Following the Covid-19 pandemic, 91ŃÇÉ« launched a new research cluster titled Overcoming Epidemics in Transnational Black Communities – Response, Recovery and Resilience. The cluster is made up of Black scholars from five 91ŃÇÉ« faculties who have been working to understand how structural inequalities influence the way that Black communities experience, respond to and recover from epidemics.

Sylvia Bawa, associate professor of sociology, and Jeffrey Squire, an instructor in the Department of Social Science, are co-principal investigators on the study. Their work centres the voices of Black communities by engaging directly with organizations and community members in Toronto and internationally to ensure their work is addressing real-life concerns. Their findings will now be shared in a way that encourages dialogue and helps members of the community devise practical recommendations to support one another during future epidemics.

Read the full story in YFile.

Cynthia Kwakyewah, a professor in the Department of Social Science, has written an article for The Conversation examining how the long history of resource exploitation in Ghana has caused extensive harm to the environment and the wellbeing of its citizens. She discusses her research into how oil, gas and mining companies have acted exploitatively, and how activists in Ghana, including non-profit organizations and local courts, are shifting the landscape to create more accountability. Kwakyewah highlights how this activism demonstrates that change and justice can happen within Africa, rather than relying solely on intervention from the global North. She outlines her research process, the social activism undertaken by Ghanian civil society organizations and the tangible outcomes of this activism.

Kwakyewah is a global sociologist with research interest in human rights and social justice, sustainable development, environmental and climate justice, spatial inequality and civil society activism. Her scholarly work has been published in top peer-reviewed academic journals such as Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Business Strategy and the Environment and Transnational Human Rights Review.ĚýKwakyewah earned a PhD in sociology from Oxford University (UK) as a recipient of both the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship and the Klaus Murmann Doctoral Fellowship. In recognition of her outstanding academic achievements, she was awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal in 2018, an honour presented to the top-performing graduate student at 91ŃÇÉ«.Ěý

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Author: (Professor of African Studies and International Development Studies) 

Contributor: NNenna Okoli (PhD Candidate) 

“Most countries have anti-trafficking laws, policies and programmes to prevent human trafficking. There are also international treaties to address the problem. Yet it’s still thriving. 

Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring and control of a person using force and other methods of coercion. The aim is to exploit them. It could be through prostitution or sexual exploitation, forced labour, forced marriage, indentured servitude, and the removal and sale of human organs. 

It is also described as a form of modern slavery.” 

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“Orphaning Africans: Displacement Set in Motion”

This is the major event for this academic year by the African Studies Program in collaboration with Founders College. The program is bringing to the 91ŃÇÉ« community Haile Gerima who is a prominent filmmaker and Howard University academic on Africa and the African diaspora. Serving as interlocutor is Professor Pablo Idahosa, the head of Founders College, who is poised to stimulate a constructive and enlightening conversation with Professor Gerima on a range of issues, from the place of Africa in the world to the construction of blackness.  

March 19, 2021 from 13:00 – 15:00

Full details on the .

A virtual event will be held to celebrate recent publications by Annie Bunting, Lisa Drummond, Carlo Fanelli, Les Jacobs, Jaime LlambĂ­as-Wolff, Vanisha Sukdeo, and Douglas C. Young.

This event will take place onĚýTuesday, Feb. 9, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Zoom. Each of the books is available for purchase at the hyperlinks provided with the descriptions below.