2024-2025 Activist-in-Residence
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2023-2024 Activists-in-Residence Emeritae
Nneka MacGregor (She/Her)
Nneka MacGregor is co-founder and Executive Director of the Women’s Centre for Social Justice, better known as WomenatthecentrE, a unique non-profit created by and for women, trans and gender-diverse survivors of gender-based violence (GBV). As a Black intersectional, Transformative Accountability & Justice practitioner and abolitionist feminist, Nneka is also a respected international speaker & trainer. She is an expert advisory panel member of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability and sits on several advisory Boards and committees, including the Federal Advisory Council on the Federal Strategy Against GBV, and co-founded the Black Femicide Canada Council. Her research focuses on femicide, sexual violence, and the intersection of strangulation, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Inter-personal violence.
Nneka received the 2019 PINK Concussions Award and the 2020 YWCA Toronto Women of Distinction Social Justice Award. She is also the founder and Managing Partner of Nneka & Co, a consulting firm of BIPOC activists that focuses on Stakeholder-Centric EDI© – a unique and comprehensive framework to engage organizations in equity, diversity & inclusion work. Her expertise is in nurturing women’s leadership in business at the intersection of gender, race, and ability. Nneka was a member of the Board of Directors of Moatfield Foundation of Bayview Glen School, where she served as Chair and Board President for six years. She supports other charitable and non-profit organizations with governance training and developing an effective Board culture.
Nneka is a very proud mum to her #ThreeWishes, Aly, Alexander, and Christiana, a gushing grandmum to her beautiful grandson, Aidan Azike, and a human companion to Basil, The Wonder Dog, and Renfrew the cat.
If you’re looking for more information about Nneka’s work, you can check her official social media accounts. You can also refer to her January 2024 press conference at Parliament Hill, which was covered by the Toronto Star, and her interview with Natasha Fatah from CBC News Network in 2019. Additionally, you can read the chapter “Femicide in Canada” that she co-authored with Wendy Aujla et al. in The Routledge International Handbook on Femicide and Feminicide (2023), which can provide you with a deeper understanding of her research.
Dr. Marsha Hinds Myrie
Marsha Hinds Myrie’s life and work are an embodiment of dualities and intersections. She is a Barbadian/Canadian citizen with an ancestral, cultural, and intellectual home in Africa. Her career unfolds, sometimes spectacularly and sometimes confusingly, at the intersections of activism and education. She is a public intellectual steeped in the Caribbean intellectual tradition and critical studies.
Marsha spent 23 years developing an advocacy model to address the issues of underprivileged groups of women in Barbados and the Commonwealth Caribbean. The major focus of the work is to develop and encourage the use of victim-defined services for women and girls affected by various types of gender-based violence while at the same time removing the burden of eradicating violence from women and victims by forcing greater attention to systemic oppression and a stronger lobby in policy spaces.
The philosophical mooring for Marsha’s interaction with equity work comes partly out of her Ph.D. research, which focused on the ways in which political and cultural experiences shaped the development and creation of intellectual spaces and intellectual thought in Commonwealth Caribbean tertiary institutions. The epistemological valleys that create disciplines in the Western academy are still immensely uncomfortable for Marsha, but if required, she would classify her work as womanism, Black Studies, philosophy as praxis, and intellectual history.
Marsha is a mother, godmother, aunty, cook, and seamstress, and hopes to learn to garden someday.
Discover the extraordinary accomplishments of Activists-in-Residence Emeritae Nneka and Marsha (2023-2024) during their time at the University of Guelph by clicking on the links below.
Guelph Mercury: ‘A form of reparations’: University of Guelph welcomes new activists-in-residence
Guelph Today Success Story: U of G activists in residence unite activism with academia
University of Guelph News: Bringing Our Time to Life: Deepening Our Impact on the World
2022-2023 Inaugural Activist-in-Residence
Gabriel Allahdua
In September 2022, Gabriel Allahdua became the first Activist-in-Residence (AiR) at the University of Guelph.
Gabriel is well known in Ontario and beyond for his advocacy on behalf of justice for migrant workers justice. He brought his knowledge of migrant farm workers issues and his experience as a community organizer to his role as the inaugural Activist-in-Residence at the University of Guelph. Gabriel collaborated with students, faculty and staff at the newly established Grounded & Engaged Theory Lab (GET lab) and the Community-Engaged Scholarship Institute (CESI) in raising awareness about the injustices facing migrant workers in Canada — and what can be done to transform these injustices.
Gabriel soon became active in advocating for justice for migrant workers. For many years he has been a key volunteer with Justice for Migrant Workers (J4MW), a Toronto-based activist group advocating for justice for migrant workers https://harvestingfreedom.org/
Gabriel, in collaboration with historian Edward Dunsworth, authored Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada, a work that has been honored with the 2023 Legislative Assembly of Ontario Speaker’s Book Award and The Mayworks Activist Award for Excellence in Contribution to Labour Arts. To acquire a copy, please click the link below.
https://btlbooks.com/book/harvesting-freedom
To gain insights into Activist-in-Residence Gabriel’s pioneering work at the University of Guelph (2022-2023), please refer to the provided links.
CTV News Kitchener: Meet Gabriel Allahdua, the University of Guelph’s first activist-in-residence
Farmtario News: Activist gets new post at University of Guelph: Migrant worker proponent first-activist-in-residence
Activist-in-Residence (AiR) Program
The Activist-in-Residence (AiR) Program at the University of Guelph is a critical initiative for advancing collaboration between academics, students, and activists in salient areas of need. AiR programs have been established at a number of other universities, but only a few in Canada so far. The purpose of the AiR program is to strengthen the connections between activists and academic researchers who may be be working towards common goals, such as ending the exploitation of migrant workers or ending gender-based violence.
Activities
Each year, the AiR Program undertakes a different combination of activities and work based on the expertise of that year’s AiR(s). We hope to foster community, knowledge sharing, and research collaboration by engaging in research methods that center the voices of members of justice-seeking communities. Additionally, we are exploring options for mounting a course on research and activism.
Leadership
The AiR Program is based at the Grounded & Engaged Theory Lab (GET Lab) at the University of Guelph. The co-directors of the GET Lab are Dr. Monique Deveaux (Philosophy) and Dr. Candace Johnson (Political Science). You can learn more about them and the graduate students and postdoctoral researchers associated with the GET Lab here.
The AiR Program is also supported by Dr. Leah Levac (Political Science). You can learn more about her research team and program here.
Funding
The AiR Program is funded by generous contributions from the Dean of the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences, the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute (CESI), the Canada Research Chair program of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the College of Arts.
Activist-in-Residence (AiR) Programs Elsewhere:
At the University of Guelph, we are proud to be part of a renewed conversation about the essential role of universities in fostering connections between activism and academia. AiR Programs create space for important conversations about the role of research in social action and vice versa. Learn more about other AiR Programs here:
Carleton University: https://carleton.ca/law/activist-in-residence-program/
Wilfred Laurier (not current): https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/lauriers-first-activist-in-residence-stirs-conversation-between-academia-and-activism/
University College London: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/racism-racialisation/activist-residence-programme
USC: https://dornsife.usc.edu/eri/fellows-and-activists-in-residence/
UCLA: https://challengeinequality.luskin.ucla.edu/activist-in-residence/
New School for Social Research: http://socialresearchmatters.org/inaugural-activist-in-residence-shanelle-matthews-engages-at-the-new-school-this-fall/
Sometimes the AiR teaches a course, as for example this one at UCLA: https://www.activistgraduateschool.org/pedagogy-blog/activist-in-residence