Research

Pilot edition · This temporary page will be replaced by a fuller version on 18 December 2026.

ZAH-ZAHA draws on research into migration, borders, digital platforms and government policy. This page brings together selected completed studies, a peer-reviewed publication and current independent research. Each entry begins with the question, then shows the evidence, methods and available sources.

Completed research

2023 · Migration, YouTube and Canada’s digital border

Completed MA thesis · University of Lethbridge · Wael M. Nasser

Question. How did YouTube participate in the circulation of information about irregular migration to Canada, and how did Canadian authorities respond to the online information environment?

Evidence. The study retrieved 4,986 YouTube videos from a period covering November 2016 to December 2019 and coded a final sample of 342 English-language videos. It also used government documents obtained through access-to-information requests to examine official online communication and monitoring activities.

Why it matters. A border is not experienced only at a port of entry. Searches, videos, advertising and official messages can influence what people learn about migration before they travel. The thesis examines this information environment while distinguishing what the videos show from what the government records establish.

Read and check:

• MA thesis record (University of Lethbridge repository): the full text can be requested there. A direct Read the MA thesis (PDF) link will appear here once a public copy is available.
• Examine the methods: an explanation on this page of the video analysis and documentary evidence.
• See the 2022 conference presentation listing: Carleton University lists this research presentation; this is not the thesis text.

2018 · How migration information circulated in Nigerian online forums

Completed Undergraduate honours thesis · University of Lethbridge · Wael M. Nasser

Question. How were people discussing potential irregular migration to Canada and sharing information in online forums?

Evidence. The honours research examined 3,241 forum posts, identified using 19 search keywords. The findings informed a later essay on digital migration that received recognition through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s National Essay Challenge.

Read and check: University of Lethbridge profile and essay-award announcement. This page confirms the project and award; it is not a downloadable copy of the honours thesis.

2022 · Border closures during COVID-19

Published Peer-reviewed journal article · Rabindra Chaulagain, Wael M. Nasser and Julie E. E. Young

#StayHomeSaveLives: Essentializing Entry and Canada’s Biopolitical COVID Borders Journal of Borderlands Studies, 37(4), 723–740 (2022; published online in 2021).

Question. When Canada restricted movement during COVID-19, how did government communications define whose entry and work counted as “essential”?

Evidence and approach. The co-authored article analyses Canadian federal government communications on Twitter using narrative and textual analysis. It examines how official categories changed across border restrictions and exceptions during the early pandemic.

Why it matters. The border was not simply closed or open. Different groups were admitted, excluded or reclassified as government priorities changed. The article investigates the political and economic implications of those classifications.

Read and check:

• Read the published journal record (DOI).
• Read the free full-text manuscript (University of Lethbridge PDF).
• Examine the article’s methods in the full-text PDF: see the introductory description of the Twitter corpus and narrative/textual analysis.

Current independent research

Canada’s changing digital borders and the Indo-Pacific

In progress Independent research since 2025

This investigation asks how Canada’s migration and border governance intersects with changing international relationships, digital systems, private technology providers and security cooperation, particularly in relation to Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

It draws on publicly available policy and institutional documents, comparative analysis and the research questions developed through earlier work. This is an active line of inquiry, not a completed study or a claim of established findings. Detailed outputs will be added when they are ready for public scrutiny.

Methods and evidence

No single field of study can explain migration on its own. Borders involve laws, political decisions, economic pressures, language, technology and people’s everyday experiences. Through ZAH-ZAHA, I bring these perspectives into conversation, including ideas and methods from fields that may at first seem unrelated to migration.

Learning from other fields. Some useful methods come from unexpected places. For my master’s thesis (2023), I adapted tools developed to assess the quality and reliability of health information to examine migration advice circulating on YouTube. For this project, I modelled the Border Tracker in part on a database created to track government responses to COVID-19, and built the Stress Test on ideas from political science, conceptual history, philosophy, translation studies, law and information science. Drawing on these fields, I examine how a term acquires meaning, changes across languages and institutions, and shapes real decisions once it becomes part of laws, databases or government policies. I adapt these approaches where they fit the question, with attention to their limits.

Different kinds of evidence. I work with government records, access-to-information disclosures, videos, online discussions and statistical data, because each reveals a different part of a problem. Official documents can show what governments decided or announced, but not necessarily how those decisions affected people. Online material can show what information circulated, but not how people acted on it.

Reading and counting. Depending on the question, I read texts closely, trace decisions across documents, compare events over time or look for patterns in larger collections of material. Numbers help when the evidence supports meaningful comparisons; otherwise, close reading often reveals more.

What the evidence can show. I explain how I selected my sources, what they show and where their limits lie. A relationship suggested by the evidence is not proof of cause. When a question remains unanswered, I leave it open.

Limitations. I carry out this research alone. Most coding and judgements, including those in the Stress Test, are mine, without an independent second rater. The word study only searches government sources written in English. The Arabic words on this site are translations of those terms; Arabic documents were not analysed. The word study counts terms with a fixed text search, and I checked every counted term in its sentence myself. Public sources show only what was published or released, and online material can disappear. That is why I add new official material to the Border Tracker as soon as it appears, and link to archived copies where available. I note these limits wherever they affect a finding.

I therefore welcome researchers, students and independent scholars to test these methods, compare their findings with mine and suggest improvements over time. Different results are especially valuable, because they may show where the questions, the evidence or the approach need rethinking.

My aim is to see what becomes visible when evidence and methods from different fields are brought together, and to turn that understanding into better questions, research and policy proposals.

From research to public analysis

Research is the starting point, not the endpoint. The Stress Test and Tracker allow visitors to follow selected policy decisions, compare sources, question concepts and consider their practical implications. These tools may contain new analysis; they should not be mistaken for findings established by an earlier thesis or article.

For joint research or collaboration, see Work / Collaboration or write to [email protected].