The Editorial Board of Nokoko is:
Pius Adesanmi, Professor, English and African Studies, Carleton
Pius Adesanmi is the internationally-acclaimed winner of the inaugural Penguin Prize for African Writing. Born in Nigeria, he now lives in Ottawa, Canada, where he teaches Literature and African Studies at Carleton University. He is one of Nigeria’s major public intellectuals and writes two weekly op-ed columns for the influential Sahara Reporters and NEXT newspaper. His first book, The Wayfarer and Other Poems, won the Association of Nigerian Authors’ National Poetry Prize in 2001.
James Nii Ayite Aryee, Federal Civil Servant, Ottawa
Dr. James Nii Ayite Aryee, a keen follower of African political and economic issues, holds an LL.M in International Law as well as an MA and Ph.D specializing in International Relations. He was a member of the Political Studies Department at the University of Manitoba where he taught courses in the following fields: Canadian Federalism; American Politics; Canadian Political Parties; and The European Union in World Politics. Dr. Aryee is currently a member of the Federal Civil Service and is based in Ottawa.
Daniel Baheta, Senior Development Officer, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
Daniel Baheta has PhD degree from the University of Kyoto Japan in African studies and International Development. He obtained his Master’s degree in African Education from the University of Kyoto and his honors degree from Carleton University in Political Science and Sociology. Currently, Daniel works with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). He has worked at the Canadian International Development Agency since February 2006. As a Development Officer, he manages a portfolio of 5 operational projects (over $30 million in value), in Sudan focused around the sectors of governance, gender, education and capacity building. Daniel uses a range of monitoring and evaluation techniques for these projects and works with local and Canadian partners to improve the life of people in Sudan. He also has direct experience in negotiating and managing a variety of stakeholder need in international development. His accomplishments include three international publications regarding Eritrean Education, two countrywide survey reports in Basic Human Rights and Education in Eritrea and one research paper regarding the Eritrean Diasporas in Canada. He has advocated and helped lunched two successful human right policy campaigns in increasing awareness in girls’ education in Eritrea. His life experiences in Africa as citizen of Ethiopia where he was born from Eritrean parents and as a refugee in Kenya, his educational background in Europe, North America and Asia has given him chance to broaden his cross-cultural interaction with different communities and societies around the world.
Alem Berhane, Program Officer, Health Canada
Alem Berhane is a public servant and part-time musician with a BA in Political Science from Carleton University.
Laketch Dirasse, President, Afri-Can TechTrans Partners (ACTTP) Inc.
Dr. Dirasse, a Social Anthropologist by training (MA and PhD, Boston University and BA Wilson College), has over thirty years of experience in international development management, research, consultancy and training/teaching with the United Nations, international donors, governmental and non-governmental organisations and academic institutions. At the United Nations, she has served as Deputy Director of the UN Inter-Agency Division on IDPs; Chief, Africa Section, UNIFEM; Regional Programme Director, UNIFEM Regional Office for East, Central and the Horn of Africa; Senior Manager of the African Women in Crisis Umbrella Programme (AFWIC); and UN Advisor to the Botswana Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs. At the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute, she served as Resident Representative for Kenya and Seychelles, and Chief of its Women in Development, Entrepreneurship and Management Centre. She has also worked as Assistant to the Representative and Program Officer of the Ford Foundation Office for Eastern and Southern Africa; Project Director at MATCH International Centre, Canada; Visiting Professor at Carleton University’s Norman Patterson School of International Affairs; and Research Associate at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University. She has undertaken consultancy assignments with CIDA, SIDA, IDRC, UNDP, ICIPE and ESAMI. She has authored books, articles, manuals and handbooks on issues of displacement, technology transfer, gender, conflict resolution and peace building.
Sarah Gillis
Sarah Gillis was a Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford’s African Studies Centre where she completed the MSc programme in July 2011. Her research focused on conceptualisations of sovereignty and security, and related changes in statecraft, in Botswana vis-à-vis the circular flow of Zimbabweans across its borders. She has a particular interest in processes of democratisation in Southern Africa and has previously worked at the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) Gender Unit, and the Department of Foreign Affair’s (DFAIT) Africa Bureau. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Ottawa in International Development and Globalization in 2009. She is currently based in Ottawa.
Wangui Kimari, Graduate Student, Anthropology, York University
Her current research focuses on the African Diaspora, Migration, Education and Identity.
Kathryn McDonald, History, Queen’s University
Her current research interests focus on the history of medicine, gender and development, and contemporary responses to HIV/AIDS in the context of sub-Saharan Africa.
Hamdi Mohamed, Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization
Dr. Hamdi Mohamed is currently the Executive Director of the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization. She was formerly the Executive Director of the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre. Hamdi has a Ph.D. in women’s history from the University of Ottawa. She obtained her Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Ottawa and her Honours degree in Education from the Somali National University. Hamdi has been a lecturer on social work and on human rights issues at the School of Social Work and the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton University for the past five years and is the author of a number of articles and reports on immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in Canada.
Toby Moorsom, Graduate Student, History, Queen’s University
Toby Moorsom is a PhD student in the Department of History at Queen’s university in Kingston, Ontario. His dissertation examines the Experiences of Neoliberalism among Tonga ‘emergent’ farmers in Southern Zambia. Toby has also been a long-time anti-poverty, global justice and labour activist, currently as a member of PSAC 901 and CUPE 3908. He is also a DJ with the Soul Shakedown Collective, which raises funds for social justice organizations while spinning world-beats in a celebratory anti-oppressive space.
Daniel Tetteh Osabu-Kle (Ph.D), Professor, Political Science and African Studies, Carleton
Blair Rutherford, Director, Institute of African Studies, Carleton
A socio-cultural anthropologist whose research interests gravitate around the politics and possibilities of international development, particularly concerning “civil society” in sub-Saharan Africa. He has carried out research in Zimbabwe and in South Africa, published the book Working on the Margins: Black Workers, White Farmers in Postcolonial Zimbabwe (2001, Zed Books & Weaver Press), and numerous articles in academic journals and non-academic formats.
Daniel Tubb, Graduate Student, Anthropology, Carleton
Daniel is a doctoral student in engaged anthropology at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. His research interests are on the cultural political economies of gold mining in the Colombian department of the Chocó. He hopes to be able to describe how people involved in different sorts of mining in the Chocó understand what it is that they are doing. His doctoral research is aimed at understanding the mining practices of: artisanal miners who have been mining for gold as a livelihood for many generations; those working in mechanized mining that has been using a variety of technologies and chemicals to extract gold in the region; and those who work for international mining companies as they explore gold in the Chocó.
