Bonita Lawrence | |
---|---|
Occupation | Professor |
Academic background | |
Education | PhD - Sociology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto M.E.S. - Environmental Studies, York University B.Sc. - Geology, University of Toronto |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Equity Studies |
Sub-discipline | Indigenous Studies |
Main interests | Aboriginal Peoples,Race and Racism,Aboriginal People and the Criminal Justice System,Federally Unrecognized Native Communities,Urban,non-status and Metis identities |
Bonita Lawrence is a Canadian writer,scholar,and professor in the Department of Equity Studies at York University in Toronto,Canada. [1] Her work focuses on issues related to Indigenous identity and governance,equity,and racism in Canada. She is also a traditional singer at political rallies,social events,and prisons in the Toronto and Kingston areas. [2]
Bonita Lawrence is Mi'kmaw,with Acadian and English heritage as well. She was raised in Montreal. [3] She and her five siblings were raised by their mother. Their father,a working-class expatriate from the United Kingdom,was estranged. [3] Lawrence's mother was Mi'kmaw,however she denied her Indigenous identity in an effort to keep social workers away after her husband left. [3] As a result,Lawrence grew up under the guise of being white. [3]
Lawrence obtained a Bachelor of Science in Geology from the University of Toronto,a Masters of Environmental Studies from York University and a PhD in Sociology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. [2]
As a faculty member at York University,Lawrence has influenced the academic programs and campus life at York University. She was a founding member of the undergraduate program in Race,Ethnicity and Indigeneity,now offered as Multicultural and Indigenous Studies in the Department of Equity Studies,the only program of its kind in Canada. [2] [4]
Lawrence's research and publications focus primarily on urban,non-status and Metis identities,federally unrecognized Aboriginal communities,and Indigenous justice. [5]
Her work on racism,equity and decolonization has become an important resource for those working in the area. "Decolonizing Anti-Racism," a work co-published with Enakshi Dua is reference on many social justice websites. [6] [7] [8] Her 2012 book:Fractured Homeland:Federal Recognition and Algonquin Identity in Ontario was short-listed for the 2013 Canada Prize in the Social Sciences by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Canada). [9] [10] [11]
Alongside her academic endeavours,Lawrence has written N'In D'la Owey Innklan:Mi'kmaq Sojourns in England,a historical novel that spans 500 years of Mi'kmaq history in both Atlantic Canada and London,England. [5]
She has also been a member of Community Council,Diversion Program for Aboriginal Offenders (2007- 2010),a Member of Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto (1998-2005),Member of Board of Directors,Anduhyaun Inc. (2000-2001) and Member of Board of Directors (1998-2004),Katorokwi Native Friendship Centre,Kingston,Ontario. [2]
York University, also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, and over 375,000 alumni worldwide. It has 11 faculties, including the Lassonde School of Engineering, Schulich School of Business, Osgoode Hall Law School, Glendon College, and 32 research centres.
The Rideau River is a river in Eastern Ontario, Canada. The river flows north from Upper Rideau Lake and empties into the Ottawa River at the Rideau Falls in Ottawa, Ontario. Its length is 146 kilometres (91 mi).
Mi'kmaw hieroglyphic writing or Suckerfish script was a writing system for the Mi'kmaw language, later superseded by various Latin scripts which are currently in use. Mi'kmaw are a Canadian First Nation whose homeland, called Mi'kma'ki, overlaps much of the Atlantic provinces, specifically all of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and parts of New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Métis are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They have a shared history and culture, deriving from specific mixed European and Indigenous ancestry, which became distinct through ethnogenesis by the mid-18th century, during the early years of the North American fur trade.
Edward Cornwallis was a British career military officer and member of the aristocratic Cornwallis family, who reached the rank of Lieutenant General. After Cornwallis fought in Scotland, putting down the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, he was appointed Groom of the Chamber for King George II. He was then made Governor of Nova Scotia (1749–1752), one of the colonies in North America, and assigned to establish the new town of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Later Cornwallis returned to London, where he was elected as MP for Westminster and married the niece of Robert Walpole, Great Britain's first Prime Minister. Cornwallis was next appointed as Governor of Gibraltar.
Joseph Boyden is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. He is best known for writing about First Nations culture. Three Day Road, a novel about two Cree soldiers serving in the Canadian military during World War I, was inspired by Ojibwa Francis Pegahmagabow, the legendary First World War sniper. Joseph Boyden's second novel, Through Black Spruce, follows the story of Will, son of one of the characters in Three Day Road. The third novel in the Bird family trilogy was published in 2013 as The Orenda.
Ardoch Algonquin is a non-status Algonquin (Anishinaabe) community that is located around the Madawaska, Mississippi and Rideau watersheds, north of Kingston, Ontario.
Racism in Canada traces both historical and contemporary racist community attitudes, as well as governmental negligence and political non-compliance with United Nations human rights standards and incidents in Canada. Contemporary Canada is the product of indigenous First Nations combined with multiple waves of immigration, predominantly from Europe and in modern times, from Asia.
Discrimination based on hair texture, also known as textureism, is a form of social injustice, where afro-textured hair or coarse hair types, and their associated hair styles, are viewed negatively, often perceived as "unprofessional", "unattractive", or "unclean". This view can lead, for example, to some school students being excluded from class.
Ursula Johnson is a multidisciplinary Mi’kmaq artist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her work combines the Mi’kmaq tradition of basket weaving with sculpture, installation, and performance art. In all its manifestations her work operates as didactic intervention, seeking to both confront and educate her viewers about issues of identity, colonial history, tradition, and cultural practice. In 2017, she won the Sobey Art Award.
David T. McNab is a Métis historian. He is a professor at York University and cross-appointed in the departments of Equity Studies and Humanities in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies. McNab works on Aboriginal land and treaty rights issues in Canada and as a claims advisor.
Ruth Green (Mohawk) is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at York University in Toronto. She is the special advisor to the president of York University on Indigenous initiatives.
Jordan Bennett is Canadian multi-disciplinary artist and member of the Qalipu First Nation from Stephenville Crossing, Newfoundland, also known as Ktaqamkuk. He is married to Métis visual artist Amy Malbeuf.
Jo-Ann Archibald, also known as Q’um Q’um Xiiem, is an Indigenous studies scholar from the Sto:lo First Nation in British Columbia, Canada.
Susan D. Dion (Potawatomi-Lenapé) is professor at York University in the Faculty of Education. Dion specializes on issues related to Indigenous matters in education and the role of Indigenous relationships in teacher education.
Kim Anderson was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario. Her paternal grandmother, Catherine Anne Sanderson (b.1902) was the granddaughter of the Métis voyageur, Thomas Sanderson. Her paternal grandfather, James E. Anderson (b.1899), came from a long line of marriages among Indigenous peoples spanning over five generations. Kim Anderson's work in educational tourism, community-based education, and cross cultural education afforded her many travels in her youth. But, when she became a mother in 1995, she began to research and write about motherhood and culture-based understandings of Indigenous womanhood.
Mary Anne Eberts is a Canadian constitutional lawyer and a former University of Toronto Faculty of Law faculty member. She is a founding member of the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF)
Ingrid R. G Waldron is a Canadian social scientist who is the HOPE Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Social Justice Program in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University. She co-produced the 2019 film There's Something in the Water with Elliot Page, Ian Daniel and Julia Sanderson, which is based on her book of the same name.
Jaime Black is a Canadian Red River Métis multidisciplinary artist and activist of Anishinaabe and Finnish descent. Jaime lives and works on her home territory near the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers.
Lynn Gehl is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley, Ontario, Canada. She is a writer, blogger and Indigenous human rights advocate. Gehl was involved in legal challenges aimed at eliminating the continued sex discrimination in the Indian Act. She is also an outspoken critic of the contemporary land claims and self-government process, as well as Indigenous issues in Canada. In April 2017, Gehl was successful in defeating Indian and Northern Affairs Canada’s unstated paternity policy when the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled the sex discrimination in the policy was unreasonable.