The conference will take place March 23, from noon to 6pm, at 152 Founders Assembly Hall, Founders College, Keele campus. It is hosted by H20Congo, a non-governmental organization started by 91��ɫ alumni Barbro Ciakudia (BA Hons. ’11) and Nancy-Josée Ciakudia (BA Spec. Hons. ’08), and 91��ɫ.

Cuneyt, a singer, and Hamna Mughal, a human rights activist and poet, will kick off the conference, followed by talks with Nythalah Baker, senior adviser, education & communications for 91��ɫ's Centre for Human Rights, and Professor Justin Podur (left), the Faculty of Environmental Studies graduate program director. Podur will give an overiew of the confict in the DR Congo and provide the historical context, as well as show a video he's put together.

Podur has written on political conflicts and social movements and has reported from Palestine, Haiti, the DR Congo and others. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Haiti's New Dictatorship: From the Overthrow of Aristide to the 2010 Earthquake (Pluto Press).

Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize winning film, , shot in the war zones of the DR Congo in 2006, will be screened in the afternoon. The documentary breaks the silence surrounding the tens of thousands of women and girls who have been kidnapped, raped and sexually tortured in during the DR Congo’s ongoing civil war. In the film, rape survivor and filmmaker Lisa F. Jackon talks with activists, peacekeepers, physicians and with the rapists themselves. She travels to remote villages to meet rape survivors who have been shamed and abandoned, providing a piercing, intimate look into the horror, struggle and ultimate grace of their lives. 

Two more speakers will take to the floor, including Jim Karygiannis, the  Liberal member of parliament for Scarborough-Agincourt. There will be storytelling by Ellias Nabutete, singing by Kasim and Blandine, poetry by SobAbu, as well as dancing by Fumu Jamez and the Maria Bahru dance company.

For more information, visit the Centre for Human Rightswebsite.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The event will take place Nov. 15, from noon to 2pm, in the Paul Delaney Gallery, 320 Bethune College, Keele campus.

Drink the Bitter Root: A Writer’s Search for Justice and Redemption in Africa (Douglas & McIntyre) is Geddes’ account of travelling across sub-Saharan Africa, a trip he had long been drawn to. His journey, however, was haunted by the 1993 murder of a Somali teenager by Canadian soldiers in what became know as "The Somalia Affair".

He questions whether the international Criminal Court in The Hague can change things on the ground in Africa and if international aid and intervention can improve the lives of ordinary Afri­cans, or whether it contributes to their suffering.

Geddes travels to Rwanda and Uganda, where he attends grassroots criminal courts and encounters rescued street kids, women raped and infected with HIV during the genocide and victims mutilated by the Lord’s Resistance Army. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Somaliland, with the help of fixers, guides and the occasional armed guard, Geddes finds himself in the instructive – and at times redeeming – presence of child soldiers, refugees and poets turned freedom fighters.

The stories Geddes brings back are hailed as uplifting, terrifying, stark and sometimes almost unbearable, but he presents them all with the essential lightness that Jean-Paul Sartre insisted is so crucial to good writing. His book is a blend of history, reportage, testimonial and memoir, a harsh condemnation of the horrors spawned by greed and corruption, and a tribute to human resilience.

Left: Gary Geddes

A poet, Geddes has taught creative writing and has written and edited more than 40 books. He has received numerous literary awards, including the British Columbia Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence and Chile’s Gabriela Mistral Prize. He is the author of two bestselling travel memoirs, The Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things (HarperCollins, 2005) and Sailing Home: A Journey Through Time, Place and Memory (HarperCollins, 2001).

His poetry collections include Falsework (Goose Lane Editions, 2007), Skaldance (Goose Lane Editions, 2004), Flying Blind (Goose Lane Editions, 1998) and Girl by the Water (Turnstone Press, 1994).

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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91��ɫ Professor Emeritus John S. Saul and 91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor in African history and Canada Research Chair Paul Lovejoy will be presented with the awards during the opening reception of the conference of the Canadian Association of African Studies – Africa Here; Africa There – at 91��ɫ May 5 to 7.

As 91��ɫ history Professor José C. Curto, co-organizer of the conference along with sociology Professor Ratiba Hadj-Moussa, says, “They’ve spent a lifetime fighting, in one way or another, for Africa. You can’t get any better than them.”

Right: John S. Saul

President of the CAAS Dennis Cordell wrote that Saul’s research achievements, along with his “deep and long-standing commitment to the struggle for equity, equality and human rights in Africa” are legion. He also pointed to Lovejoy’s “wonderful abilities to teach and mentor” students and younger colleagues.

Left: Paul Lovejoy

Lovejoy says the award is significant to him “because of the recognition of my contribution to understanding the history of people of African descent especially so since this is the UN International Year for People of African Descent and my personal commitment to exposing the crime of the ‘slave route’ and seeking reconciliation that can only be based on truth about the past.”

In addition to receiving lifetime achievement awards, both Saul and Lovejoy will launch books in conjunction with the conference Saturday, May 7, at Accents on Eglinton Bookstore, 1790 Eglinton Ave. W., Toronto. Saul’s Liberation Lite: The Roots of Recolonization in Southern Africa (Three Essay Collective) will launch beginning at 6:30pm, followed by The Harriet Tubman Institute Series of which Lovejoy is the general series editor at 7pm. There are 10 books in the Tubman series, including Slavery, Islam and Diaspora; Africa, Brazil and the Construction of Trans Atlantic Black Identities; and Africa and the Americas: Interconnections During the Slave Trade.

Liberation Lite is comprised of five essays. “The theme I’m emphasizing is that of liberation as a multiplex concept,” says Saul. His definition of liberation would include race, nation, class and gender, but also a democratically empowered voice. "Others in Africa and elsewhere have come to define liberation only in terms of the narrow construct of national independence."

Saul says liberation has to be multidimensional to be a useful concept. “We expected the liberation struggle would yield more than that,” more than simply national liberation, but also class, race and gender freedom.  It is not simply an emphasis that "we white lefties had dreamt up and taken over to Africa. We learned it there. We learned it there from Mozambique's Eduardo Mondlane, FRELIMO's first president, for example.” As it stands, “liberation has been pretty light and those who are concerned have to figure out how to deepen and enrich it,” he says. He also takes a critical stance towards global capitalism and corporate imperialism, and what he calls the "re-colonizing" of Africa by a new "empire of capital". In consequence, the concluding essay looks at why socialism still has significant resonance and merit in southern Africa and beyond.

Saul has published some 19 books, including Revolutionary Traveller: Freeze Frames from a Life (Arbeiter Ring, 2009) (see YFile, Jan. 13, 2010), Development after Globalization: Theory and Practice for the Embattled South in a New Imperial Age (Fernwood Publishing, 2006) and Decolonization and Empire: Contesting the Rhetoric and Reality of Resubordination in Southern Africa and Beyond (Fernwood Publishing, 2008).

He is hard at work on three more books. He says the lifetime achievement award may well be an acknowledgement of his body of work, but he is also accepting it “on behalf of all those who have worked diligently in support of South African-related struggles over the years, as well as against Canada's own complicity – that is, our government and corporations too often being on the wrong side of such struggles there.” In 2004, Saul was elected fellow of the .

Last year, Lovejoy received the Distinguished Africanist Research Excellence Award from the University of Texas at Austin for his dedication, lifetime of service and contributions to the discipline. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History, and has dedicated his career to researching and teaching African history.

For more information, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The conference will take place Thursday, May 5, from 8am to 8pm, and Friday, May 6, from 8am to 8:30pm, in the Assembly Hall, 152 Founders College, Keele campus. On Saturday, May 7, sessions will take place from 9:30am to 3:30pm in 001 Winters College, Dining Hall, Keele campus.

One of the round tables will look at revolutions in northern Africa, while another, chaired by Curto, will explore Angola under the Weight of the Slave Trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. “We’re doing the past, but we’re also doing very contemporary issues,” says Curto. The first session of the conference will be a round table via the web with presenters from Brazil looking at the present and future perspectives of African studies in Brazil.

The three plenary speakers will tackle a range of topics. Political science and Islamic studies Professor Khalid Mustafa Medani of McGill University will talk about “Informal Institutions and Identity Politics: The Evolving Political Economy of Transnationalism in North East Africa”, sociology Professor Imed Melliti of the Institut Supérieur des Sciences Humaines at the University of Tunis el-Manar will address “Jeunesses maghrébines: religiosité, enjeux identitaires et enjeux de reconnaissance” and Donald G. Simpson, who leads Innovation Expedition, will speak about “Africa – Here and There in the Sixties: A Canadian Perspective”.

Left: Khalid Mustafa Medani

Medani was named a Carnegie Scholar on Islam in 2007 by the Carnegie Corporation of New 91��ɫ, Melliti is the author of several books, while Simpson is the former director of the International Development Research Centre and the Centre for International Business at the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. For more biographical information on the plenary speakers, visit the website.

The conference theme, Africa Here; Africa There, is in recognition of the United Nations General Assembly proclaiming 2011 as the International Year for People of African Descent. The meeting will be hosted by 91��ɫ’s and will have sessions in both French and English.

Right: Donald G. Simpson

“What we are doing is not only focusing on the continent itself, but outside the continent,” says Curto. “Through the conference we are highlighting the bridge we’re making between the diaspora and the homeland.”

The second round table of the conference, Africa Here: Commemorating the Early African Canadian Experience, will be chaired by 91��ɫ Professor Michele Johnson, co-author of the book They Do as They Please: The Jamaican Struggle for Cultural Freedom after Morant Bay (University of West Indies Press), which will as part of the conference. Taking part in this round table panel will be 91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor in African history Paul Lovejoy looking at “Africa Here: Itineraries of African Canadian Memory and the UNESCO Slave Route Project”, Hilary Dawson of the Harriet Tubman Institute discussing “Locating Sites of Memory: Tracing an Itinerary of Memory for the African Canadian Experience” and Karolyn Smardz Frost, a research associate with the Harriet Tubman Institute, talking about “Slavery, Resistance and the Underground Railroad in Toronto”.

There will be presenters from Canada, the United States, Australia and Africa at the conference. 91��ɫ history PhD candidate Jeff Gunn will discuss “Child Soldiers and Modern Slavery in the 21st Century”, while 91��ɫ Professor Emeritus John S. Saul will discuss a “New Counter-Hegemonic Project in Contemporary South Africa: Moeletsi Mbeki, Zwelinzima Vavi and the Democratic Left Forum. Some of the other sessions will examine topics such as: Africa in Canada, Border Security in African Contexts, Governance and Management of Natural Resources in Africa’s Great Lakes Region, Perspectives on Gender in Africa, Urban Unrest in South Africa and Africans on the Move.

Lovejoy, director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples, will also chair the sessions examining The Central Sudan in Nineteenth & Early Twentieth Centuries and Aspects of the Slave Trade in the Atlantic World. In addition, there will be screenings of several documentaries, including Behind the Rainbow by Jihan El-Tahri, Sembene! By Jason Silverman and Escape from Luanda by Phil Grabsky.

For more information, including a detailed listing of speakers and sessions, visit the conference website or the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Last week, 91��ɫ law Professor Obiora Okafor was elected to the advisory committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The Nigerian-born professor brings his expertise in international law, human rights law,  and immigration and refugee law, especially as it relates to Africa, to the .

“The committee is the think tank of the Human Rights Council,” says . “It’s where the thinking begins.” He sees participating on the committee as a form of public service and an opportunity to make an impact at a relatively high level.

Okafor (left) was nominated by Nigeria to represent Africa on the 18-person committee for the next three years. The Geneva-based committee meets twice a year.

The son of an Ibo lawyer concerned about social justice, Okafor studied, practised and taught law in Nigeria before coming to Canada. He won a scholarship to the University of British Columbia, earned two graduate degrees and joined Osgoode Hall Law School in 2000.

“Human rights gave me a language and framework for expressing my concerns about social justice,” says Okafor.

At Osgoode, the award-winning teacher lectures on international human rights law, human rights in Africa and the international law of south-north relations.

His most recent research projects include a study of human rights activism in Nigeria and a comparison of refugee rights in Canada and the United States post 9/11.

He is also affiliated with 91��ɫ’s , the and the Graduate Program in Socio-Legal Studies.

Okafor has served as an expert panellist for the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent and a human rights consultant for the British Department for International Development. He has been a visiting scholar at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, and in Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program.

“I’m interested in a full range of issues, but the preponderance of my work is on human rights in Africa,” he says.

He has written three books: ; ; and .

He has also co-edited three books: ; ; and .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Right: Peter Van Loan speaking at 91��ɫ

Van Loan talked about “Canadian Opportunities in Asia-Pacific” at the event, which was co-hosted by and 91��ɫ’s Office of the Associate Vice-President International.

"Minister Van Loan delivered a very encouraging message on how much Canada is doing to promote free and open trade, and the importance we are once again attaching to the Asia-Pacific region,"  said Lorna Wright, 91��ɫ’s associate vice-president international.  "The panelists were able to offer the seminar participants advice from their own experiences of operating successfully in Asia-Pacific.

"One striking piece of information that many may not have thought about was given by Jill Anderson, president and CEO of Aecometric Corporation, a leading company in industrial combustion equipment," noted Wright. "She said that China is now a great starting point for moving into African and Middle Eastern markets.”

Left: President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri (left), Peter Van Loan and Dezsö Horváth, dean of the Schulich School of Business

Workshops such as these help Canada prepare for the November meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group in Yokohama, Japan, said Van Loan. “APEC meetings aim to strengthen trade and investment cooperation in the region. We have strong ties across the Pacific, and we want to increase opportunities for Canadian businesses in this highly dynamic region.”

The successful event was part of 91��ɫ’s continuing initiative to boost internationalization and awareness of international opportunities in business as well as research.

“Our University has built a strong reputation, both here and abroad, for the quality of our academic programs, for the calibre of our graduating students and for our outreach to and research partnerships with the business community,” said  91��ɫ President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. "This success is evident with our more than 240,000 alumni worldwide, many located in the APEC region, who are making significant contributions in this increasingly interconnected world.”

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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One of several Guyanese faculty at 91��ɫ, Prof. Grant played an important role in fostering links between Guyana and the University. In 1996, Prof. Grant was one of several faculty members to host Guyanese President Cheddi Jagan during his official visit to Canada.

Prof. Grant was cross appointed to the Departments of Political Science and Social Science. He taught in both areas for more than 30 years. He was also affiliated with 91��ɫ's Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean. Dedicated to his students, Prof. Grant was described as an inspiring mentor and friend.

He leaves behind his wife Gwen and three children, their spouses and six grandchildren. Visitation will take place today at the Highland Funeral Home, 3280 Sheppard Ave. E., from 2 to 4pm and from 7 to 9pm. Funeral services will be held on Saturday at 12pm at St. Paul's L'Amoreaux Church, 3333 Finch Ave. E. Interment is at Highland Memory Gardens, 33 Memory Gardens Lane.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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“The suburbs have not received a lot of attention, so we’re trying to shift the lens, so to speak,” says Keil, director of the City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY). “Urbanization is at the core of the growth and crisis of the global economy today. Yet, the crucial aspect of 21st-century urban development is suburbanization, which is defined as the combination of an increase in non-central city population and economic activity, as well as urban spatial expansion.”

Left: Suburbs being built in 91��ɫ Region. Photo by Roger Keil.

With $2.5 million in research funding through the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada’s program, Keil, along with some 43 researchers from around the globe, will study various aspects of what he likes to call the in-between city. Global Suburbanisms: Governance, Land and Infrastructure in the 21st Century is “the first major research project that takes stock of worldwide suburban developments in a systematic way. By studying suburbs, we analyze recent forms of urbanization and emerging forms of urbanism across the world, but we also take into view the dilemmas of aging suburbanity,” he says. Canadian suburbanization and suburbanism trends will serve as a critical basis for understanding suburbanization in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.

What makes suburbs so important to study is their abundant growth. In the 1800s, only about two per cent of the world’s population was urbanized. That increased to about 10 per cent in the 1900s and to almost 50 per cent in the early 2000s. The suburbs are changing and growing, and, in North America at least, they are becoming the place to be. “It’s a percentage increase but also a real increase because the world population has risen dramatically,” says Keil. “More and more people don’t live in dense urban centres anymore, they live in suburbs. So now we call it suburbanization instead of urbanization.” Canada is one of the most highly urbanized countries in the world and that includes the suburbs. When people immigrate to Canada, they often move straight to the suburbs, places like Brampton and Markham, bypassing cities like Toronto altogether.

Right: Roger Keil

The question then becomes, “When we see a suburb, how do we understand it? We want to create a different way of looking at things,” says Keil. “We also hope in the process…this information becomes useful to users of suburban spaces, where they consume and produce, as well as to developers.”

By examining the governance of suburbanization, researchers will get a better idea of how development is guided and regulated, and how state, market and civil society actors are involved. The seven-year project is comprised of many smaller studies of two to four years in length. The two prime anchors will be land – housing, shelter systems, real estate, greenbelts and megaprojects – and infrastructure, including transportation, water and social services.

Keil’s own keen interest is in greenbelts and the relationships between natural and social, urban and suburban. How, for instance, does water fit in? Where does it come from, a pipe, a lake, a well? What is the relationship of suburbanization to water? How is it used? “We need to develop alternatives and this is particularly true in environmental metabolism of waste disposal, water, smog. The energy use has increased…the environmental bads growing out of suburbs have outpaced suburbanization,” he says. “We all live in one environmental global space.” There is a need to understand that interconnectivity.

Left: Suburb of Kuisebmond in Namibia, Africa. Photo by Roger Keil.

In the process of studying suburbanization, researchers will be up against the traditional biases and ingrained way people think about the areas surrounding the city core, often as urban sprawl. “We need to break down and expand the way people look at the suburbs,” says Keil. There is not just one type of suburban development. There are the squatter settlements in Africa and Latin America, the expanding outskirts of India and China, the peripheral high-rise developments in Europe and Canada, and North America’s gated communities. With the different types of development come different social and cultural norms, land-use patterns and forms of transportation. “Through one lens we say these are all suburbanizations.” Until now, there has been “no serious attempt to bring all these phenomena together.”

This project will look at the differences between central cities and suburbs, as well as the diversity of suburban development. “Suburbs are very diverse ethnically, culturally and lifestyle-wise and the gender roles are not as traditional as 'Leave it to Beaver' may have led us to believe.” People around the world have negotiated the suburban realm in a variety of different ways.

New forms of suburbanization are being created all the time. There are copycat North American suburbs in Calcutta, for instance. Keil expects that suburbs around the world have different trajectories of where they’re going and he hopes that they can learn from one another. As it turns out, all cities and suburbs are not looking like Los Angeles or Chicago, as once thought. “We’re turning that upside down,” says Keil. “Conceptually, we want to rewrite the books. The suburbs can all be understood under a number of guidelines we want to develop. So there is a common lens we can look through despite the large variety of forms we see.”

In addition to the various studies, classes, workshops and conferences will held around the world. There will be a travelling multimedia exhibition at the end, a book series and a series of documentaries produced in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada. 91��ɫ’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit will connect the research with policy-makers and community organizations over the span of the project.

Through this project, the suburbs may finally get a little respect.

For more information, visit the CITY Web site.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

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