Empowering African Studies for a Global Impact

Dr. Isaac Odoom is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Carleton University specializing in International Relations and the Politics of Development in the Global South with a focus on Africa. Dr. Odoom attained his PhD in Political Science (International Relations and Comparative Development) from the University of Alberta, Canada. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at The Centre for Asian Studies, University of Ghana, Accra. Dr. Odoom’s research program focuses on African Politics, International Development, Africa-China relations, China’s foreign policy, Rising Powers in Global governance, South-South Cooperation, and the Political Economy of Development in the Global South. He is also interested in Critical International Relations and pedagogy, particularly questions around academic dependency and decolonization in higher education. Dr. Odoom’s ongoing research examines the impact of Chinese energy and technology investments in Canada and across Africa. For full biography and publications, please see: https://carleton.ca/polisci/people/isaac-odoom/

"Chikezirim Nwoke (Chike) is a Vanier Scholar and PhD Candidate at Carleton University, Ottawa. He has been a Visiting Researcher at the Center of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Social and Political Science and a Visiting Research Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. He has equally received academic and research awards and grants from Darmstadt University, Germany, Memorial University, Canada, and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he completed degree programs. In addition to collaborating with multiple organizations including UNESCO and Save the Children in research and project development, Chikezirim has led and supported youth-focused initiatives in Nigeria, Cameroun, South Sudan and Ethiopia among other countries. His research which broadly circles around critical development studies, social movements, youth culture and alternative livelihood, have appeared in academic journals such as the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, Africa Spectrum, and Nokoko".

Martin Evans has been Managing Editor of CJAS since 2021, after serving as an Editor since 2015. He has been a CAAS member since 2002. Living in the UK, he gained a BSc in Botany at the University of Bristol, and an MA in Environment and Development at SOAS. This led to a PhD in Geography at SOAS and King’s College London. Following a postdoctoral position at the University of Leicester researching the role of migrant associations in local development in Cameroon and Tanzania, then a temporary lectureship there, he moved to the University of Chester in 2009, where he taught Development Studies until 2020. He is now an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University. His main interests are in rural economic and political geographies in West Africa, particularly in conflict and ‘post-conflict’ situations, with his field research focused for over two decades on the separatist rebellion in Casamance, Senegal. More recently he has returned to his interests in ecology and sustainability, researching development interventions to support paddy rice cultivation, and problems of unregulated timber extraction and deforestation, in the complex context of climate change, social change and ongoing insecurity in Casamance.

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’.

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.

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.

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).

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