Rose Ukeci is a PhD candidate in socio-anthropology at the University of Mons (Belgium) and a Visiting Scholar at the Harriet Tubman Institute. Her research examines the political dimensions of vernacular knowledge in mining conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Through an interdisciplinary approach combining political anthropology, decolonial studies, and political ecology, she explores how local cosmologies, historical memories, and everyday experiences shape struggles over gold, territory, and sovereignty in the Anthropocene.

Several intriguing elements brought me to the Harriet Tubman Institute. First, 91ŃÇÉ«'s strong academic reputation and the quality of its research environment. Second, the Institute's focus on Africa and its diaspora closely aligns with my own research interests. Finally, I was particularly drawn to the Institute's vibrant community of scholars from diverse backgrounds, which creates valuable opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration.

During my stay, I have primarily been working on my PhD dissertation, beginning with the theoretical chapters. I have also made extensive use of the collections and archival resources at Scott Library to strengthen the historical dimensions of my research, particularly those related to conflicts during the colonial period in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

What first drew me to this research was my desire to contribute to a decolonial approach to knowledge production—one that begins with the experiences, knowledge, and perspectives of local communities rather than imposing analytical frameworks developed elsewhere. I believe that these voices deserve to be recognized as sources of knowledge in their own right.

My research is also deeply personal because it takes place in my home province, even though I now live abroad. Seeing that my work is welcomed by local communities gives me the motivation to keep going. Knowing that they see value in this research reminds me why I started this journey.

I hoped to present my research to the Institute's community and engage in discussions with fellow scholars. Unfortunately, because of the summer period, this was not possible. However, I am pleased that we are planning to hold an online research presentation in October, and I look forward to exchanging ideas and receiving valuable feedback.

I would encourage early-career researchers or students entering my field to choose a research topic they genuinely care about. Research can be intellectually demanding and, at times, emotionally challenging. Having a subject that truly matters to you helps sustain your motivation and resilience throughout the journey.

I have really enjoyed spending time on campus, especially taking breaks with a bubble tea between work sessions. I also appreciated walking through the university's green spaces during the warm summer days, which provided a refreshing balance to my research. Finally, I had the opportunity to visit Niagara Falls, which was an unforgettable experience.

Borauzima Feza Esther is a Congolese researcher and lecturer, holding a Master’s degree in Political science from the UniversitĂ© Officielle de Bukavu and a Master’s degree in Gender Studies from the UniversitĂ© Catholique de Louvain. She is currently pursuing a doctoral program at the University of Mons within the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

Her doctoral research examines the relationship between armed dynamics in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the environment, through an anthropological reading of gender. Her research is based on four empirical configurations operating in and around the Virunga National Park, located in eastern DRC: (1) Women fighters in armed groups, (2) Former female combatants incarcerated for espionage, (3) Female rangers of Virunga National Park, and (4) Female forest resource traders. She investigates how the agency of these women unfolds differently across temporal and spatial contexts.

I was drawn to the Harriet Tubman Institute because it offers a unique interdisciplinary platform to advance my research on the agency of women engaged in armed groups in eastern DRC—an issue that remains largely invisible in dominant security and conflict studies. Its strong engagement with Afro- and Black feminist perspectives provides an essential space to connect my work to broader debates on power, gender, and African and diasporic experiences.

My interest in this research emerged progressively from both my academic training and my lived engagement with conflict-affected environments in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Initially trained in political and administrative sciences at the UniversitĂ© Officielle de Bukavu, I developed a strong grounding in the analysis of armed conflicts, with a particular attention to their historical trajectories, institutional dynamics, and everyday manifestations. This early exposure led me to approach conflict not as an abstract phenomenon, but as a lived and locally embedded reality shaped by power, governance, and social experience. Over time, my work expanded toward political ecology through my experience as a researcher at the Groupe d’Études sur les Conflits et la sĂ©curitĂ© Humaine (GEC-SH) and a teaching assistant at the UniversitĂ© Officielle de Bukavu, where I became increasingly interested in how natural resources structure conflict dynamics. Through research and field engagement, I came to understand how resource governance, territorial control, and environmental exploitation are deeply intertwined with violence. A further turning point came with the integration of a gender perspective, particularly through my involvement in DDR programs and later my graduate studies in gender studies. This led me to question the persistent invisibilization of women and to rethink their roles beyond reductive victimhood narratives. What continues to sustain my passion today is precisely this intersection: the need to understand women’s agency as situated, ambivalent, and deeply embedded in socio-ecological and militarized environments.

I hope, above all, that this experience will allow me to build meaningful academic networks that can serve as a foundation for fruitful intellectual collaborations. The Harriet Tubman Institute provides a particularly rich environment for both human and scholarly exchanges, fostering dialogue, the sharing of ideas, and the refinement of scientific reflection. I also deeply value the working conditions offered here — the office space that was allocated to us during our stay. Having a space that allows one to pause, reflect, and fully dedicate time to writing is incredibly important. I’ve enjoyed spending quiet moments on campus, whether in Scott library or simply sitting in shared spaces. In research trajectories often shaped by urgency, such an environment creates the possibility to think more deeply, strengthen analysis, and engage more seriously with the writing process. Finally, I hope to leave with strong connections, renewed perspectives on my work, and collaborations that will continue to grow beyond the duration of my stay.

To early-career researchers or students entering my field, I would first say that it is essential to take the complexity of the field seriously, especially in conflict settings. This means recognizing that ready-made categories—such as victims, resisters, or agents—are often insufficient to capture lived realities. One must learn to listen to contradictions, silences, and ambivalences. Second, I would encourage young researchers to develop a strong methodological grounding, but without rigidity. Feminist and ethnographic approaches, for instance, help foreground power relations, positionality, and often-marginalized voices. At the same time, they require a high degree of reflexivity.

I would also emphasize the importance of patience. In this kind of research, data are not simply “collected”; they are built over time, through relationships of trust that are often fragile. Finally, I believe it is crucial to remain intellectually honest and emotionally aware. Working on violence, conflict, and precarity inevitably affects the researcher. It is important to acknowledge this, while maintaining analytical rigor. Above all, one should not lose sight of why this work matters: not to speak for others, but to make visible experiences and forms of agency that are often overlooked.

The Harriet Tubman Institute presents Politics/Poetics of Migration. This Black History Month exhibition invites artists to explore the complex histories, movements, and futures shaped by Black migration – voluntary and forced, historical and contemporary, local and global. From the Middle Passage to the Great Migration, from diaspora to return, this exhibition considers how movement defines Black life, culture, identity, and resistance.

This exhibition seeks artworks that engage both the political realities and the poetic imaginings of migration: displacement, being and belonging, borders and crossings, memory and transformation. Artists are encouraged to think expansively about migration – as a physical journey, a spiritual passage, a social condition, and a creative act.

In this political moment of renewed attention to migration, climate crisis, and global displacement, Politics/Poetics of Migration asks:

• How do Black artists trace, remember, or imagine migration?
• What new geographies of freedom and belonging are being formed?
• How do creative practices embody movement, survival, and reimagination?

Through the convergence of art, history, and lived experience, this exhibition aims to illuminate how Black mobility continues to shape the world’s cultural and political landscapes.

For questions or more information, please contact: Yasmine Espert and Muna-Udbi A. Ali at blackmigrationarts@gmail.com

Dr Lace M Jackson, Staff Tutor and Regional Academic at the Open University in the Faculty of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care

As a child born in the UK to Jamaican parents who were part of the Windrush generation, I felt quite sheltered from direct experiences of racism until I arrived at primary school. It was in those early years that although at the time, I did not recognise it as racism, I was subjected to it in the way I was spoken to and treated by some white teachers, who struggled to see me as a child as opposed to an object to have power over. I also experienced racial bullying from a fellow white pupil, who I realise now was suffering from an inferiority complex. He was a blue-eyed, fair hair traveller and so to feel big, he attempted to make me feel small. Unfortunately, he picked on the wrong person as I had always been a fighter. Treatment meant to silence me, only made me more determined to prove them wrong. Whilst for me, these experiences were very rare, still, the scars they left made a visible difference to the choices I made in both my life and career.  Most notably was my time working in a large local authority where oppressive practice and discriminatory language and behaviours felt embedded in the very fabric of the institution.  

In social work we are taught to engage in professional curiosity. Therefore, being a naturally inquisitive person, I wanted to understand the ‘why’ of this human condition racism or what through my research I define as ‘Shadism.’ Fundamentally, although it may not have been fully known to me at the time, I was questioning why people like me, a Global Majority women, were not considered or legitimised as leaders. Despite occupying senior strategic roles, it constantly felt like I/we have to fight, like Phyllis Wheatley, to prove ourselves to those leaders above us, to our white and sometimes similar peers and followers alike.

This led me on to my doctoral journey exploring the personal and professional challenges of Global Majority Leaders in the UK. I particularly felt it important to centre my research in a UK context, acknowledging that despite the UK colonising around 80% of the world as we know it, its dirty laundry remained on the shores of the USA, the Caribbean, in India and Africa.   I like so many contemporaries were beginning to ask those uncomfortable questions as to the reason this gaslighting on epic proportions was continuing to be held in place.

So, when I first decided to publish a small monograph of my PhD thesis, I was fatigued by lots of thoughts, including the fear of vulnerability, hypervisibility and the potential racial backlash seen by so many Global Majority academics, particularly in the UK. However, I felt that I owed it to the many Global Majority leaders, who, through their ‘pain and struggle’ as bell hooks (1991) so aptly described it, shared their battle stories and the epic genres of their lived experience of leadership from a UK perspective.

By drawing on critical race theory (CRT), (Delgado & Stefancic, 2011), the book aims to illuminate the underlying contextual and power structures of societies like the UK, where these leaders’ identity and construction is shaped, experienced, and practised. When so much of the leadership literature is dominated by those from the USA and other Eurocentric continents, I have reasonable assurance that my book is essential, as it explores the challenges that individuals of African, Caribbean, Asian and Southeast Asian descent (Global Majority leaders) living in the UK face in attaining, practising, and experiencing leadership within organisations.

Secondly, C R T is also used to uncover the dominant genres and occluded themes hidden within the narratives of Global Majority leaders as they share the fine-grained details of their lived experience with and about leadership. With these two lenses, the book allows us to understand and theorise how, through the shaping and influencing of meaning, Global Majority leaders continue to develop and practice leadership, presenting implications for theory, policy, and practice.

My book Global Majority Leaders: The Experience and Practice (2024) is offered as an important contribution to critical leadership practice and organisational studies and in response to the UN Sustainable Goals related to reducing inequality, decent work, and economic growth. Key findings in the book have the potential to influence leadership practice and as a valuable resource tool helping to promote inclusive and accountable institutional strategies by offering emancipatory ways to exercise leadership in the UK and beyond.

Dr Lace M Jackson is a Staff Tutor and Regional Academic at the Open University in the Faculty of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care. Lace also works as a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Bedfordshire and is the Managing Director of Purple Lace Consultancy Ltd specialising in Safeguarding, Organisational & Leadership Development.

Ifeyinwa (Ify) Okadigbo is a decolonial scholar-activist and Ph.D. researcher in Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies at 91ŃÇÉ«, Toronto. With dual master’s degrees in Gender and International Development (University of East Anglia, UK) and Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies (91ŃÇÉ«, Canada), her research investigates decolonial perspectives in African feminism, gendered power, and spirituality. Her work reflects her fervent desire to critically examine the ramifications of the colonial encounter and its enduring legacies on the lives, aspirations, and future trajectories of African women in the Igbo and Hausa communities of Nigeria. Her work delves into the intersections of coloniality, African spirituality, and western religion, highlighting the resilience and adaptability of African women in navigating these spaces.

Ify is an active participant in the academic community, having presented her research at numerous international conferences, including the Harriet Tubman Institute and the Black African Feminism Conference. Her presentations have covered a wide range of topics, such as indigenous spirituality, feminist theory, and the gendered implications of postcolonial power dynamics. She also regularly contributes to campus discussions, offering insights into African postcolonial and decolonial feminisms.

In addition to her research, Ify is committed to fostering scholarly growth and collaboration. She serves as a committee member for the Ph.D. admissions process in Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies at 91ŃÇÉ« and holds a student representative role within the Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies Association.

Ify’s interdisciplinary approach, rooted in decolonial methodologies, including oral histories, storytelling, and critical analysis, to challenge traditional narratives and amplify marginalized voices. By centering African epistemologies and feminist perspectives, Ify contributes meaningfully to the advancement of decolonial thought and the broader understanding of African feminism and gender studies.

Her work has been supported by many Grants and Fellowships.

Cheikh Nguirane, a native of Senegal, is an associate professor in Anglophone Studies at the Université des Antilles (Martinique). He completed his PhD at the University of Poitiers (France). His broad research interest includes Global Pan-Africanism, African Thought traditions, race-based issues and education in the African Diaspora.

As a fully bilingual academic, he approaches the African Diaspora from an interdisciplinary and internationalist perspective. He is currently working on a research project (in French) which reexamines the history of Pan-Africanism beyond renowned figures and congresses by including the circulations of ideas across the Black Atlantic and black women involvement in twentieth century internationalism and anti-colonial mobilizations.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Open House 2024 & Networking Event on October 3rd! It was a fantastic opportunity for scholars, students, and members to come together and engage in meaningful conversations, spark future collaborations, and reflect on key topics in Africa and its Diasporas.

Journal of African and African Diasporic Studies (JAADS) / La revue officielle de l’Institut Harriet Tubman pour la recherche sur l’Afrique et ses diasporas (READA)

JAADS/READA is the official journal of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas. It is an international, peer-reviewed, bilingual journal that publishes research advancing our understanding of Africans and people of African descent across the diaspora. Students and scholars publishing for the first time are guided and supported throughout the publishing process via ScienceOpen.

Black History Month 2025

Each year, The Harriet Tubman Institute hosts a series of events dedicated to a chosen theme. Black History Month at Tubman addresses anti-Black racism that impacts the Black community at both local and international levels. The upcoming Black History Month’s theme is Labour. Please contact tubman@yorku.ca if you would like to propose a panel or event.

Virtual Museum Project: The Underground Railroad to St. Catharines: Harriet Tubman’s Canadian Legacy

This project will become a digital museum that tells the story of Harriet Tubman’s time in St. Catharines and how her efforts helped fugitives establish their lives in Canada. St. Catharines was the last stop on the Underground Railroad and for several years it was Tubman’s northern base of operations. Through historical photographs, textual records, and the voices of their descendants, this project pays homage to the early Black settlers in southern Ontario, Harriet Tubman, and to the descendants of those whom she guided to Canada. The Virtual Museum will go live in February 2025.

International Conference 2026: Jamaica

The Harriet Tubman Institute hosts international conferences every few years. In 2023, the International Conference, Africa and its Diasporas’ Contributions to World Civilizations, was held at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. The upcoming conference will be held in Jamaica in 2026. Planning is still underway—stay tuned for more information.

Tubman Talks

The Harriet Tubman Institute offers Tubman Talks on Thursdays in the Resource Centre (314 91ŃÇÉ« Lanes). They provide an intellectual space that fosters debate among scholars whose research interests focus on the history and contemporary experiences of Africans and people of African descent. Tubman Talks provides individual researchers, as well as research teams, with a platform for exchange. Students especially are encouraged to sign up for Talks to strengthen presentation skills and receive feedback on research. Contact Bianca Beauchemin <biancab4@yorku.ca>, Tubman Talks organizer, if you are interested in presenting.

Grants

The Harriet Tubman Institute provides various forms of support to researchers managing their grants through the Institute. Contact tubman@yorku.ca to learn more.

Research Clusters

Attendees of the Open House & Networking Event engaged in productive discussions on how members wish to organize and participate in Research Clusters.

• Labour, Movement and Mobility
• Expressive Culture and Belief Systems
• Politics, Economics and Social Justice
• Theories and Methodologies, including Oral Sources and Digital Humanities
• Genders and Sexualities
• Health and Disability
• Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics

If you are a Tubman member and would like to join a Research Cluster, please fill out the . If you would like to become a Tubman Member, .

We invite everyone to stay connected with the Harriet Tubman Institute, whether through upcoming events, contributing to our research clusters, or publishing with JAADS. Let’s continue building a strong community together!

October 31, 2024

United Nations Headquarters, New 91ŃÇÉ«

Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Proceedings to be published in the Review of Political Economy

By: Kay Tracey

I am not property.

I have autonomy.

I am not smart for a Black girl.

I am just smart.

I am not a slave.

Because I was born free

My ancestors ran away, so I could be set free.

While your life is filled with opportunities, emancipation, deregulation, and social integration.

Mine is filled with segregation, institutionalization, disengagement, and other forms of barriers

that threatens my existence and yet I have more barriers, but you still fight to silence my voice

when I have made the right choice. So, do not blame me when I steal the chips that I was going

to pay for, but you treated me like a criminal for simply being, so now screw you because now I

have seen that no matter how hard I fight, I will always be iligitimized.

They say that I am pushy, lazy, noisy, shitless, crazy, servile.

But why must you treat me differently? because I am dark, is it my skin or is it from within.

The door is a place, real, imaginary and imagined, but no not a door of opportunities.

It is more a door of pain and sorrow that is filled with deep dark sadness that plagues the lives of

people like me.

Think it is fun to go through the door of no return.

Where you feel captive as you clutch to the false sense of security of that which might exist, but

not for me but exists for another.

We talk of surveillance, but what is being surveilled?

We talk about discipline but what does that entail?

We talk about power and mobility but where are we going?

Do all these plans include me?

Do all these plans include me?

Or will the decision as to my autonomy, be in your hands.

What is this social contract and who signed it?

Should my ancestors' decision be on my shoulders?

Black lives matter but in what context?

Is it the Black lives that has to make sure they wear the white mask of conformity according to

Fanon or is it the power structure that places me in a box, or is it the power that has the

responsibility of change, but rather they put me in imaginary slavery boxes and asks me to

conform, assimilate but not create or equate?

Am I a rebel because I think and want equality?

Or should I be seeking equity?

But does that dark matter prohibit me from ever transitioning?

Am I scared to cross that line that stop me from shaking a white person's hand, the same I would

a Black and is that trauma and how should I deal?

Criminalized rather than victimized.

Tolerated rather than accepted.

Situated and oh no! do not forget perpetuated.

Dehumanized and radicalized.

But why? Did they ever ask or was it just assumed?

That it might be because this system was never built for me.

It was built for the cleanliness but not for the darkness.

It was built for the pure, but not for those who endure.

So why box me in when I create a voice?

If not for all but just because I have found power, discipline and created sousveillance as a form

of protection, protection from what you might ask and my response.

From the system not built for me but acknowledged for the institution that we have formed

inside, the one that keeps us separate yet safe and until then that’s where I shall reside.

Artist Bio

Kay Tracey is a poet, aspiring philanthropist, and Ph.D. Student at 91ŃÇÉ« studying Social and Political Thought with a focus on Black Studies. Her research interests include anti-Black racism in Canada, Black diasporic identity, and the human. As a developing intersectional scholar, her educational background and interests range from social justice, criminology, education, policy, human rights, and political thought.

Her research interests stem from the fact that often Black folks find themselves in precarious situations that require them to change their identity or wear some form of mask of conformity, depending on the space they are entering. Kay’s research interests explore why this is still an occurrence while aiming to deconstruct the harmful narratives that continue to perpetuate anti-Black racism in Canada and other spaces.

Kay works closely in the community as an advocate for disadvantaged youths and refugees, by providing/sourcing different resources including but not limited to educational, mental health, legal/human rights, accessibility, and housing.

Kay intends to use her research, platforms, and knowledge learned as a vehicle to continue the change, while disseminating research findings and information through varying formats, such as the arts, to create more accessibility for all folks and not just those who can understand the academic jargon.

Photographer: Cyrus Sundar Singh

Written by: Omosalewa O. Olawoye

From October 9th-October 11th, 2023, the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas (91ŃÇÉ«, Canada) and l’Institut SupĂ©rieur des Arts et des Cultures (Cheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal) hosted an interdisciplinary conference under the theme: Africa and its Diasporas’ Contributions to World Civilization. This conference welcomed academics and students around the world for rich discussions on the contributions of Africa and its diasporas.

The bilingual conference had panels on Gender, Migration and Blackness; Decolonizing Global Health and Education; and Black Resistance. Panelists include Vivien J. Bediako, Channon Oyeniran, Henry Gomez, Cyrus Sundar Singh, Sharon Henry, Amarachi Chukwu, Matthew Randolph, Gustave Rodady, and Kay Tracey. The conference had rich discussions on the narrative around Black women’s healthcare; the healing journey of people from the diaspora through the slave trade routes in Ghana; the experiences of first and second generation Ghanaian-Canadian immigrants and their emotional connections to the Motherland; exposing African and African diaspora children to their African roots through written words; the African influence in the Caribbean and Calypso as a tool of social change; the role of the African diaspora and Afrobeats in musical globalization; stories from the displaced Africville community in Halifax; the notion of Black superiority through the history of Haiti; how colourism and identity confusions are exploited in the division of Haiti and the roles of Creole and voodoo in the creation of the Haitian identity; and the racial segregation in Canada even among refugee selection.

There were two workshops in English and French on Decolonizing Museums and representations of Africans and people of Black Descent, and Debating on Decolonizing Knowledge on Africa. Here, contributions on Africa and its diaspora to education and the world were highlighted. Discussions included how to decolonize the current curriculum to include the contributions of Africa and its diasporas.

The conference ended on Wednesday with a visit to the Museum of Black Civilizations and a visit to Ile de Gorée (Gory Island). These visits were educational and participants got to go on a real-life healing journey through the slave routes in Gory Island. Overall, it was a successful conference and we look forward to many more international conferences by the Harriet Tubman Institute.

Time: 12:00 - 2:00pm ET

Location: 314 91ŃÇÉ« Lanes

English language version follows

Le fĂ©minisme est un humanisme, avec le docteur Denis Mukwege

ÉvĂ©nement organisĂ© par la Professeure Gertrude Mianda, ancienne directrice de l'Institut Harriet Tubman (Harriet Tubman Institue), et le Professeur James Orbinski, directeur de l’institut de santĂ© (Dahdaleh Global Health Institute). Soutenu par Pascal Arseneau et le campus Glendon de l'UniversitĂ© 91ŃÇÉ«.

Lorsqu'on a demandĂ© Ă  l'Ă©crivain et philosophe V.Y. Mudimbe, de la RĂ©publique DĂ©mocratique du Congo (RDC), pourquoi il Ă©crivait si souvent Ă  propos de l’exploitation des femmes dans ses romans, il a rĂ©pondu: parce qu'elles partagent la mĂȘme nature humaine que moi.

Cette impulsion humaniste guide le travail du mĂ©decin fĂ©ministe, le Dr Denis Mukwege. Il a consacrĂ© ses compĂ©tences mĂ©dicales au soutien des femmes ayant subi violences sexuelles en tant qu’armes de guerre. En tant que fĂ©ministe, il a Ă©levĂ© sa voix pour demander la fin de ces attaques, qui violent les droits humains fondamentaux des femmes et des filles.

Lors d'un Ă©vĂ©nement Ă  Glendon, l'UniversitĂ© 91ŃÇÉ«, le 15 juin 2023, organisĂ© par l'Institut Tubman et l'Institut Dahdaleh pour la SantĂ© mondiale, en vue de l’octroi du doctorat honoris causa en droit que l’universitĂ© 91ŃÇÉ« lui a dĂ©cernĂ© le 16 juin, la communautĂ© de la RDC de la rĂ©gion du Grand Toronto a cĂ©lĂ©brĂ© le travail du Dr Mukwege et son engagement infatigable contre les violences faites aux femmes en pĂ©riode de conflits et de guerres.

Comme le dĂ©crit son mĂ©moire La Force des Femmes, le Dr Mukwege a fondĂ© l'hĂŽpital Panzi en 1999 Ă  Bukavu, dans l'est de la RDC. Son objectif initial Ă©tait de soutenir les femmes pour un accouchement sain. Cependant, il s'est rapidement rendu compte que les patientes qu'il recevait Ă©taient des femmes ayant subi des violences sexuelles pendant des conflits. Il s'est alors engagĂ© Ă  les soutenir avec ses compĂ©tences professionnelles. ParallĂšlement, il a compris qu'une approche plus holistique serait nĂ©cessaire pour permettre Ă  ces femmes de redevenir des actrices de leur propre corps et de leur vie.

L'hĂŽpital Panzi apporte un soutien mĂ©dical aux femmes, mais comme l'a soulignĂ© le Dr. Mukwege lors de son discours, les soins mĂ©dicaux ne suffisent pas. Pour aider les femmes Ă  se reconstruire, d'autres femmes les guident et les accompagnent. Les arts, en particulier la danse et le chant, aident les femmes ayant subi des violences sexuelles Ă  retrouver leur corps et leur pouvoir d'agir.

Si cette soirĂ©e Ă©tait une cĂ©lĂ©bration du travail important du Dr. Mukwege, pour lequel il a reçu le prix Nobel de la paix en 2018, il a soulignĂ© que ses efforts ne sont pas toujours bien accueillis. Son engagement fĂ©ministe en faveur des droits humains des femmes a Ă©tĂ© critiquĂ© comme atypique pour un homme. Son travail dans les zones de conflit a fait de lui et de son hĂŽpital des cibles d'attaques meurtriĂšres. Le Dr. Mukwege a survĂ©cu Ă  plusieurs tentatives d'assassinat et a passĂ© une pĂ©riode d'exil avant de retourner en RDC pour poursuivre son travail.

Dans son introduction Ă  la soirĂ©e, le Professeur Orbinski, directeur de l'Institut de SantĂ© mondiale Dahdaleh, a soulignĂ© que la vie du Dr Mukwege est un exemple de courage. Le courage exige d'affronter le pire de l'humanitĂ© et de dĂ©cider que, malgrĂ© le coĂ»t pour soi-mĂȘme, il faut agir avec pragmatisme dans la reconnaissance de la dignitĂ© de la victime.

Enfin, si cette soirĂ©e a Ă©tĂ© une cĂ©lĂ©bration du travail du Dr. Mukwege au nom des femmes en RDC, cette soirĂ©e a aussi offert une occasion de reconnaĂźtre les contributions essentielles de la Professeure Gertrude Mianda. Comme l'ont soulignĂ© le Dr. Mukwege et le Professeur Orbinski dans leurs discours respectifs, la Professeure Mianda est remarquable pour ses propres engagements fĂ©ministes.

Ses recherches ont remis en question l'oppression partout oĂč elle se trouve. Son travail dĂ©crit et critique la “triple marginalisation” des femmes migrantes africaines francophones au Canada anglophone, qui subissent l'oppression en raison du racisme, du sexisme et de la langue. En mĂȘme temps, le Professeur Mianda s'oppose aux â€œtraditionalismes” africains lorsqu'ils dĂ©fendent des valeurs patriarcales. Elle a soutenu les Ɠuvres fĂ©ministes des africaines, notamment les Ă©crits d'Awa Thiam et celui de quelques romanciĂšres, mettant en avant sa contribution Ă  la littĂ©rature contemporaine et Ă  la connaissance du monde, en dĂ©nonçant les injustices et en rĂ©clamant les possibilitĂ©s de relations plus justes et Ă©quitables.

Cette soirĂ©e a mis en avant le travail essentiel du Dr. Mukwege et ses efforts pour mettre fin aux violences sexuelles contre les femmes en pĂ©riode de guerre, elle a Ă©tĂ© en mĂȘme temps l’occasion de cĂ©lĂ©brer tous ceux en RDC et dans la diaspora qui, en tant qu'humanistes et fĂ©ministes, cherchent Ă  soutenir le droit des femmes Ă  vivre libres de violences sexuelles. Leur travail est un rappel des responsabilitĂ©s que nous avons tous dans cette lutte, en RDC, ici, et partout dans le monde.

Feminism: The Humanist Impulse, with Dr. Denis Mukwege 

Event organized by Professor Gertrude Mianda, then Director of the Harriet Tubman Institute and Professor James Orbinski, Director of the Dahdaleh Global Health Institute. Supported by Pascal Arseneau and the Glendon Campus, 91ŃÇÉ«.

When the writer and philosopher V.Y. Mudimbe, from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was asked why he wrote so often about women’s subjugation in his novels, he answered: because we share the same human nature. 

This humanist impulse informs the lifelong work of feminist physician Dr. Denis Mukwege. He has devoted his skills as a physician to supporting women who have experienced sexual violence as a weapon of war. He has raised his voice as a feminist, insistently, to call for an end to such attacks, as violations of women’s fundamental rights to dignity and freedom.

At an event held at Glendon, 91ŃÇÉ« on June 15, 2023, organized by the Tubman Institute and the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health, on the occasion of the honorary doctorate in law awarded to him by 91ŃÇÉ« on June 16. The DRC community in the Greater Toronto Area celebrated Dr. Mukwege’s work and steadfast commitment to ending sexual violence against women in conflict and wartime. 

As his memoir, La Force des Femmes, explains, Dr. Mukwege founded Panzi hospital in 1999 in Bukavu, in the eastern part of the DRC. There, he hoped to support women to healthy childbirth. Instead, the patients he received were women who had suffered sexual violence during conflict. He committed to supporting these women with his professional skills. At the same time, he quickly realized that a more holistic approach would be required to enable these women to become, once again, actors in their own bodies and lives.

The Panzi hospital supports women medically but, as Dr. Mukwege emphasized in his talk, this medical care is not enough. In helping women to recover, women mentor other women. The arts, especially dancing and singing, are important to enabling women who have suffered from sexual violence during conflict, as they reclaim their bodies and their agency. 

If the evening was a celebration of Dr. Mukwege's important work, for which he was recognized by a Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, Dr. Mukwege emphasized that his efforts are not universally embraced. His feminist commitment to women’s human rights has been critiqued as anomalous for him, as a man. His work in conflict zones has made him and his hospital a target for murderous attacks. Dr. Mukwege has survived several attempts on his life, and a period in exile, before returning to the DRC to continue his work.

In his introduction to the evening, Professor Orbinski, Director of the Dahdahleh Global Health Institute, emphasized that Dr. Mukwege's life is an example of courage. Courage demands that you face the worst that human beings can do to each other and decide that, despite the cost to yourself, you will act pragmatically to recognize the inherent dignity of the victim

Finally, if the evening was a celebration of Dr. Mukwege's life's work on behalf of women in the DRC, it was also a moment to recognize the critical contributions of Professor Gertrude Mianda.

As both Dr. Mukwege and Professor Orbinski emphasized in their respective remarks, Professor Mianda is remarkable for her own determined, feminist commitments. 

Her scholarship has challenged oppression wherever it is found. Her work describes and critiques the "triple marginalization" of francophone African migrant women in anglophone Canada, who face oppression because of racism, sexism and language. At the same time, Professor Mianda challenges African “traditionalisms” when these defend patriarchal values. She has championed the works of African women novelists, notably Awa Thiam’s writing and those of various novelists, highlighting contributions to contemporary literature and knowledge about the world, in its injustices and possibilities for right relationships.

This evening foregrounded the critical work of Dr. Mukwege, and his lifelong efforts to end sexual violence against women in war. At the same time, the evening celebrated all those in the DRC and diaspora who, as humanists and feminists, seek to support women’s right to live free from sexual violence. Their work is a reminder of the responsibilities that we all have in this struggle, in the DRC, here, and around the world.