Sarah Zell

Title: Assistant Professor
Phone: 204-988-7195
Office: Room 133
Building: Merchants Corner
Email: s.zell@uwinnipeg.ca

Degrees:
PhD – Geography, University of British Columbia
MA – Latin American Studies/Migration Studies, University of Texas at Austin
BA Honors – English/Romance Languages, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Biography:

Sarah Zell is a critical, community-engaged scholar whose research interests center on migration patterns and processes, border policy and governance, and labour mobility and precarity. She is also interested in questions related to housing and urban change, especially as related to issues of citizenship and belonging. 

She completed her PhD in Geography at the University of British Columbia, where she held a Pacific Century Fellowship and was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Metropolis British Columbia, and the Liu Institute for Global Issues. She previously worked as a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg, where she led and was involved in several large-scale research projects focused on a range of urban issues, including housing and homelessness and evictions and eviction prevention, particularly among older adults. (Descriptions of projects and publications can be found here: https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/ius/.)

Sarah also has a key interest in research methods and has engaged in projects that enhance community use of data for evaluation, advocacy, and awareness-building efforts. She has a long history of working with community partners on projects that contribute to advocacy efforts and policy change. Previous projects have focused on the privatization of immigration policy and the role of non-state actors in migrant worker recruitment; gender justice in migration; and employment experiences of precarious status migrants. A series of publications and toolkits related to the Gender Justice in Migration project can be found at: https://www.genderjusticeinmigration.ca/.

Dr. Zell is a founding member of the SSHRC-funded Migration Research Collective/Collectif de Recherche sur les Migrations (MRC/CRM). She is also a Research Affiliate with Immigration Research West and sits on the Research Committee of the Manitoba Association of Newcomer Serving Organizations (MANSO) and on Immigration Partnership Winnipeg’s Civic Engagement Sector Council. She values engaging with and supporting students.

Courses:

UIC 1001(3) – Intro to Urban and Inner-City Studies

UIC 2050(3) – Doing Urban Research

UIC 3020/WGS 3020(3) – Women and the Inner City

UIC 3430/GEOG 3430(3) – Housing and the Neighbourhood

UIC 3050(3) – Immigration and the Inner City

Publications:

Zell, Sarah. (Under Contract, expected 2026). Outsourcing the Border: Recruiters and Sovereign Power in Labour Migration to Canada. University of Toronto Press.

Zell, Sarah. (Forthcoming 2025). Wavering welcome: Austerity in the immigration sector. In Public service in tough times: Working under austerity in Manitoba, edited by Jesse Hajer, Ian Hudson, and Jennifer Keith (Chapter 5). University of Manitoba Press.

Hamilton, Karen, Niall Harney, Mark Hudson, Molly McCracken, Paul Moist, Kayleigh Russell, and Sarah Zell. (2024). A Progressive Labour Agenda for Manitoba: Eleven Policies to Improve Working Conditions and Social Wellbeing, edited by Niall Harney. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba. https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Manitoba%20Office/2024/04/MB%20Progressive%20Labour%20Agenda.pdf 

Zell, Sarah, and Amelia Curran. (2023). Making Space: Relational Ethnography and Emergent Resistance. In Critical Geographies of Resistance, edited by Sarah Hughes (pp. 107-122). Edward Elgar Press.

Cooper, Sarah, and Sarah Zell. (2023). Staying on Board: Non-profit Housing Provider Board Capacity in a Changing Context. Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg. Available at: https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/ius/

Zell, Sarah, Aynslie Hinds, Jill Bucklaschuk, Lawrence Deane, and Shereen Denetto. (2022). Evaluating outcomes for refugee families in IRCOM’s transitional supportive housing. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. 

Labman, Shauna, and Sarah Zell. (2021). The Shift Towards Increased Citizen-Driven Migration in Canada. In Research Handbook on the Law and Politics of Migration, edited by Catherine Dauvergne (pp. 110-204). Edward Elgar Press. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789902266.00018

Zell, Sarah, and Scott McCullough. (2021). Seniors and Evictions in Canada: A Life-Course Approach. Ottawa: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/housing-markets-data-and-research/housing-research/research-reports/housing-needs/research-insight-evictions-focus-seniors-older-adults

Pratt, Geraldine, Sarah Zell, Caleb Johnston, and Hazel Venzon. (2020). Performing Nanay in Winnipeg: Filipino Labour Migration to Canada (Creative Intervention). Studies in Social Justice, 14(1): 55–66. https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v2020i14.2224

Distasio, Jino, and Sarah Zell. (2020). People, Policies, and Place: Indigenous and Immigrant Population Shifts in Winnipeg’s Inner-City Neighbourhoods. In Changing neighbourhoods: Social and spatial polarization in Canadian cities, edited by Jill Grant, Alan Walks, and Howard Ramos (pp. 215–34). Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Zell, Sarah, and Scott McCullough. (2020). Evictions and Eviction Prevention in Canada. Ottawa: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. https://eppdscrmssa01.blob.core.windows.net/cmhcprodcontainer/sf/project/archive/research_6/evictions-and-eviction-prevention-in-canada.pdf

Polanco, Geraldina, and Sarah Zell. (2017). English as a Border-Drawing Matter: Language and the Regulation of Migrant Service Worker Mobility in International Labor Markets. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 18(1): 267–89.

Zell, Sarah. (2017). Intermediaries. In The Wiley-AAG International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology, edited by Douglas Richardson, Noel Castree, Michael Goodchild, Audrey Kobayashi, Weidong Liu, and Richard Marston. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Read, Jodi, Sarah Zell, and Lynne Fernandez. (2013). Migrant Voices: Stories of Agricultural Migrant Workers in Manitoba. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba.

Zell, Sarah, and Emily Skop. (2011). Social Networks and Selectivity in Brazilian Migration to Japan and the United States. Population Place and Space, 17(5): 469–88.

Skop, Emily, and Sarah Zell. (2008). São Paulo: Historic Immigrant Gateway to Contemporary Emigrant Outpost. In Migrants to the Metropolis: The Rise of Immigrant Gateway Cities, edited by Lisa Benton-Short and Marie Price (pp. 345–70). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.