About
I am a feminist geographer whose work focuses on racism and state violence. One thread of my research focuses on health and the social production of health inequities. This focus can be seen in Health Rights Are Civil Rights on US-based health activism and more recent research and teaching on how health concepts and practices intersect with international migration governance. A second main thread of research focuses on theorizing the connection between the US carceral state and migration policy, evident in Beyond Walls and Cages and Boats, Borders, and Bases. Much of my work has examined migration detention and deterrence as interrelated parts of the criminal legal system, work which has implications for movements migrant and racial justice. I have also examined how trauma has been mobilized in refugee resettlement
My current research examines the intersection between immigration and refugee law and health. In the Geopolitics of Trauma project, we investigated how trauma has been mobilized in the refugee resettlement process, particularly with regard to Iraqi refugees. My most recent project is turning to the question of how migration law exacerbates migrant health vulnerabilities in the context of climate change.
Areas of Interest
Feminist geography; Racism and anti-racism; Violence and health; Migration detention and deterrence; Carceral and abolition geographies; Geopolitics of asylum and refugee resettlement
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Geography, Syracuse University
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, The CUNY Graduate Center
- Faculty Fellow in the Humanities, Humanities Center, Syracuse University
- Ph.D., Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley
Books
- Loyd, Jenna M., Mountz, Alison. 2018. Boats, Borders, and Bases: Race, the Cold War, and the Rise of Immigration Detention in the United States.University of California Press.
- Loyd, Jenna M. 2014.Health Rights Are Civil Rights: Peace and Justice Activism in Los Angeles, 1963-1978 Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Loyd, Jenna M., Mitchelson, Matt, and Andrew Burridge, eds. 2012. Beyond Walls and Cages: Prisons, Borders, and Global Crisis Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Articles and chapters
- Loyd, Jenna M. 2024. “The Place of Asylum and Empire in Contemporary Abolition.” Solicited essay for Border Abolition Now, eds. Riva, Sara, Campbell, Simon, Whitener, Brian, and Kathryn Medien. Pluto Press.
- Loyd, Jenna M. 2024. “Abolish Deterrence.” Solicited essay for Fighting Global Apartheid and Technologies of Violence, eds. Aizeki, Mizue, Mahmoudi, Matt, and Coline Schupfer. Chicago: Haymarket Press.
- Loyd, Jenna, Secor, Anna, and Ehrkamp, Patricia. 2023. “Geopolitics of Disability and the Horizon of Refuge.” Geopolitics. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2023.2185139.
- Ehrkamp, Patricia, Loyd, Jenna M., and Secor, Anna. 2021. “Trauma as Displacement: Observations from Refugee Resettlement.” in special issue on Displacements for Annals of the American Association of Geographers. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2021.1956296.
- Loyd, Jenna M. 2021. “Health.” Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies. The Keywords Feminist Editorial Collective, ed. New York: New York University Press, 105-110.
- Vilas Research Associate, 2025
- Past President Book Gold Award, Association for Borderlands Studies, for Beyond Walls and Cages, 2014