she, her
Social Sciences Division
Associate Teaching Professor
Associate Director, Global and Community Health Program
Faculty
Global & Community Health
Social Sciences 1
Mondays 12-1pm
Social Sciences 1 Faculty Services
Professor Bugg is an Associate Professor in and Associate Director of the Global and Community Health Program at UCSC. She received an MDiv and ThD from Harvard University in 2006 and then an MURP from The University of Sydney in 2008. She has been part of the teaching and research faculty at both The University of Sydney (2008-2013) and The University of Toronto (2014-2024). She joined UCSC as a faculty member in March, 2024.
Prof. Bugg is a sociologist of religion and migration whose research investigates how governance, faith, and labor regimes shape social and spatial justice for new immigrant communities. In addition to publications on spatial governance of Islamic schools and Hindu temples, her current research analyzes corporate chaplaincy in U.S. agribusiness—especially within the H-2A temporary agricultural visa system—and is expanding to examine chaplaincy in ICE detention facilities. Across these sites, she shows how religious care and moral discourse intersect with labor control, risk, and precarity for migrant farmworkers and detained migrants. She also develops experiential learning that amplifies equity-deserving voices and centers social-justice pedagogy. At UC Santa Cruz—and previously at the University of Sydney and the University of Toronto—she has built community-partnered courses, including a prison-based project and initiatives with refugee- and asylum-seeker organizations.
KEY AREAS OF INTEREST: Religion, place, and governance; corporate chaplaincy (agribusiness/H-2A) and chaplaincy in ICE detention; migration, health, and welfare; spatial justice and urban planning; digital religion and mediated pastoral care; religion and development; anti-oppressive, community-engaged experiential learning.
Global and Community Health; Migration and Health; Religion and Health; Health Justice; Space, Place and Health; Critical Development Theory; Experiential Learning through an Equity and Justice Lens
2023 Inaugural Experiential Learning Faculty Fellow, University of Toronto
2013 The Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Teaching, The University of Sydney
2012 Social Justice SYRENS Award, The University of Sydney
2011 The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Excellence Award, The University of Sydney
Omar, S., Williams, C., Bugg, L. and Colantonio, A. (2024). "‘If you do not have Black futures in mind...then what’s guiding the steps': Anti-racist recommendations for traumatic brain injury rehabilitations’ investments in hopeful Black futures." Disability and Rehabilitation, 1-20. DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2024.2367604.
Omar, S., Williams, C., Bugg, L. and Colantonio, A. (2024). "Mapping the Institutionalization of racism in the Research about Race and Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation: Implications for Black Populations." Disability and Rehabilitation, 1-16.
Omar, S. Williams, C., Bugg, L. and Colantonio, A. (2024). "'Somewhere Along the Line, Your Mask isn’t Going to Be Fitting Right': Institutional Racism in Black Narratives of Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Across the Practice Continuum." BMC Health Services Research 24, 834.
Bugg, L. (2014). "How Gujarati Hindu Migrant Women Negotiate Identity and Belonging within their Religious Community: An Ethnographic Study’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40(12): 1934-1952.
Bugg, L. (2014). "Space, representation and belonging: a Swaminarayan temple in Sydney, Australia". In S. Mawani and A. A. Mukadam, eds. Globalisation, Diaspora and Belonging: Exploring Transnationalism and Gujarati Identity, Jaipur: Rawat Publications.
Bugg, L. (2013). "Citizenship and belonging in the rural fringe: a case study of a Hindu temple in Sydney, Australia". Antipode 45(5): 1148-1166.
Bugg, L. (2013). "Collaborative planning in a complex local context: The case of an Islamic school in Sydney, Australia." Journal of Planning Education and Research 33(2): 204-14.
Bugg, L. (2012). "Religion on the fringe: the representation of space and minority religious facilities in the rural-urban fringe of metropolitan Sydney, Australia". Australian Geographer 43(3): 273-289.
Bugg, L. and Gurran, N. (2011). "Urban Planning Process and Discourses in the Refusal of Islamic Schools in Sydney, Australia". Australian Planner 48 (4): 281-291.
Gurran, N., Milligan, V., Bugg, L., Baker, D. (2008). “International Practice in Planning for Affordable Housing: Lessons for Australia." Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Final Report No. 120, AHURI: Melbourne.