Decentering
the Field of
Black Studies
November 7 2024
November 8 2024
PANEL 1 - Black methods and methodologies
Philippe Néméh-Nombré
Philippe Néméh-Nombré is an assistant professor at Saint Paul University’s Élisabeth Bruyère School of Social Innovation. Before joining Saint Paul University, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University. He holds a master’s degree in sociology from the Université du Québec à Montréal and a PhD in sociology from the Université de Montréal. His research focuses on Black political thought, cultures, poetics and ecologies, on the possibilities of relations between Black and Aboriginal liberatory perspectives, and on critical methodologies. He is also a member of the Black Symposium organizing committee.
Diahara Traoré
Diahara Traoré is a professor at the University of Montreal’s School of Social Work. Her research interests focus on emancipatory group intervention, non-Western epistemologies in social work, group work in Black communities, and the place of religion and spirituality in social work. Her work focuses on cosmologies, beliefs and practices within African communities in Quebec, gendered knowledge within these communities, and their implications for social work training and research. As a socio-anthropologist, she attaches great importance to narratives and orality. Her aim is to develop practices and knowledge that promote the emancipation and inclusion of marginalized groups, by valuing critical perspectives.
Amal Madibbo
Amal Madibbo is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. She is also the inaugural director of the Centre for Black Studies in Education. Her research focuses on black studies, french-speaking world, immigration, race and anti-racism in Africa. Ms. Madibbo teaches courses in the fields of immigration, globalization and race and ethnic relations.
Professor Amal Madibbo’s research lies at the intersection of Black Studies and Francophone Studies, focusing on Francophone Black immigration, race and anti-racism, and ethnic relations in sub-Saharan Africa. Her studies are global in nature, reaching beyond Canada to work in Sudan, France, Mali, Senegal, Chad and Rwanda in the fields of immigration, race and ethnicity, conflict and conflict resolution, and identity. Professor Madibbo’s work has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
In this paper, I launch an in-depth reflection on black ontology, its sites of reproduction and how it can and should be extended in order to counteract and transform the coloniality of research. I integrate a certain black historicity, agentivity and subjectivity from black philosophies in order to reiterate the richness of this field and its transformative indigenous knowledge. I also emphasize its contribution to the critical examination of black diasporas, their struggles and the affirmation of a propitious black future, as well as the links between these diasporas and other communities and spaces.
Joana Joachim
Joana Joachim is Assistant Professor of Black Studies in Art Education, Art History and Social Justice at Concordia University. Her research and teaching focus on black feminist art history, black diasporic art history, critical museologies, black Canadian studies and Canadian slavery studies. Her current book project examines Black women’s practices of self-preservation and self-care in contexts of slavery under the French regime, taking into account both historical and contemporary artworks. She received her PhD from the Department of Art History and Communication Studies and the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University. Dr. Joana Joachim holds a Master’s degree in Museology from the University of Montreal and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with distinction from the University of Ottawa. Dr. Joachim’s writings have appeared in books, journals and magazines, including History, art and Blackness in Canada, Manuel Mathieu: World Discovered Under Other Skies, RACAR, Canadian Journal of History and C Magazine.
Panel 2 - Black studies and university
Simplice Ayangma Bonoho
Simplice Ayangma Bonoho is Assistant Professor of African History in the Department of History at the University of Montreal. Between 2021 and 2023, he was a teacher-researcher in the History Department of the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon) and a Banting postdoctoral researcher at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke (Canada). Simplice Ayangma Bonoho holds a Ph.D. in economic and social history from the University of Yaoundé I, and a Ph.D. in general history from the University of Geneva. In 2022, he received the Lombard Odier Prize from the Swiss Forum for International Politics (FSPI), for the excellence of his thesis on multilateralism and the new challenges of multilateral diplomacy. His areas of research are the history of health, international organizations and development. He is also interested in relations between Canada and French-speaking Africa, specifically in terms of health development. Simplice Ayangma Bonoho is the author of over twenty articles, both published and forthcoming. His book L’OMS en Afrique centrale. Histoire d’un colonialisme sanitaire international (1956-2000) was published in 2022 by Éditions Karthala.
Rose Ndengue
Projects to institutionalize African studies and black studies, carried out by various black communities in Africa and the diaspora, have led to an androcentric production of knowledge on black geographies, which needs to be called into question. This is the aim of this paper, which seeks to provide food for thought on the frameworks of thought and experience from which black studies are thought. It is based on a particular position. That of a French-speaking African academic who defines herself as a black feminist in the transatlantic space, living in diaspora in a bilingual, predominantly English-speaking Western space. Indeed, I approach the production and dissemination of Black Studies through my own trajectory, which combines African, European and North American experience on the one hand, and a feminist anti-racist commitment articulated to my work as a teacher-researcher on the other.
Pascale Caidor
Pascale Caidor is a professor in the Department of Communication at the Université of Montreal. She is primarily interested in the relationship between public relations and various forms of inequality, and their impact on social justice. Her work highlights the importance of the social role of public relations in the implementation of measures, policies and action programs aimed at defending the interests of marginalized communities. Since 2023, she has been involved in the Black Studies Working Group, which brings together various members of the Arts and Sciences Faculty at the University of Montreal. It was within this framework that she led, jointly with Diahara Traoré and Catherine Larochelle, a knowledge mobilization project funded by CRI-JaDE. The project ended in 2024 with an interactive workshop and the submission of a report to University of Montreal authorities. Pascale Caidor’s work explored the trajectory and various forms of appropriation of organizational change based on ethno-cultural diversity.
PANEL 3 - Black studies outside university
Marie-Yemta Moussanang
Marie-Yemta Moussanang is a French-Chadian independent researcher, consultant and entrepreneur. A graduate of Sciences Po Lille and EHESS in philosophy, and in the creative industries (Institut Français de la Mode), Marie-Yemta works between France and the Sahel. Through the Afrotopiques podcast, she offers a popular education program that tackles contemporary issues from the perspective of the Suds and African Worlds, from a critical perspective informed by the social sciences and new anthropological and environmental studies. Her areas of interest include new critical theories of modernity, vernacular economies, new models of social protection and public policy design in the South. She is co-founder of the Génération Afrotopia association, whose mission is to contribute to the production and circulation of emancipatory ideas and forms of action from Africa and its diasporas. Today, the Génération Afrotopia association is responsible for the Radiobougou project, an oralities publishing house that supports the production of Afro-diasporic sound creations committed to the transmission of emancipatory knowledge and the collection of memories.
Zaka Toto
ZAKA TOTO is a writer, editor-in-chief of the Martinican magazine ZIST and co-founder and president of La Fabrique Décoloniale, a collective of academics, educators and artists aiming to encourage conversations and projects around issues of cultural decolonization in Martinique. He is also a doctoral student in history and political science, working on the interactions between political identities and independence movements in the contemporary French Caribbean.
Dorothy Williams
Dorothy Williams, PhD, is a historian specializing in Black Canadian history. She is the author of three books and has contributed to other scientific and academic publications. Her first book, Blacks in Montreal: 1628-1986 An Urban Demography, was commissioned by the Quebec Human Rights Commission in 1989, as part of its study of racism in the Montreal housing market. His second book, published in 1997, The Road to Now: A History of Blacks in Montreal, remains the only chronological study of Blacks on the island of Montreal. Her latest work, Blacks in Montreal : An Urban Demography‘, published in 1998, is a translation of Blacks in Montreal. During her doctoral studies, she wrote chapters on Black Canadian print culture for two volumes of The History of the Book in Canada (University of Toronto, 2005, 2007). Her dissertation, Sankofa: Recovering Montreal’s Heterogeneous Black Print Serials (McGill University, 2006) focused specifically on the range of black print culture in Montreal. She has also written popular articles for magazines and newspapers.
With the aim of making Black history accessible to all, Dorothy has focused her long-term research on the creation of popular reference materials on Black history in Canada. In 2006, Dorothy founded Blacbiblio.com Inc. with the specific goal of creating a comprehensive online bibliographic record of the Black historical presence in Canada.
Dorothy grew up in the historic Black community of Little Burgundy, Montreal. She has acquired over 20 years of professional and volunteer experience within the community, and is often called upon by organizations to consult on important issues. For many years, Dorothy volunteered as Community Archivist for the Black Studies Center and lent her expertise to the Atwater Library. She is currently responsible for operations and fund development at the Desta Black Youth Network. Her areas of interest include history, identity and race, gender, family support, housing, empowerment, gang intervention, entrepreneurship and education.
PANEL 4 - Working with and through black studies
Leslie Touré Kapo
Leslie Touré Kapo is an assistant professor at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS). Dr. Touré Kapo is interested in the fields of urban studies, youth, critical race and gender theory and sexualities. He specializes in the social construction of race and its impact on the life trajectories of residents of working-class and immigrant neighborhoods. His research and teaching expertise is based on a wealth of experience in social intervention and popular education in marginalized urban spaces in France and Quebec.
He holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Perpignan via Domitia. As part of his doctorate at INRS, he conducted an ethnographic survey exploring the process of racialization in the everyday experiences of young Montrealers. His thesis is based on an ethnography of 28 young Montrealers, conducted between fall 2015 and spring 2018. It focuses on dynamics downplayed by scientific work dealing with racialized young Montrealers based on their everyday experience: stigmatization, Islamophobia, racism and ordinary violence.
This ethnography was awarded the Prix de la meilleure thèse 2020-2021 by the Centre Urbanisation Culture Société of INRS, and the Prix de la meilleure thèse dans les domaines des sciences humaines et sociales, des arts et des lettres by the Association des doyennes et des doyens des études supérieures au Québec for the year 2021.
Alicia Boatswain-Kyte
Alicia Boatswain-Kyte is a social worker with over ten years’ clinical experience working with marginalized individuals, families and groups. Most of this experience has been gained in the field of child protection. Her research focuses on the systemic oppression of racialized people and how this contributes to their unequal representation within systems of social control. Dr. Boatswain-Kyte Boatswain-Kyte advocates for transformative social change within our social institutions and policies to ensure that all individuals and groups are able to participate in society as full and equal peers. Her work aims to identify innovative solutions to facilitate access to services for marginalized populations. She is involved in several community organizations aimed at improving the health and social outcomes of black children and families in Montreal.
Dr. Boatswain-Kyte’s teaching Boatswain-Kyte’s teaching takes into account historical and contemporary social work practices and how they relate to our interventions with marginalized individuals and families. Her pedagogy is grounded in the importance of social and relational processes to social justice, while seeking to develop students’ critical reflexivity in the context of their professional social work practice.
Désirée Rochat
Désirée Rochat is a community educator and transdisciplinary researcher. She holds a PhD in Educational Studies from McGill University’s Department of Integrated Studies in Education. Guided by an integrative approach linking historical research, preservation of community archives and education, her work aims to document, preserve, theorize and transmit the histories of Black community activism. Interested in the educational potential of community organizing narratives and histories, she has produced popular education materials on the history of Caribbean communities in Quebec, and participates in various initiatives for the preservation and promotion of Black community archives. She was Scholar in Residence at Concordia University Library in 2021-2022 and is now a postdoctoral researcher at COHDS and Concordia University’s Department of History.
PANEL 5 - Thinking diasporic circulation
Nathanael Pericles
A doctoral student in labor, migration and social policies at the Universidade Federal do ABC (ABC Federal University) in Brazil, Nathanael Pericles is a student researcher at the Grupo de estudos GinaCorja gender studies group. She is currently continuing her studies at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC) in an interdisciplinary program focusing on democracy, civil society and inequality. As part of her thesis on the Haitian migratory imaginary, she is studying the desire of Haitians to leave the country as part of an open process to transform their world and living conditions, which expresses a space of imaginary repositories of aspirations for greater well-being and better living. She is a lecturer at the Université d’État d’Haïti in the Anthropo-sociology Department of the Faculty of Ethnology.
Amzat Boukari-Yabara
Amzat Boukari-Yabara is a historian, writer, consultant and pan-Africanist activist. He holds a master’s degree in modern Brazilian history from Sorbonne University, with a dissertation on the Brazilian government’s indigenous policy in the twentieth century; a master’s degree in social sciences, specializing in the sciences of religion and society; and a doctorate in African history and civilization from the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). Amzat Boukari-Yabara is interested in the philosophy and socio-anthropology of African and Afro-American religions, current historiographical and political controversies (colonization, dependence, debt and reparations) and Walter Rodney’s contribution to revolutionary Pan-Africanism.
Since September 2020, Dr. Amzat Boukari-Yabara has also accompanied the formation of the Dynamique Unitaire Panafricaine (DUP), which aims to bring together and unify African organizations on the continent and in the diaspora around an ideological base. An independent researcher and political activist, combining theory and practice, and a prolific lecturer, he is also a writer, author notably of Nigéria (2013), Mali (2014), Africa Unite! A History of Pan-Africanism (2014), Kwame Nkrumah (2016), Walter Rodney. Un historien engagé (1942-1980) (2018) and co-edited L’empire qui ne veut pas mourir. Une histoire de la Françafrique (2021).
Virginie Belony
Virginie Belony is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto, and will be Assistant Professor in the History Department at the Université de Montréal from January 2025. She holds a PhD in history (UdeM, 2023). In the same discipline, she also holds a master’s degree (UdeM, 2015) and a bachelor’s degree (Concordia University, 2013). She specializes in twentieth-century Haitian history. Her current research focuses on Haitian intellectual thought before 1957, questions of shared memory after periods of state violence, and collective memory in diasporic spaces. She is also editorial assistant for the annual periodical Revue d’Histoire Haïtienne.