Professor | |
---|---|
Born | Abadan, Iran |
Citizenship | Canadian |
Occupation | Professor Emerita. York University |
Spouse | Peter Murphy |
Children | Siobhan Murphy |
Academic background | |
Education | B.A., English and French Literature, Santa Clara University M.A., PhD, Anthropology, University of Toronto |
Thesis | (1987) |
Doctoral advisor | Gavin Alderson Smith |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Social Cultural Anthropology |
Sub-discipline | forced migration,globalization,gender,nationalism and war |
Institutions | York University |
Website | www.yorku.ca/wgiles |
Wenona Mary Giles OC FRSC is a professor emerita in the Department of Anthropology at York University. In 2018,she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Through the university,Giles helped launch the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project which allowed people in refugee camps to earn degrees,diplomas and certificates from Moi and Kenyatta Universities in Kenya,and from York University and UBC in Canada.
Although she was born in Iran,Giles holds both UK and Canadian citizenship. [1]
After earning her Bachelor of Arts at Santa Clara University in 1971,Giles earned her Master's degree and PhD in Anthropology at the University of Toronto. [2] Her dissertation was titled "Motherhood and Wage Labour in London:Portuguese Migrant Women and the Politics of Gender." [3]
In the early 1990s Giles began teaching at York University in Toronto and became a research associate of York's Centre for Refugee Studies. [4] In 1993,she began to coordinate the international Women in Conflict Zones Research Network based at the Centre for Refugee Studies. [4] Around this time she also published "Maid in the Market:Women's Paid Domestic Labour". [5] Giles co-coordinated the Women in Conflict Zones Research Network,(with Maja Korac),until 2004. [4] That same year,she co-edited (with Jennier Hyndman) the book "Sites of Violence:Gender and Conflict Zones." The book is composed of essays using a feminist lens to understand how conflict and war are gendered and racialized. [6]
From 2005 to 2008,Giles was the principal investigator for a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded project titled "The Globalization of Homelessness in Long-Term Refugee Camps." With Jennifer Hyndman,she developed the "A Canadian Refugee Research Network:Globalizing Knowledge," [7] that was part of their project titled "The Globalization of Protracted Refugee Situations" (GPRS) initiative. [8] The goal of this initiative was to understand the reasons for and impacts of long-term refugee situations. Building on that project,Giles led and developed the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project with Don Dippo from 2011 through the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University. [9] In February 2013,the Canadian International Development Agency granted them more than $4.5 million over a five-year period to help launch BHER. [10] The following month,Giles was recognized by York University as a research leader at the 2013 Research Gala. [11]
In 2013,with the assistance of Don Dippo and York's Centre for Refugee Studies,Giles launched the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project. In October 2015,59 people in a Dadaab refugee camp began to earn certificates,diplomas and degrees from Moi and Kenyatta universities in Kenya and York and UBC in Canada. The Project continues to this day in the Dadaab and Kakuma camps in Kenya.
In 2016,Giles co-authored a book with Jennifer Hyndman titled "Refugees in Extended Exile:Living on the Edge." The book was critical of contemporary humanitarian aid efforts and the vulnerable status of refugees. [12] [13]
Besides refugees,Giles has also focused her research on the lives of Portuguese women in Toronto and London,UK. In 2017,she donated her research conducted in the 1980s and 1990s to the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections at the York University Libraries. [14]
Giles retired from York University in October 2018 but is still a Research Associate in the Centre for Refugee Studies. [15] A month after her retirement,she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. [16]
She was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2023. [17]
The following is a list of publications by Giles: [18]
Mariposa Folk Festival is a Canadian music festival founded in 1961 in Orillia,Ontario. It was held in Orillia for three years before being banned because of disturbances by festival-goers. After being held in various places in Ontario for a few decades,it returned to Orillia in 2000. Ruth Jones,her husband Dr. Crawford Jones,brother David Major and Pete McGarvey organized the first Mariposa Folk Festival in August 1961. The inaugural event,covered by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,featured all Canadian performers. The festival grew in popularity,size and rowdiness until the popularity of the 1963 festival,and the lack of sufficient security,led to a backlash from town locals. The city of Orillia secured a court injunction to prevent the festival from continuing in the town limits. The first festival held in the Toronto area,in 1964,was at Maple Leaf Stadium. The subsequent three festivals were held at Innis Lake in Caledon,northwest of the city. In the 1970s it was held on the Toronto Islands before shifting to Harbourfront (Toronto) and Bathurst Street and later Molson Park in Barrie. In 2000,the Mariposa Folk Festival was invited back to Orillia by city councilors Tim Lauer and Don Evans. The festival continues to be held in Orillia. As well as folk music,the festival highlights other aspects of folk culture including dance,crafts,storytelling.
Malathi de Alwis was a Sri Lankan anthropologist. She taught at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies and the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Colombo. She wrote about militarism,nationalism and feminism.
Libby Scheier was a Canadian poet and short story writer.
Andromache Karakatsanis is a Canadian jurist. She was nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada by Stephen Harper in October 2011. She is the first Greek-Canadian judge on the Court. Since the retirement of Rosalie Abella on July 1,2021,and of Michael Moldaver on September 1,2022,she is the longest-serving member of the Supreme Court.
Lorraine Code is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at York University in Toronto,Ontario,Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her principal area of research is feminist epistemology and the politics of knowledge.
Isabella C. Bakker is a Canadian political scientist,currently a Distinguished Research Professor and York Research Chair at York University. In 2009,Bakker became the first York University professor to earn a Trudeau Fellowship and was later elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Pat Armstrong is a Canadian sociologist and Distinguished Research Professor at York University. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Armstrong has served as a Chair for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in Health Services and Nursing Research and the Department of Sociology at York University.
Varpu Lindström (1948–2012) was a Canadian historian and educator. She was the leading expert on the social history of Finnish women in Canada.
Bettina Bradbury is a professor emerita in the Department of History and Gender Studies at York University and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She is also the author of numerous history books.
Joan Judge is a Professor in the Department of History at York University. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2018. Her academic focus is on Chinese history.
Leah F. Vosko is a professor of political science and Canada Research Chair at York University. Her research interests are focused on political economy,labour rights,gender studies,migration,and citizenship. In 2015,she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Brenda Longfellow is a Canadian filmmaker known for her biographies of female historic figures. Since 2007,Longfellow's focus in her films has been on environmental issues.
Rebecca Rita Elizabeth Riddell (née Pillai) is a Canadian clinical psychologist and a basic-behavioural scientist. She is a full professor at York University and Tier 2 York Research Chair in Pain and Mental Health.
Sara Reva Horowitz is an American Holocaust literary scholar. She is a professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities and former Director of the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York University. She is also a member of the academic advisory board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Marcia Hampton Rioux was a Canadian legal scholar. She was a Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University.
Susan Lee McGrath is a Professor Emerita in the School of Social Work at York University and former director of York's Centre for Refugee Studies.
Rosemary J. Coombe is a Canadian anthropologist and lawyer,She is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at York University and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Law,Communication and Cultural Studies. Previously,she was a full professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.
Kristin Alexandra Andrews is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at York University and she holds the York Research Chair in Animal Minds.
The Mukri tribe is a Kurdish tribe residing in West Azerbaijan Province,Iran. Mukri princes made up the elite-ruling class of the emirate of Mukriyan,while the Dehbruki tribe made up the majority of the rural petty-ruling class.
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.