Dr. Odessa Gonzalez Benson

Biography

Odessa Gonzalez Benson is an associate professor at the School of Social Work and in Urban and Regional Planning at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on social welfare studies and urban studies, specifically in areas such as refugee resettlement, state-civil society relations, grassroots migrant organizations, critical policy studies, and epistemic justice. She aims to inform participatory approaches to social work practice and urban governance, with her studies examining the organizational legitimacy of refugee community organizations (RCOs), their crisis response, and their role in urban governance and resettlement practices. In critical policy studies, she investigates various aspects of U.S. refugee policy and placement strategies, utilizing varied methodological approaches including quantitative analyses and discourse analyses of historical texts. Gonzalez Benson's past work explores migrant ontologies and state violence, making significant contributions to the field of social welfare studies and forced migration studies. Her extensive engagement with refugee communities, along with her personal experiences as a 1.5-generation immigrant, deeply informs and motivates her research.

Research Interests