Dennis Bayazitov | Assistant News Editor
Featured image: Three York PhD students and one masters student were awarded for their ground-breaking theses. | Courtesy of YFile
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) have awarded York PhD candidates Matthew Robertshaw, Reena Shadaan, Kyla Baird, and master’s candidate Raghed Charabaty with four Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS).
A CGS is awarded in honour of Nelson Mandela, commemorating research that does justice to the five focal points of his life’s work: democratic freedom and human rights, strong leadership, national unity, children’s societal participation, and children’s health.
“SSHRC fosters the development of talented and creative people who will become leaders across campuses and communities, and thereby contribute to Canada’s success in the globalized 21st century,” says Kenneth Downs, SSHRC manager of public affairs and outreach.
“SSHRC-funded scholars mobilize social sciences and humanities knowledge, which has the potential to lead to intellectual, cultural, social, and economic influence, benefit, and impact.”
CIHR and SSHRC funded the three doctoral recipients with $35,000 per year for the next three years; and Charabaty with $17,500 for this year.
History PhD student Matthew Robertshaw’s thesis, “The Two Haitis: Cautionary Tale or Postcolonial Epic?” investigates the impact of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804).
“The revolution was the first major challenge to the international slave system and the underlying notions of racial inequality, but its significance has long been overlooked,”
Robertshaw says. “I’m looking at the two-sided effect of Haiti on the later French empire.”
Robertshaw asserts the loss of the colony affected the way France went about designing its colonial system in Africa.
He insists Haiti deserves more academic attention, as its Revolution was a major factor in the development of the modern world, but it is too often ignored.
“The funding from the award will go a long way to help my research, as I plan to visits archives in Haiti, France, and Senegal,” Robertshaw adds.
“The honour of being associated with Nelson Mandela will keep me focused on the wider pertinence of my research in Africa and beyond.”
Reena Shadaan, an Environmental Sciences PhD student, is working alongside the Toronto-based Healthy Nail Salon Network and newly-formed Nail Technicians’ Network to explore the harmful conditions faced by nail technicians in the GTA—such as reproductive, respiratory, dermatological, and musculoskeletal health impacts—as well as the pathways and challenges to mobilize healthier, safer, and fairer workplaces for these workers.
“Occupational health impacts, and the concerns of precarious workers, are often ignored,” Shadaan says. “This is in part because this labour is deeply racialized, and consists primarily of immigrant and newcomer women.”
In the following months, she plans to continue her work with the two organizations, employing her funding to further her research, “as well as build relationships with similar groups based in the United States.”
Psychology PhD Kyla Baird’s proposed thesis, “Risk and Recruitment for the Domestic Sex Trafficking of Minors in Care of Child Protective Services,” aims to understand why some youth in care are more vulnerable and at risk for recruitment into sex trafficking than others, examining the role relationships play in recruiting.
Over the next year, Baird and her colleague, Kyla McDonald, will be interviewing frontline child protection staff, policing agencies, and survivors—to better comprehend how to create child and youth sex trafficking risk protocols and inter-agency initiatives aimed at recruiting youth into sex work.
“Domestic sex trafficking is a growing problem in Canada, and in order to support survivors and prevent recruitment, we need to better understand how traffickers target and recruit young people, particularly those at elevated risk—those in the care of child protective services,” Baird says.
“More research like ours needs to incorporate survivor voices to ensure support programs and prevention initiatives include survivor-identified needs.”
Chabaraty’s research focuses on the refugee crisis within the Middle East. He put together a docufiction film focusing on “regional struggles as they relate to changes in geo-politics as well as the ecology itself of the land.”
“SSHRC has funded many of Canada’s best researchers, students, and postsecondary institutions in the deep conviction that social science and humanities research is absolutely essential to enhancing our well-being and quality of life,” stated SSHRC President Ted Hewitt at the launch of the CGS awards.
