CAAS Administration
Administratively based at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, CAAS is governed by a Board of Directors representing all regions of Canada and the two official national languages – English and French.
Board of Directors 2019-2020:
President – Uwafiokun Idemudia, York University
Associate Professor, Department of Social Science
Chair, Department of Social Science
Program Coordinator, International Development Studies (IDS) Program
https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/idemudia/
Outgoing President – Meredith Terretta, University of Ottawa
Meredith Terretta earned her PhD in African history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds the Gordon F. Henderson Research Chair in Human Rights and teaches history at the University of Ottawa. She specializes in themes of African liberation movements, legal activism, histories of refuge-seeking, and human rights. She has recently coedited African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony, and Refugee Rights (Ohio University Press, 2015). Her most recent single-authored book is Nation of Outlaws, State of Violence: Nationalism, Grassfields Tradition, and State-Building in Cameroon (Ohio University Press, New African Histories Series, 2014). Her articles appear in numerous journals including The Journal of Contemporary History, The Canadian Journal of History, Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps, Politique africaine, The Journal of World History, Human Rights Quarterly, and The Journal of African History. She is currently working on a book tentatively titled Activism at the Fringes of Empire: Rogue Lawyers and Rights Activists In and Out of Twentieth Century Africa.
Vice-President - Temitope Oriola, University of Alberta
Dr. Temitope Oriola is joint Editor-in-Chief of African Security journal and associate professor at the University of Alberta. A recipient of the Governor General of Canada Academic Gold Medal, Oriola’s book Criminal Resistance? The Politics of Kidnapping Oil Workers (Routledge 2016 [orig. 2013]) is one of a small number of book-length sociological investigations of political kidnapping in the English language. Dr. Oriola’s ongoing research focuses on the ascendance of extremist non-state transnational actors, particularly in the Lake Chad Basin. This research investigates the intricacies of the ascendance of Boko Haram, the trends and patterns of Boko Haram’s operations, the gender dimensions (particularly sexual and gender-based violence) and the backdrop of global jihadi terrorist trajectories. Dr. Oriola has published in leading scholarly venues such as Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Third World Quarterly, Sociology, the British Journal of Criminology, Canadian Journal of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Ethics and Critical Studies on Terrorism, among others. His research has received funding from organizations such as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the Killam Trusts. Dr. Oriola is a two-time recipient of the prestigious Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship (2015 and 2017). Dr. Oriola aims to contribute to enhancing the visibility of CAAS around the world. Dr. Oriola strongly believes that there are networks of scholars that CAAS can and should tap into to increase its already strong profile as the clearinghouse of African studies in Canada, and intends to enhance collaborations between CAAS and relevant organizations within and outside North America.
Secretary-Treasurer – Miriam Grant, University of British Columbia
Miriam Grant is a Professor (Geography) in the Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies, UBC Okanagan (Associate Member, Geography, UBC; Adjunct, Geography, University of Calgary). With a PhD from Queen’s University, she was a faculty member at the University of Calgary for twenty years before moving to UBCO to become Vice Provost and Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (2011-2018). She is an urban social Geographer whose Zimbabwe-based research includes low-income housing, social and economic vulnerability of youth, gendered aspects of HIV/AIDS caregiving, the urban elite in Bulawayo, and linkages between migration and urban food security in Southern Africa. Her work has been published in journals including Geoforum, GeoJournal, Social and Cultural Geography, Development Southern Africa, Social Dynamics, and the Canadian Journal of African Studies. She has been a member of CAAS since 1988.
Member-at-Large - Nathan Andrews, University of Northern British Columbia
At the moment, I am completing the research that formed the basis of my Banting postdoctoral fellowship. The focus of the project is on the socio-economic and political ramifications of oil and gas development in Ghana. With this background on Ghana, I seek to include two additional countries after which the project would be written up as a book manuscript for possible publication. In the meantime, I am also working with Dr. Jesse Ovadia (University of Windsor) and Dr. Andrew Grant (Queen’s University) to edit a volume based on a SSHRC-sponsored workshop organized in September 2017 titled, Mobilizing Canadian Knowledge on Natural Resource-Based Development in Africa. This project is preceded by another edited book under review with the University of Toronto Press, which was also an offshoot of a workshop co-organized at Queen’s University in May 2016 with a focus on Canada’s role in Africa’s natural resource sectors. In addition to my PhD work, all these ongoing projects reinforce my interest in the international political economy of natural resource extraction although I have a number of other related and varied research interests. I will be happy to work with students who have an interest in any of these areas of research.
https://www.unbc.ca/international-studies-graduate-program/dr-nathan-andrews
Member-at-Large - Nadège Compaoré, University of Toronto
Dr. W. R. Nadège Compaoré is a University of Toronto Provost Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political Science. Prior to this, she was respectively a Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Waterloo, a Research Analyst at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Social Science at York University. Her research lies at the intersection of International Relations and Global Political Economy scholarships, which guide her analysis of natural resource governance in Africa. Dr. Compaoré’s research has been funded by SSHRC, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, and the Canadian International Development Agency. She is co-editor of New Approaches to the Governance of Natural Resources: Insights from Africa (Palgrave, 2015). Her work has also been published in journals such as International Studies Review, Etudes Internationales, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, and Contemporary Politics. Dr. Compaoré holds a PhD in Political Studies from Queen’s University.
Finance Chair - Bonny Ibhawoh, McMaster University
Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh is the Messecar Professor in History and Global Human Rights at McMaster University. He has taught in universities in Africa, Europe and North America. Previously, he was a Human Rights Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs, New York, and Research Fellow at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Copenhagen. Dr. Ibhawoh is a member of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada, and recipient of the Nelson Mandela Distinguished Africanist Award for “distinguished contribution to research and the promotion of African affairs.” Dr. Ibhawoh has held several university administrative positions including Director of the Centre for Peace Studies, Associate Dean in the Faculty of Humanities, and Acting Associate Vice-President (Research) at McMaster University. Dr. Ibhawoh's publications include Imperial Justice, Imperialism and Human Rights and Human Rights in Africa. As a scholar with senior University administrative experience, Bonny hopes to bring his skills as manager of human and financial resources to CAAS.
Digital Innovator - Katrina Keefer, Trent University
Katrina Keefer is an Adjunct Professor at Trent University, Ontario, Canada. She is a cultural historian who specializes in identity, body marking, slavery, and initiatory societies in West Africa. She is a contributor to the Liberated Africans Project and the Studies in the History of the African Diaspora – Documents (SHADD) projects, both of which engage with biography in the Atlantic world. Keefer is working on a large scale digital humanities project on using permanent body marks to better discern origins and birthplace, and is embarking upon related research. She has previously published on scarification, Poro, and identity in Sierra Leone.
2020 Conference Organizer - Nicole Haggerty, Western University
Dr Nicole Haggerty is an Associate Professor in Information Systems and Director of the Africa Institute at Western University. Since she left the private sector to pursue a second career in Academia, she has studied how to maximize the effectiveness of IT enabled organizational performance. Her research has specifically focused on the role of the increasing importance of cross-functional knowledge sharing and virtual competence as mechanisms to enhance value creation from technology. Her most recent projects examine digital transformation initiatives in the health care sector. Dr. Haggerty also has a keen interest in case-based education and how this active learning method creates significant learning experiences for students. She has taught faculty development workshops on this method for over 500 faculty members in Colombia, The Netherlands, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana, India and Canada winning the 2012 Emerging Leaders Award in Academic Leadership from the Ivey Alumni Association and the Innovations in Case Teaching Award, from The Case Centre in the UK in 2014. Dr. Haggerty is a social innovator who runs The Ubuntu Management Education Initiative (www.ivey.uwo.ca/ubuntu) from Ivey with a goal of collaboratively building capacity for case based education in African Universities and Business Schools. As Director of the Africa Institute at Western University (https://www.uwo.ca/africainstitute/) she fosters interdisciplinary opportunities for Western’s 100+ active faculty and graduate students, across every Faculty who partner with and study African issues.
Graduate Student Representatives
Gladys Akua Agyeiwaa Denkyi - Manieson, Central University and University of Ghana
Gladys Akua Agyeiwaa Denkyi - Manieson is a faculty member at Central University, Accra. Ghana. She is also a second year PhD candidate at the University of Ghana. Her PhD thesis is on “Northrop Frye and Ngugi wa Thiong’O: a study in Archetypal Criticism”. Gladys is the author of several research articles. Her area of interest are African literary studies, literary criticism and film criticism. As an African based early career scholar, she hopes to use her position at a member at large to garner support and visibility for CAAS activities in and around the West African sub-region.
Dianah Byaruhanga Ajuna, University of Ottawa and Open AIR
Dianah Byaruhanga Ajuna is currently a PhD in Law student and a Student Research Fellow with Open African Innovation Research Network, Open AIR, at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Canada. Her PhD research area is Internet Governance, specifically assessing the international legal rules for combatting cybercrime. She holds a Master of Laws Degree in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Law from the University of Oslo, Norway, a Master of Legal Science in Law and Information Technology from Stockholm University, Sweden, a Post-graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Centre, Kampala, Uganda and a Bachelor of Laws Degree from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. Before pursuing her PhD in Law, Dianah established an ICT Law Centre in Uganda, which promotes the field of ICT Law. She is also an Enrolled Advocate of the High Court of Uganda and has worked as a Law lecturer at both Nkumba University (currently on study leave) and Uganda Christian University with a specialization in ICT/Cyber/Internet/Technology Law. In May 2019, Dianah was nominated and selected to represent Uganda in a U.S Department of State’s Premier Professional exchange program on promoting Cyber security as an International Visitor in the United States. In 2014, Dianah introduced ICT Law and Policy as a course to fourth year law students at Uganda Christian University as a way of promoting the field of ICT Law. She has continued to promote and advance the field of ICT/Cyber/Internet/Technology Law. In addition, as a way of promoting ICT/Cyber/Internet/Technology law, Dianah volunteered as a program committee member and co-chair for AFRINIC in organizing the 2019 Africa Internet Summit where she gave a presentation on “Africa’s role in promoting Internet Governance.”
Esther Ekong, University of Ottawa and Open AIR
Esther Ekong is a graduate student at the University of Ottawa, pursuing a PhD in Law. Her these is titled: The role of intellectual property rights as a development tool for women entrepreneurs in developing countries: The case of the cosmetics sector in Nigeria. She holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria; a Master of Laws (LLM) from the University of Benin, Nigeria; and a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from the Delta State University, Abraka, Nigeria. She is also a New and Emerging Research (NERG) Fellow with the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network, accredited to both Nigeria and Ottawa. Prior to studying in Canada, Ekong worked for 7 years as a Research Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) in Lagos, Nigeria’s foremost legal research institute. She was as a member of the research team that produced the Restatement of Customary Law of Nigeria (2013) an authoritative text on customary law in Nigeria that has been widely accepted by legal practitioners in the country and has been frequently referred to in judicial proceedings. While at the institute, Ekong was an assistant tutor for Criminal Law, Legislative Impact Analysis, Advanced Constitutional Law, and Environmental courses in NIALS’ postgraduate school. She was also a special assistant to the Director of Studies at NIALS between 2016 and 2017. Esther has published four articles and book chapters in reputable publications by NIALS. She is passionate about women’s rights and empowerment and was the initiator of Chadash Phoenix Woman Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) set up in Nigeria in 2012. Its mission is to help indigent women build capacity for small businesses and raise funds for them to start their businesses.
Ex-officio (by virtue of being Editors of the Canadian Journal of African Studies):
Belinda Dodson, University of Western Ontario (Coordinating Editor)
Belinda Dodson is Coordinating Editor of CJAS, a position she has held since 2015. Prior to that, she served as a CJAS Editor from 2012 to 2015. She has been a member of the Canadian Association of African Studies since 1998. She has degrees from the University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa and a PhD in Geography from Cambridge University in England. She was a faculty member at the University of Cape Town in the 1990s and joined the faculty in the Department of Geography at the University of Western Ontario in Canada in 2002. Her own research examines the intersection of gender, migration and development, with a regional focus on Southern Africa. Her work has been published in edited volumes as well as journals including Africa Today, Agenda, Canadian Journal of African Studies, Feminist Review, Gender Place and Culture, Health and Place, Migration and Development, and South African Geographical Journal.
Julie Archambault, Concordia University
Julie Soleil Archambault is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies in 2010 and has been co-editor of the Canadian Journal of African Studies since 2016. Her first research project looked at the new virtual intimate spaces opened up by mobile phone communication in Mozambique and examined the everyday struggles of young people through the lens of their mobile phone practices. She has also conducted research on human-plant relations and is currently writing a book on cement and prosperity in Africa. Julie is the author of Mobile Secrets. Youth, Intimacy and the Politics of Pretense in Mozambique (University of Chicago Press, 2017), and her work has also been published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Cultural Anthropology, American Ethnologist, Africa, Politique africaine and New Media and Society.
https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/sociology-anthropology/faculty.html?fpid=juliesoleil-archambault
Martin Evans, University of Chester
Martin Evans is Programme Leader for International Development Studies at the University of Chester. His main interests are in rural economic and political geographies in sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on conflict and ‘post-conflict’ situations. He has a long-standing research programme in Casamance, Senegal, which has more recently extended into studying the effectiveness of development interventions to support paddy rice cultivation in a context of climatic and social change. He is also interested in the emerging debates about the geostrategic implications of climate change. He is Editor for Geography-related papers for the Canadian Journal of African Studies.
https://www1.chester.ac.uk/departments/geography-and-international-development/staff/martin-evans
Philippe Frowd, University of Ottawa
Philippe M. Frowd is Assistant Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from McMaster University in 2015. Philippe’s primary research interest is in the transnational governance of security in the Sahel, with an emphasis on interventions around irregular migration and border control. His work draws on ongoing fieldwork in the region — in Mauritania, Senegal, and Niger — and has appeared in Security Dialogue, Millennium, International Political Sociology, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Philippe’s work on the social dynamics of security professionals as well as new technologies of border control such as biometrics forms the basis of his first book Security at the Borders: Transnational Practices and Technologies in West Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2018). His most recent projects have been on migrant smuggling in Niger (funded by the British Academy) and on non-state security provision in Burkina Faso (funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung).
Gillian Mathys, Ghent University
Gillian Mathys is a senior fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders and based at Ghent University. She has degrees from Ghent University and SOAS, and received her PhD in History from Ghent University in 2014. She is editor for the Canadian Journal of African Studies since 2019. Her current research focuses on decolonization, post-colonial violent conflicts and state formation in the east of the DRCongo from a longue durée perspective. Her work has been published in several edited volumes, as well as in The Journal of African History, Journal of Eastern African Studies, Conjonctures de l’Afrique Centrale, and the European Journal of Development Research. Her previous research, focusing on mobility and the historical trajectories of space and identity in the borderland between Rwanda and DRCongo is being revised as a monograph tentatively titled ‘Mobility and Exclusion: Making Borders and Identities in Central Africa’.
Jean Ntakirutimana, Brock University
Dr. Jean Ntakirutimana is a linguist and a professor in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures & Cultures at Brock University, Niagara Region, ON, Canada. He has a broad range of interests related to languages, education, cultures and communication, with a reliable cognizance of African languages and cultures, more particularly in the African Great-Lakes region and the surroundings.
Vanessa Oliveira, Royal Military College
Vanessa S. Oliveira, BA, MA, PhD, Assistant Professor of African History
History Department, Royal Military College of Canada
Dr. Oliveira teaches courses on early and modern Africa, European colonialism and African women’s history. She has published several articles and book chapters on women merchants, interracial marriage and slavery in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Her book Abolition and Slavery at Luanda is under contract with the University of Wisconsin Press. Dr. Oliveira is currently working on a project entitled A Social History of Slavery in Luanda, which focuses on the enslaved population of the capital of Angola and its hinterland during the era of “legitimate” commerce (1850-1870).
Jonathan Roberts, Mount Saint Vincent University (Book Review Editor)
Associate Professor and Chair
BA, MA McGill University
PhD Dalhousie University
Jonathan Roberts is from Lantzville, British Columbia and he arrived at the Mount in 2008. He holds a BA and an MA from McGill University and a PhD from Dalhousie University. Jonathan specializes in the history of medicine and religion in West Africa, with a particular focus on the history of healing in Ghana. As part of a project funded by the British Library, he is currently archiving witchcraft trial records held at shrines in Accra, Ghana. He is also interested in the politics of heritage tourism at slave forts in West Africa. At the Mount, Jonathan teaches courses in African and World history. He has recently taught the following courses: World History, Cultural Encounters in the Modern World, the Early African Past, Modern Africa, and Religions in African History
http://www.msvu.ca/en/home/programsdepartments/BA/history/facultyprofiles/jonathanroberts.aspx
Roger Riendeau, University of Toronto (Managing Editor)
Roger Riendeau, former Vice Principal of Innis College, University of Toronto (2003-16), is concluding a teaching career that began in 1976. While he has taught mostly in the Writing and Rhetoric Program at Innis College, his research and publications reflect his professional training as a historian – a graduate of Glendon College, York University and the University of Toronto (Canadian history specialist). Notably, he is the author of Mississauga: An Illustrated History (1985) and A Brief History of Canada (2000, second edition in 2007). As a professional editor, he has served in an advisory or a production capacity on many scholarly and popular books in various disciplines, and he has been the Managing Editor of the Canadian Journal of African Studies since 1986.
CAAS Secretariat:
Institute of African Studies
Carleton University
439 Paterson Hall
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa ON K1S 5B6 Canada
Tel: (613) 520-2600 x 2220
Email: caasacea@caas-acea.org
Director of the Institute of African Studies
Audace Gatavu, Executive Director
Sarah Katz-Lavigne, CAAS Communications and Advocacy Officer