Toward more equitable representation in research: New work is supporting important contributions to Canada’s scholarly knowledge
Story focus: Tameka Samuels-Jones is empowering emerging scholars from Latin America and the Caribbean to succeed in Canada.
For aspiring researchers looking to advance their academic careers abroad, Canada holds a lot of appeal. It’s recognized for its social stability and multicultural ideals, and as a place where researchers have the freedom to study what interests them. Yet Black, Indigenous and Latinx peoples from Latin America and the Caribbean face significant barriers to contributing scholarly work. Those barriers leave their voices underrepresented in the literature—and deprive Canada of their valuable perspectives.
Breaking down those barriers is a focus for Tameka Samuels-Jones, an assistant professor at York University and co-director of the institution’s Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC). Supported by a grant Samuels-Jones earned in receiving the 2023 Robbins-Ollivier Award for Excellence in Equity from the Canada Research Chairs Program, new work by CERLAC’s Black, Indigenous and Latinx Research Laboratory (BILX-Lab) will empower emerging researchers to make important contributions to Canada’s scholarly knowledge.
“These promising researchers need to understand that the problem isn’t the value of their work, but the unique professional and academic challenges they face,” Samuels-Jones says.
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