Sylvia Bawa
Associate Professor
Office: Vari Hall, 2144
Phone: (416)736-2100 Ext: 60355
Email: bawa@yorku.ca
Primary website: sylviabawa.com
Secondary website: @Essenbi
Media Requests Welcome
I do research on the interconnections of globalization, human/women's rights, human-non-human connections, and critical development in postcolonial contexts. I am interested in the mobilizing impact of human rights; how discourses of rights, self-determination and development evolve and are shaped by global events, new technologies and opportunities. For instance, is Afrofuturism a form of self-determination within third generation human rights?
Degrees
Ph.D. , Queen's UniversityMA. , Brock University
B.A.(First Class Honours)., University of Ghana
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
PI and Co-Investigator on SSHRC PDGs/CIHR and NRRF Exploration Grants
Director, Board of the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Director, Resource Centre for Public Sociology
Editorial Board Member, Contemporary Journal of African Studies (Open-Access Journal)
Member, Editorial Team. Studies in Social Justice (Open-Access Journal)
Community Contributions
Okafor, O.; Bawa, S & Effoduh, J. (2021) Media Production, in conjunction with Nollywood,
Help! Dissemination project from SSHRC Engage Grant on Human Rights Action Plan
https://e-cassare.org/#
Okafor, O.; Bawa, S & Effoduh, J. (2021) Media Production in conjunction with Nollywood. A
Time to Live. Dissemination project from SSHRC Grant
https://e-cassare.org/#
Bawa, S. (August, 2022). Ghana Canadian Association of Ontario, Women’s Conference. Toronto
Convenor, Pan-African RoundTable. From Sankara, Nkrumah to Winnie
Mandela: Decolonization to Liberation, Who Speaks the African Dream? York University.
Research Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
The project investigates afrofuturism as genre, and as a project in future imagineering. Investigating questions around self-determination in an age of Artificial Intelligence, ethics of decolonial reclamation projects.
Description:Black Panther, a Hollywood Marvel Comics movie released in 2018, marked a significant moment in Afrofuturism on the global stage. While novelists, artists, creatives, and musicians have long engaged the futuristic praxis in their work, critically acclaimed cinematic success such as Black Panther, and Wakanda Forever, can be defined as the crowning moment of these discourses. For instance, in addition to a symbolic and positive representation of African artistry, the socio-economic, political, and cultural capital it provided were unparalleled. These movies, novels and art contribute significantly to new/different conversations about Africa and its diasporas. While this genre primarily focuses on imagining futures and possibilities of the future, it is not clear how these differ from other mainstream futuristic projects. Furthermore, what is sometimes read as futuristic in the genre is in fact mundane, even if contextualized within the realm of spirituality and the cosmos in African culture. This poses an important question: is the future imagineering in this genre merely a project of reclamation? This DARE project will explore this question through the following sub-questions: a) what constitutes (qualifies as) afrofuturism and who are the main contributors to the field b) What are the dominant and recurring themes in literature on Afrofuturism c) Is Afrofuturism a project in knowledge reclamation?
Start Date:
- Month: Jun Year: 2024
Examining truth commissions as mechanisms for civic inclusion, identity formation, institutional reform, and nation (re)building in post-conflict and post-authoritarian societies, the book shifts attention towards institutional innovation in African countries, where approximately a third of all commissions have been established. Contributors explore the mandates, methods, outcomes, and legacies of truth commissions, analyzing their place in transitional and restorative justice. Rather than conceptualizing state building as incidental to their work, they present it as an intrinsic, central component. This flagship volume - authored by a stellar cast of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars - brings multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral perspectives to bear on the complex role of truth commissions in addressing transitional justice, historical injustices, and present-day human rights violations.
As more countries, in both the Global South and the North, adopt this model to address historical and contemporary abuses, the dialogue between different sectors of society modelled here will help inform this process - wherever it might occur.
Examining truth commissions as mechanisms for civic inclusion, identity formation, institutional reform, and nation (re)building in post-conflict and post-authoritarian societies, the book shifts attention towards institutional innovation in African countries, where approximately a third of all commissions have been established. Contributors explore the mandates, methods, outcomes, and legacies of truth commissions, analyzing their place in transitional and restorative justice. Rather than conceptualizing state building as incidental to their work, they present it as an intrinsic, central component. This flagship volume - authored by a stellar cast of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars - brings multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral perspectives to bear on the complex role of truth commissions in addressing transitional justice, historical injustices, and present-day human rights violations.
As more countries, in both the Global South and the North, adopt this model to address historical and contemporary abuses, the dialogue between different sectors of society modelled here will help inform this process - wherever it might occur.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare services, leading to the cancellation of non-urgent tests, screenings and procedures, a shift towards remote consultations, stalled childhood immunisations and clinic closures which had detrimental effects across the healthcare system. This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical admissions and healthcare quality in the Peel, York and Toronto regions within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
Despite the problematique of Global North/South relationships, human rights require transnational collaboration to successfully protect vulnerable people in the world. In particular, human rights engagements between Africa and the West are cemented in legacies of colonialism and mediated by development discourses that portray the continent as a paragon of poverty, corruption and backwardness. Within this context, we explore how an African Union (AU) human rights instrument could impact or transform Africa’s transnational human rights engagements. Specifically, we use Canada–Africa human rights engagements as a starting point and basis for analysing the nature, orientation and impacts of such engagements (especially over three salient issues). Situating Canada as allegorical for the West, our findings show that Canadian human rights actors are critical of colonial legacies, have faith in the AU’s leadership, and see the African Human Rights Action Plan as a potentially transformative instrument in human rights engagements in Africa.
This article critically analyzes human rights socialization in Africa through the lens of the draft African Human Rights Action Plan (AHRAP). It argues that the AHRAP presents a framework for human rights socialization, and it speaks to human rights socialization in distinctive ways. The article demonstrates that the AHRAP relies on African and international influences and seeks to propagate norms inspired by these influences. It analyzes three key issues from the AHRAP and discusses how those issues shape understanding of continental human rights socialization in Africa. These issues are the multiple roles and positions of the African Union, the identity of actors to whom socialization processes apply or ought to apply, and the nature of norms which are the focus of socialization efforts. The article’s analysis of these issues along with the AHRAP’s reliance on African and other influences reveal a path for human rights socialization in Africa that is both challenging and promising.
Since their release in the early 1990s, genetically modified (GM) crops have been lauded as a tool to redress stagnating yields and food insecurity among poor farmers. The potential for GM crops to alleviate poverty for farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will likely hinge on their ability to enhance women’s overall well-being, yet there is little research that evaluates if (and how) the technology has such transformative potential. This article reviews the existing scholarship on this topic by grouping it into three strands: (1) the impacts of GM crops on labor processes, (2) gender and patterns of adoption, and (3) the consequences of GM crops for intra-household gender relations. Each area is characterized by contradictory findings, reflecting the diversity and complexity of gender relations in different contexts. Our review suggests that further research should build on mixed-method approaches that involve long-term interactions with households in order to generate robust and gender-disaggregated data that yield nuanced, context-specific analysis.
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/SOCI2050 6.0 | A | Social Structure and Social Change | LECT |
| Winter 2025 | GS/SOCI6060 3.0 | M | Qualitative Methods Of Research | SEMR |
I do research on the interconnections of globalization, human/women's rights, human-non-human connections, and critical development in postcolonial contexts. I am interested in the mobilizing impact of human rights; how discourses of rights, self-determination and development evolve and are shaped by global events, new technologies and opportunities. For instance, is Afrofuturism a form of self-determination within third generation human rights?
Degrees
Ph.D. , Queen's UniversityMA. , Brock University
B.A.(First Class Honours)., University of Ghana
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
PI and Co-Investigator on SSHRC PDGs/CIHR and NRRF Exploration Grants
Director, Board of the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Director, Resource Centre for Public Sociology
Editorial Board Member, Contemporary Journal of African Studies (Open-Access Journal)
Member, Editorial Team. Studies in Social Justice (Open-Access Journal)
Community Contributions
Okafor, O.; Bawa, S & Effoduh, J. (2021) Media Production, in conjunction with Nollywood,
Help! Dissemination project from SSHRC Engage Grant on Human Rights Action Plan
https://e-cassare.org/#
Okafor, O.; Bawa, S & Effoduh, J. (2021) Media Production in conjunction with Nollywood. A
Time to Live. Dissemination project from SSHRC Grant
https://e-cassare.org/#
Bawa, S. (August, 2022). Ghana Canadian Association of Ontario, Women’s Conference. Toronto
Convenor, Pan-African RoundTable. From Sankara, Nkrumah to Winnie
Mandela: Decolonization to Liberation, Who Speaks the African Dream? York University.
Research Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
The project investigates afrofuturism as genre, and as a project in future imagineering. Investigating questions around self-determination in an age of Artificial Intelligence, ethics of decolonial reclamation projects.
Description:Black Panther, a Hollywood Marvel Comics movie released in 2018, marked a significant moment in Afrofuturism on the global stage. While novelists, artists, creatives, and musicians have long engaged the futuristic praxis in their work, critically acclaimed cinematic success such as Black Panther, and Wakanda Forever, can be defined as the crowning moment of these discourses. For instance, in addition to a symbolic and positive representation of African artistry, the socio-economic, political, and cultural capital it provided were unparalleled. These movies, novels and art contribute significantly to new/different conversations about Africa and its diasporas. While this genre primarily focuses on imagining futures and possibilities of the future, it is not clear how these differ from other mainstream futuristic projects. Furthermore, what is sometimes read as futuristic in the genre is in fact mundane, even if contextualized within the realm of spirituality and the cosmos in African culture. This poses an important question: is the future imagineering in this genre merely a project of reclamation? This DARE project will explore this question through the following sub-questions: a) what constitutes (qualifies as) afrofuturism and who are the main contributors to the field b) What are the dominant and recurring themes in literature on Afrofuturism c) Is Afrofuturism a project in knowledge reclamation?
Project Type: FundedRole: PI
Start Date:
- Month: Jun Year: 2024
All Publications
Examining truth commissions as mechanisms for civic inclusion, identity formation, institutional reform, and nation (re)building in post-conflict and post-authoritarian societies, the book shifts attention towards institutional innovation in African countries, where approximately a third of all commissions have been established. Contributors explore the mandates, methods, outcomes, and legacies of truth commissions, analyzing their place in transitional and restorative justice. Rather than conceptualizing state building as incidental to their work, they present it as an intrinsic, central component. This flagship volume - authored by a stellar cast of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars - brings multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral perspectives to bear on the complex role of truth commissions in addressing transitional justice, historical injustices, and present-day human rights violations.
As more countries, in both the Global South and the North, adopt this model to address historical and contemporary abuses, the dialogue between different sectors of society modelled here will help inform this process - wherever it might occur.
Examining truth commissions as mechanisms for civic inclusion, identity formation, institutional reform, and nation (re)building in post-conflict and post-authoritarian societies, the book shifts attention towards institutional innovation in African countries, where approximately a third of all commissions have been established. Contributors explore the mandates, methods, outcomes, and legacies of truth commissions, analyzing their place in transitional and restorative justice. Rather than conceptualizing state building as incidental to their work, they present it as an intrinsic, central component. This flagship volume - authored by a stellar cast of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars - brings multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral perspectives to bear on the complex role of truth commissions in addressing transitional justice, historical injustices, and present-day human rights violations.
As more countries, in both the Global South and the North, adopt this model to address historical and contemporary abuses, the dialogue between different sectors of society modelled here will help inform this process - wherever it might occur.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare services, leading to the cancellation of non-urgent tests, screenings and procedures, a shift towards remote consultations, stalled childhood immunisations and clinic closures which had detrimental effects across the healthcare system. This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical admissions and healthcare quality in the Peel, York and Toronto regions within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
Despite the problematique of Global North/South relationships, human rights require transnational collaboration to successfully protect vulnerable people in the world. In particular, human rights engagements between Africa and the West are cemented in legacies of colonialism and mediated by development discourses that portray the continent as a paragon of poverty, corruption and backwardness. Within this context, we explore how an African Union (AU) human rights instrument could impact or transform Africa’s transnational human rights engagements. Specifically, we use Canada–Africa human rights engagements as a starting point and basis for analysing the nature, orientation and impacts of such engagements (especially over three salient issues). Situating Canada as allegorical for the West, our findings show that Canadian human rights actors are critical of colonial legacies, have faith in the AU’s leadership, and see the African Human Rights Action Plan as a potentially transformative instrument in human rights engagements in Africa.
This article critically analyzes human rights socialization in Africa through the lens of the draft African Human Rights Action Plan (AHRAP). It argues that the AHRAP presents a framework for human rights socialization, and it speaks to human rights socialization in distinctive ways. The article demonstrates that the AHRAP relies on African and international influences and seeks to propagate norms inspired by these influences. It analyzes three key issues from the AHRAP and discusses how those issues shape understanding of continental human rights socialization in Africa. These issues are the multiple roles and positions of the African Union, the identity of actors to whom socialization processes apply or ought to apply, and the nature of norms which are the focus of socialization efforts. The article’s analysis of these issues along with the AHRAP’s reliance on African and other influences reveal a path for human rights socialization in Africa that is both challenging and promising.
Since their release in the early 1990s, genetically modified (GM) crops have been lauded as a tool to redress stagnating yields and food insecurity among poor farmers. The potential for GM crops to alleviate poverty for farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will likely hinge on their ability to enhance women’s overall well-being, yet there is little research that evaluates if (and how) the technology has such transformative potential. This article reviews the existing scholarship on this topic by grouping it into three strands: (1) the impacts of GM crops on labor processes, (2) gender and patterns of adoption, and (3) the consequences of GM crops for intra-household gender relations. Each area is characterized by contradictory findings, reflecting the diversity and complexity of gender relations in different contexts. Our review suggests that further research should build on mixed-method approaches that involve long-term interactions with households in order to generate robust and gender-disaggregated data that yield nuanced, context-specific analysis.
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/SOCI2050 6.0 | A | Social Structure and Social Change | LECT |
| Winter 2025 | GS/SOCI6060 3.0 | M | Qualitative Methods Of Research | SEMR |
