SOCIAL INNOVATIONS IN ONTARIO:
An analysis of self help groups, cooperatives, diaspora businesses and social enterprises among African-Canadians and racialized people
A five-year project funded by the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science for the Early Researcher Award (2018-2022).
This research project examines the role of the social economy–comprised of community organizations and socially conscientious businesses that support societal well-being–among racialized Canadians and racialized people in the GTA, London and Oshawa. The project documents how racialized people, especially women, are excluded from economic development programs (e.g., those created to support Impact Ontario) and how people cope with exclusion by relying on local social economies.
Student Researchers
Tewodros Asfaw
Tewodros is currently a PhD student at York University. He completed his BA and MA at University of Windsor. His past research involved food security, in theorizing hunger and in constitutional discourse on hunger. In 2018, joined Dr. Hossein as an RA. This work involved analyzing and understanding the three thousand years old political economy of Ethiopia.
Amrith David
Amrith is currently a final year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus. He is completing a specialist in International Development Studies and Human Geography. He is the current Vice President of Academics and University Affairs for the Scarborough Campus Student Union in which he sits on board meetings to promote the inclusiveness of indigenous and racialized student-led initiatives on campus. Amrith is also an active member of the Participedia global network that promotes the democratic participation and inclusion of informal citizens. In considering democratic participation and democracy at large, Amrith used various research methodologies to focus primarily on the democratic participation of women in the small-scale fishing industry, specifically focusing on communities in Malawi and Uganda. He is one of the recipients of the 2022 University of Toronto Excellence Awards and will be working on an inclusive economics project that focuses on racialized diaspora owned small-businesses. Amrith hopes to enter law school in the upcoming years as his interest lies in international human rights laws and policies.
Nicholas Goberdhan
Nicholas is currently a fourth-year undergraduate student at York University. He is doing an honors double major BA in Law and Society & Health and Society. This fall, he will be returning to York University to do his Masters Degree in Socio-Legal Studies.
Jane Lumumba
Jane is currently a PhD student in Environmental studies at York University and a teaching assistant. As part of the ERA project, Jane will research financial technology firms and digital currency platforms in Ontario, Canada and the world. Prior to full time studies, Jane was the East Africa Advisor for the Commonwealth Local Government Forum based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has vast experience in the international development sector managing multilateral projects in sub-Saharan Africa driving the localization of the Sustainable Development Goals and empowering local government as a key development partner. She also previously worked at UN-Habitat, providing technical support to urban governance programming and decentralization processes. Jane is also a director at the PLO Lumumba foundation a pan African organization that aims to promote servant leadership across the African continent.
Wesner Marcelin
Wesner Marcelin is a community economic development expert with more than three decades working on access to finance issues. He was the CEO of a number of leading microfinance banks in Haiti. Since migrating to Canada he has owned a small business, taught French and is currently working on creating a nonprofit microfinance bank for Francophone Ontarians. Currently he is a community-based researcher on the Social Innovations project at York University to examine Black diaspora businesses in the GTA and especially among th French speaking population. Wesner holds a BSc degree in Business Administration and Accounting from the Universite Quisqueya, Haïti and a certificate in Business Administration from Glendon College.
Ola Osman
Ola is currently a fourth year undergraduate student at Western University’s Department of Women’s Studies and Feminist Research. She will be headed to complete a Masters in Women’s Studies at Oxford University in the fall. She is invested in documenting the lives of Black women who organize for peace trans-nationally. Her undergraduate thesis examined the Black maternal familiarity with death and the mobilizing capacity of performative mourning. Her graduate thesis will focus on Liberian female ex-combatants’ experiences of reintegrating in the post-conflict era.
Megan Pearson
Megan is currently at Ph.D. student at York University in the Faculty of Education. She completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts at the University of Toronto and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, respectively. Afterwards she worked for several years as an elementary school teacher in the public and private systems in the Greater Toronto Area and in the Northwest Territories. Megan has worked with the Rotman School of Business’ iThink Initiative, developing professional development and leading workshops and has served as the Director Of Curriculum And Professional Development at a private school, developing and facilitating professional development seminars for educators locally and in Guangzhou, China. Her research interests lie in how, and the ways in which the social economy can intersect with education.
Semhar Berhe
Semhar is currently in her last year of the Business and Society program at York University. For the2017/2018 academic year Semhar was part of The UMosaic Fellowship where she was part of creating a social initiative that is currently being marketed. She has also been awarded an international scholarship that will take her studies abroad starting Fall 2018.Her interest lies in public policy and the how this impacts society as a whole, with this interest she has plans to pursue her Master's degree.
Katherine Earnshaw
Katherine is a second-year PhD student of Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies at York University with a double major BA in English and Women’s Studies from the University of Western Ontario and a MA in Gender Studies from the University of Toronto. Her research interests sexual regulation politics, social and political feminist economy, critical whiteness studies, post feminisms, feminist literary theory and feminist critiques of popular culture. While working towards her comprehensive exams, Katherine is thrilled to be working under the tutelage of Professor Shenaz Hossein.
Jamar Grandison
Jamar is undergraduate research assistant for Professor Dr. Caroline Hossein at York University. Understanding the bondage that propaganda can create and identifying the unassuming delivery of misinformation is what tipped Jamar off to the power of marketing. Today he advocates for social mobility and access to information as an aspiring analyst and marketing professional.
Shruti Kalyanaraman
Shruti is a PhD student in the Gender, Feminist and Women's studies department at York University. Care work, activism as an extension of care by immigrant mothers form the primary areas of her research. She teaches courses related to women and work, social and alternative economies.
Ranbir Singh Mangat
Ranbir Singh Mangat is an undergraduate student majoring in International Development Studies. Through his schooling career, Ranbir has been involved in community work that involved organizing and research. He has acted as an elected Student Trustee on the Peel Board of Education, in addition to starting a youth group that engaged racialized youth through hip hop and community mentorship. His research interests are in understanding global systems of inequality through colonial-economic, historical, and political frames. He also has a particular interest in understanding diaspora and cultural patterns. Ranbir is currently attending York University on a full scholarship for community leadership.
Dr. Michel Mott Machado
Michel Mott Machado is PhD of Business Administration – Mackenzie Presbyterian University. Originally from City of São Paulo-SP/Brazil, he is currently Postdoctoral Fellow linked to the Business and Society Program – York University, developing the research project “Brazilian Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Toronto”. This project has the support granted by São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), from Jul/2019 to Dec/2019. In 2019, he also joined to the project “Social innovations in Ontario: An analysis of self-help groups, cooperatives diaspora business and social enterprises among African-Canadians and racialized people”, a five-year project funded by the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science for the Early Researcher Award (2018-2022). His main research topics are: Management and Dignity in Organizations; Ethnic and Immigrant Entrepreneurship; Social Innovations; Management and Evaluation of Technological Higher Education.
Richelle Kay Nelson
Richelle is an undergraduate student majoring in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Growing up in the Jane and Finch community, she has dedicated her time to always staying connected through grassroots organizing. Her passion for her community in addition with her love for Film and the arts, has drove her to want to tell the stories of the people of her community. She is currently Creative Director of Campaign and Events at the Flaunt It Movement, a youth-led grassroots organization based within the Jane and Finch community where their mission is to provide artistic opportunities to women of Colour in low-income areas.
James Patriquin
James is a PhD candidate in political science and political economy at Carleton University. His research interests include postmodern and poststructural political economy, the politics of money and finance, alternative finance, blockchain technology, and the meteoric rise of cryptocurrency. His current research applies critical theory to interpret the burgeoning realm of digital money and decentralized finance.