CAAS Elections 2022: Nominee Bios

Published on May 10, 2022

Nominations for Vice-President

Dr Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin

Biography

Grace My name is Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin. I am an Assistant Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Youth and African Urban Futures at Queen’s University (Kingston, Canada). I am a feminist scholar who is interested in place-making and subjectivity through the study of African urbanisms and popular culture. In my ethnographic study of African urbanisms, I am primarily interested in how local engagements with the Africa Rising discourse and global aspects of the neoliberal political economy work together to (re)produce spatial and social inequalities and provoke resistance in African cities. My research focus on popular culture explores the issues of race and representation; subjectivity and belonging; and the use of Afrofuturism in geographic projects that address the colonial politics of difference.

Proposed Contributions to CAAS

I am pleased to be nominated for the position of CAAS Vice-President. CAAS holds a special place in my heart because it has been more than a scholarly space for me since I attended my first conference as a graduate student in 2009. It has also been a space where I have made friends and built community. As Vice-President, and eventually President, I would like to build upon CAAS’s commitment to community building in a manner that extends beyond our annual conferences. To this end, my visions for CAAS entail:

Strengthening CAAS as a space for building and sustaining collaborative and integrative research with members at different stages of their careers, and with non-academic bodies;
Expanding CAAS’s mentorship, professional development opportunities, and advocacy programing for junior scholars;
Consolidating and nurturing CAAS’s relationship with academic communities outside of CAAS;
Cultivating spaces for non-academics to participate in CAAS; and
Advancing additional opportunities for CAAS events with CAAS members and the wider community.

I am also deeply interested in centering more space, during the annual CAAS conference, for creative forms of research communication/outputs such as storytelling, art exhibitions and live performances.

As an individual committed to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Decolonization (EDID) principles, the specificities of my visions will rely on collaboration and consultation with the larger CAAS community, who will be invited to help shape how they imagine CAAS’s future and sense of place within the Canadian and global context.

In closing, I am an enthusiastic, energetic, creative, and organized individual who will serve, and partner with you to the best of my ability, to ensure that CAAS remains a thriving space/community you are excited about, and happy to belong to.

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