobia around the world by providing pathways to safety for vulnerable people.