YorkSpace

YorkSpace is York University's Institutional Repository. It supports York University's Senate Policy on Open Access by providing York community members with a place to preserve their research online in an institutional context.

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    Mental health impacts of climate migration: Urban adaptation and mitigation challenges in Southwestern Bangladesh
    (Elsevier, 2026-03-28) Parvez, Khondoker Mahmud; Hasan, Rabita; Rushdi, Ibrahim Mahmud
    This study explores the mental health impacts of climate migration in Khulna City, focusing on the urban adaptation and mitigation challenges faced by migrants. As climate-induced environmental changes like salinity intrusion, riverbank erosion, and flooding increasingly affect rural areas of southwestern Bangladesh, large numbers of people are migrating to urban centers in search of safety and stability. The study employs qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with 100 climate migrants in Khulna. The findings reveal significant psychosocial stress among migrants, manifesting in issues such as anxiety, depression, and ecological grief. Overcrowded living conditions, lack of green spaces, and limited social support exacerbate these mental health challenges, underscoring the need for urban adaptation policies that prioritize both physical infrastructure and psychosocial well-being. This research highlights the importance of integrating mental health services into urban planning to address the unique needs of climate migrants. Additionally, the study emphasizes the role of social networks and community-based support in facilitating migrants' integration and emotional recovery. The findings provide valuable insights for policymakers and urban planners to develop more inclusive and resilient urban strategies that address the multifaceted challenges faced by climate migrants.
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    The Rohingya crisis and geopolitical tensions driving the failure of humanitarian governance and legal accountability among refugees in Bangladesh
    (Elsevier, 2026-05-10) Parvez, Khondoker Mahmud
    The Rohingya crisis represents a protracted humanitarian and geopolitical emergency shaped by structural statelessness, constrained international accountability, and evolving forms of humanitarian governance. This study examines how these macro-level dynamics are experienced at the micro level through a qualitative investigation of 100 Rohingya refugees residing in camps in Cox's Bazar District, Bangladesh. Adopting an interpretive research design and a geopsychiatric analytical lens, the study explores the intersection of displacement, identity, governance, and psychosocial well-being. The findings reveal that trauma among Rohingya refugees is not limited to past experiences of violence but is continuously reproduced through conditions of chronic uncertainty, restricted mobility, and indefinite encampment. Humanitarian governance, while essential for survival, has evolved into a system of containment that reinforces dependency and limits agency. Statelessness emerges as a central structural and experiential condition, shaping identity fragmentation, non-belonging, and diminished self-worth. Additionally, gendered vulnerabilities intensify exposure to insecurity and psychological distress, particularly among women living under conditions of constrained mobility and protection gaps. By integrating qualitative evidence with insights from international relations and humanitarian governance, the study demonstrates how geopolitical tensions transform humanitarian response into a substitute for political resolution. The analysis contributes to geopsychiatric scholarship by highlighting how structural conditions of displacement produce sustained mental health impacts. The study argues that durable solutions require a shift from containment-based approaches to rights-oriented strategies that link humanitarian assistance with legal accountability and pathways to citizenship restoration or safe repatriation. Without addressing these structural drivers, the Rohingya crisis will remain a persistent condition of managed displacement and institutional uncertainty.
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    A “Distressed Class of People”: French Refugees and Mobility Control in Philadelphia, 1790s–1810
    (Cambridge University Press, 2026-03-25) Maruschke, Megan
    In the 1790s, hundreds of refugees arrived in Philadelphia from revolutionary Saint-Domingue. Though it is well known that the Alien Acts were promulgated at least in part in reaction to the large French presence on US soil and the threat of war with France, other barriers to entry and to remain on US soil are not often connected to the arrival and presence of French refugees. Using records of the Philadelphia courts, prison, and almshouse, this article situates the French refugee experience within the early United States’ broader kaleidoscope of restrictions on mobility, assistance, and rights to remain. For the French Black population, their race and class rendered them especially vulnerable to forms of mobility control focused on criminals and the mobile poor. Though the French were not ultimately deported for their political activities, a small number of French Black refugees convicted of theft were set on the move once again.
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    Modified Viologen- and Methylpyridine-based Electrodes for Organic Batteries
    (Amercian Chemical Society, 2024-09-18) He, Xiaoming; Chen, Ling; Baumgartner, Thomas
    Efficient electrochemical energy storage has been identified as one of the most pressing needs for a sustainable-energy economy. Inorganic battery materials have traditionally been the center of attention, with the current state-of-the-art device being the lithium-ion battery. Recent pursuits have led to organic materials for their beneficial chemistry and properties, but suitable materials for organic batteries are still few and far between. This Spotlight on Applications highlights two intriguing pyridinium-based organic materials – modified viologens and carbonylpyridiniums that have both been successfully employed in electrode materials for solid-state Li-ion type organic batteries (LOBs). We will first provide an overview of the inherent electronic properties of each building block and how they can effectively be modified while maintaining or enhancing their desirable electrochemical properties for practical applications. We then describe a range of different material designs for a battery context and their application in various organic device settings with some examples showing competitive performance with traditional Li-ion batteries.
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    Afghanistan Shows the U.S. Folly of Trying to Implant Democratic Institutions in Abroad.
    (Academic Journalism Society, 2021-09-29) Karimi, Sirvan
    The rapid conquest of Kabul in Afghanistan and the triumphant seizure of power by the Taliban triggered shock waves throughout the world.