James P. Ito-Adler, a social anthropologist (PhD, Harvard University), has had a distinguished career in teaching and research at institutions including Florida International University and Harvard University. In recent years, he has worked extensively with NGOs, advancing the field of international education. With extensive fieldwork experience ranging from Portuguese immigrants in Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts, to Japanese families in Brazil and indigenous communities in Alaska, Dr. Ito-Adler is the author of a seminal study on Portuguese immigrants in the U.S. during the 1970s—a period of peak migration between the Azores and New England. This study, The Portuguese of Cambridge and Somerville (Cambridge Department of Community Development, 1980), serves as the foundation for the following conversation and is currently being prepared for publication by the OEm (Observatório da Emigração).

Sharvari Karandikar is a professor of social work at Ohio State University, USA. She is a member of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai, and did her PhD project in social work at the University of Utah, where she focused her research efforts on issues related to sex workers and sex trafficking victims, particularly on issues of gender-based violence, health, and mental health. Her research currently focuses on the areas of sex work and sex trafficking in Asia, egg donation, international gestational surrogacy, and medical tourism and its impact on women.

Jean-Michel Lafleur is Research Professor at the University of Liège and the Associate Director of its Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM). He is also a Research Associate with Belgium’s National Science Foundation (FRS-FNRS). He currently holds a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to work on a project entitled “Migration and Transnational Social Protection in Post-crisis Europe”.