About
Dr. Claudine Bonner is an award-winning and prolific scholar, researcher and teacher with more than 25 years of research, publications and various contributions to her credit. Dr. Bonner is the Canada Research Chair in Racial Justice & African Diaspora Migration in the Atlantic region, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Mount Allison University. Her teaching focuses on issues of equity and racial justice, an underdeveloped and emerging field of research that is growing rapidly within Canadian academia.
Dr. Bonner served as the inaugural Vice Provost of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Acadia University.
Her forthcoming publication "The Black Press: A Shadowed Canadian Tradition" is a collection of essays co-edited with Drs. Nina Reid-Maroney and Boulou Ebanda de B bèri. This collection, spanning the period from the 1850s to the early twentieth century, is the first in the field to bring together original historical and Communication Studies research that position pioneering Canadian Black journalists as effective intellectual activists.
Her current research explores early twentieth century African-Caribbean and Canadian migration networks, inserting Nova Scotia into the discussion as more than simply a point of transit as has often been suggested.
Research areas of interest
African Diaspora Migration
African Diaspora Migration
African Diaspora Migration
Sociology of Education
African Diaspora Migration
African Diaspora Migration
Social Justice
African Diaspora Migration
Social Justice
Gender
African Diaspora Migration
Social Justice
Dr. Bonner has been the recipient of multiple awards
- PhD Educational Studies - Gender, Equity and Social Justice, Western University, 2011 Dissertation: This Tract of Land: North Buxton, Ontario, 1873-1914
- M.A. Canadian History, Dalhousie University, 2018. Thesis: Industrial Island: African-Caribbean Migration to Cape Breton, Canada, 1900-1930
- M.Ed. Educational Administration, OISE-University of Toronto, 2002
- B.Sc. Honours Psychology & Exceptionality in Human Learning, 1996
- Tier 2 Canada Research Chair, Racial Justice & African Diaspora Migration in the Atlantic Region, 2023-present — Overview: Between 1750 and 1820, thousands of Black people migrated to Atlantic Canada. As Canada Research Chair in Racial Justice and African Diaspora Migration in Atlantic Canada, Dr. Claudine Bonner is shedding light on the history of these Canadians. She is building a collaborative, multi-disciplinary network to improve our knowledge of the history of Black Canadian migration. Combining archival work, community-based research and the digital humanities, Bonner and her research team are gathering, digitizing and analyzing print, audio and visual sources from across Canada and globally. They are also studying the relationships between race, migration and labour. Their aim is to understand how migration from the anglophone Caribbean affected Atlantic Canada and how state notions of race shaped immigration.
- Associate Professor, Sociology Department, Mount Allison University, 2023-present
- Vice-Provost – Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Acadia University, 2022-23
- Fulbright Canada Research Chair, Vanderbilt University, 2021-22
- Visiting Research Fellow, Gorsebrook Research Institute, Saint Mary’s University, 2020 – Covid-19 interrupted.
- Visiting Archival Researcher, Audio-visual Media Lab for the Study of Cultures and Society, University of Ottawa, March 2020 - Covid-19 interrupted.
- Scholar in Residence, Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, Fall 2019
- Associate Professor, Sociology Department & Women’s and Gender Studies, Acadia University, 2017-2023
- Assistant Professor, Sociology Department & Women’s and Gender Studies, Acadia University, 2016-2017
- Assistant Professor, Continuing Limited Term (CLT), Sociology Department, Acadia University, 2013-2016
- Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship Dalhousie University, “The Freedom Experience of Blacks in Nova Scotia,” 2010-2012
- Instructor, School of Social Work, Dalhousie University, 2010–2013
- SSHRC Institutional Grant (SIG), 2021-22 - Looking back to look ahead: Rebuilding Trust in Academia with African Nova Scotian communities
- Acadia University Research Fund (25.55), 2021-22 _ An Africville Childhood
- Fulbright Canada Research Chair, 2021-22 - African Nova Scotians on the Eastern Seaboard, 1900-1930
- Harrison McCain Foundation: Institutional Visitorship, 2019-21
- SSHRC Institutional Grant (SIG), 2018-19 - Mapping African Nova Scotian Migration & Settlement Patterns from 1881-1930
- Acadia University Research Fund (25.55), 2018-19 - Compiling a History and Tracking the Movement of the Black Press Tradition in Nova Scotia into the 21st Century
- Harrison McCain Foundation: Emerging Scholar Awards, 2017 - Diversity and Equity in Education: Reality or Rhetoric?
- Royal Society of Canada Open Academy, 2016 - Direct costs of a one-day symposium
- SSHRC Institutional Connections Grant, 2015-16 - ’To Do Our Share’: African Canadian Experiences in WW1
- SSHRC Insight Grant co-researcher - Canada’s 19th century black press: roots and trajectories of exceptional communication and intellectual activisms (co-applicants Dr. Nina Reid-Maroney & Dr. Boulou de B’beri)
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