Maureen Kihika

Dr. Maureen Kihika is a race and labour scholar with teaching and research interests in Africa/African Diaspora, global political economy, migration, Race and ethnicity, gender, feminism, labour/work and identity formation. Her work analyses how categories of social difference shape the experiences and identities of racialized Black workers and their communities. In this scope, Dr. Kihika’s research historicizes the socio-economic inequalities faced by Black Canadians, exploring the strategies by which this community navigates systemic marginalization within a capitalist transnational society. Grappling with the issue of how social livelihoods and ‘daily’ life experience shape identity formation, Kihika’s current study investigates how ongoing global protests against anti-Black racism, embodied by the Black Lives Matter movement, shape identity formations among Generation Y Black Canadian labour force participants.

As a scholar that is invested in knowledge mobilization, Kihika has contributed to the Canadian Review of Sociology: Committing Sociology Symposium regarding African-Canadians and anti-Black racism, and given talks on her work in academic and community settings. 

BA Hons. (Law), Carleton University
MA (Social Justice and Equity Studies), Brock University
PhD (Sociology), Simon Fraser University