The Expert is a cultural anthropologist with 30 years of experience working in academic, policy and program contexts with Latino immigrant and refugee populations in the U.S. and Canada. She has written extensively about Central American migration and indigenous communities and is the author of the book In Search of Providence: Transnational Mayan Identities (Vanderbilt University Press, 2008; updated edition, 2020), as well as numerous peer-reviewed articles and major reports. Dr. Foxen served for 14 years as Deputy Director of Research at UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., where she oversaw data-driven policy-oriented research, directed and published community-based research on the integration and well-being of Latino youth and families, and communicated findings to external audiences such as policy makers, media outlets, practitioners and universities. Dr. Foxen has taught at Vanderbilt University and the University of Toronto, has been a visiting fellow at Yale University and American University, and is a frequent guest lecturer. She has served on boards and advisory bodies including the Population Reference Bureau, Child Trends Hispanic Institute Advisory Council, the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, and the Alianza for Youth Justice. She earned her Doctorate in Anthropology and her Master’s in Medical Anthropology from McGill University. She also holds a Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Bryn Mawr College.
Climate-related issues; Deportees/criminal deportees; Ethnic discrimination or persecution; Gang-related violence/non-state actors; Gender-based violence/domestic violence; Healthcare access/health systems capacity; Journalist persecution; Land tenure disputes; Likelihood of destitution or homelessness; Mental illness; Political persecution; Prison conditions; Government/state actor persecution; Risk of retaliation; Sexual abuse/assault; Sufficiency of protection; Torture; Trafficking; Violence against children/child abuse; Forensic Psychotherapy; War Crimes; War Trauma- Both Military & Civilian
The Expert has been an expert witness and written affidavits for numerous asylum cases pertaining to Guatemala over the past 10 years. They have conducted extensive (published) research on the contexts of violence and poverty that produce forced migration from Guatemala, and have also published articles regarding common cultural and psychological misconceptions that have led to problematic legal decisions in Canadian refugee hearings.
• Books:
Foxen, P. (2020; First Edition, 2007). In Search of Providence: Transnational Mayan Identities. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
• Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters:
Foxen, P. (2020). Forced Migration. Oxford Textbook of Migrant Psychiatry (D. Bhugra, ed.). London: Oxford University Press.
Foxen, P. and Rodman, D. (2012). Guatemalans in New England: Transnational Communities Through Time and Space. Practicing Anthropology, 34(1), 17-21.
Foxen, P. (2010). Local Narratives of Distress and Resilience: Lessons in Psychosocial Well-Being among the K’iche’ Maya of Tululché. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 15(1), 66-89.
Foxen, P. (2009). Refugees and Forced Migration. Introduction à l’anthropologie de l’aide humanitaire et du développement (L. Atlani-Duault and L. Vidal eds.). Paris: Editions Armand Colin.
Rousseau, C. and Foxen, P. (2010). “Look Me in the Eye”: Empathy and the Transmission of Trauma in the Refugee Determination Process. Transcultural Psychiatry, 47(1), 70-92.
Rousseau, C. and Foxen, P. (2006). Le mythe du réfugié menteur: un mensonge indispensable? L’évolution Psychiatrique, 71(33), 505-520.
Rousseau, C. and Foxen, P., 2005. Constructing and Deconstructing the Myth of the Lying Refugee: Paradoxes of Power and Justice in an Administrative Immigration Tribunal. Lying and Illness: Power and Performance (E. van Dongen et S. Fainzang, eds.). Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers.
Rousseau, C., de la Aldea, E., Rojas, M.V., Foxen, P. (2005). After the NGO’s Departure: Changing Memory Strategies of Young Mayan Refugees Who Returned to Guatemala as a Community. Anthropology and Medicine, 12(1), 1-19
Rousseau, C., Crépeau, F., Foxen, P., and Houle, F. (2002). The Complexity of Determining Refugeehood: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of the Decision-Making Process of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board.
Journal of Refugee Studies, 15(1) 43-70.
Rousseau, C., Morales, M. and Foxen, P. (2001). Going Home: Giving Voice to Memory. Strategies of Young Mayan Refugees Who Returned to Guatemala as a Community. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 25, 135-168.
Foxen, P. (2000). Cacophony of Voices: A K'iche' Mayan Narrative of Remembrance and Forgetting. Transcultural Psychiatry, 37(3), 355-382.