Wenona Giles

Wenona Mary Giles FRSC is a professor emerita in the Department of Anthropology at York University. In 2018, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Through the university, Giles helped launch the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project which allowed people in refugee camps to earn university degrees, certificates and diplomas from universities in Canada and Kenya.

Professor

Wenona Giles
Born
Iran
CitizenshipUK
Canadian
Academic background
EducationB.A., English and French Literature, Santa Clara University
M.A., PhD, Anthropology, University of Toronto
ThesisMotherhood and Wage Labour in London: Portuguese Migrant Women and the Politics of Gender (1987)
Academic work
DisciplineGender
Migration
Sub-disciplineforced migration, globalization, nationalism and war
InstitutionsYork University

Early life and education

Although she was born in Iran, Giles holds both UK and Canadian citizenship.[1]

After earning her Bachelor of Arts at Santa Clara University in 1971, Giles earned her Master's degree and PhD in Anthropology at the University of Toronto.[2] Her dissertation was titled "Motherhood and Wage Labour in London: Portuguese Migrant Women and the Politics of Gender."[3]

Career

After moving to York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as a professor, Giles began working in York's Centre for Refugee Studies and Anthropology Department.[4] In 1993, Giles coordinated the Women in Conflict Zones Research Network with the Centre for Refugee Studies[4] and subsequently published "Maid in the Market: Women's Paid Domestic Labour" the following year.[5] She worked as coordinator of the Women in Conflict Zones Research Network until 2004.[4] That same year, she published a book titled "Sites of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones." The book is composed of essays using a feminist lens to understand how conflict and war were gendered and racialized.[6]

From 2005 to 2008, Giles was a principal investigator for a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded project titled "The Globalization of Homelessness in Long-Term Refugee Camps." She then began a six-year investigation into "'A Canadian Refugee Research Network: Globalizing Knowledge."[7]

Giles and fellow York professor Jennifer Hyndman began a project titled "The Globalization of Protracted Refugee Situations" (GPRS) initiative.[8] The goal of this initiative was to help ease those in long-term refugee situations. After consulting the results of the GPRS, Giles began constructing the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project with Don Dippo in 2013 through the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, and in partnership with Kenyatta and Moi universities and the University of British Columbia.[9] In February 2013, the Canadian International Development Agency, now Global Affairs Canada, granted them more than $4.5 million over a five year period to help launch BHER.[10] The following month, Giles was recognized by York University as a research leader at the 2013 Research Gala.[11]

In 2015, with the assistance of Don Dippo and York's Centre for Refugee Studies, Giles co-led the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project (until 2018) which offered on-line and on-site university degrees, diplomas and certificates to refugees in the Dadaab refugee camps.[12][13]

In 2016, Giles co-authored a book with Jennifer Hyndman titled "Refugees in Extended Exile: Living on the Edge." The book was critical of contemporary humanitarian aid efforts and the vulnerable status of refugees.[14][15] Besides refugees, Giles has also focused her research on the lives of Canadian Portuguese women. In 2017, she donated her research conducted in the 1980s to the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections at the York University Libraries.[16]

Giles retired from York University in October 2018, and is now a Professor Emerita and Senior Scholar at York University and Resident Researcher at the Centre for Refugee Studies.[17] A month after her retirement, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.[18] Her most recent book, co-edited with Jacqueline Bhabha and Faraaz Mahomed is: A Better Future: The Role of Higher Education for Displaced and Marginalised People (Cambridge, 2020) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/better-future/BFC8AAABEDFB41F88AE0929891CFE5DD

Selected bibliography

The following is a list of publications by Giles:[19]

  • Clean jobs, dirty jobs: ethnicity, social reproduction and gendered identity (1993)
  • Maid in the Market: Women's Paid Domestic Labour (1994)
  • Development & Diaspora: Gender and the Refugee Experience with Helene Moussa and Penny Van Esterik (1996)
  • Portuguese Women in Toronto: Gender, Immigration, and Nationalism (2002)
  • Feminists Under Fire: Exchanges Across War Zones editor (2003)
  • Sites of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones with Jennifer Hyndman (2004)
  • Portuguese Women in Toronto: Gender (2012)
  • When care goes global: locating the social relations of domestic work (2014)
  • Refugees in Extended Exile: Living on the Edge with Jennifer Hyndman (2017)

References
  1. "WGiles". wgiles.info.yorku.ca. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  2. "Curriculum Vitae Wenona Giles". wgiles.info.yorku.ca. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  3. "PhD Degrees Conferred". anthropology.utoronto.ca. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  4. "Wenona Giles Academic Director". crs.yorku.ca. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  5. Patricia M. Daenzer (1997). "JOURNAL ARTICLE Review". Le Travail. Athabasca University Press. 40: 351–352. JSTOR 25144214.
  6. Indra, Doreen (2005). "JOURNAL ARTICLE Review". Anthropological Quarterly. The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research. 78 (2): 469–474. doi:10.1353/anq.2005.0026. JSTOR 4150845.
  7. "Research". wgiles.info.yorku.ca. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  8. "Research Team". yorku.ca. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  9. "History". bher.org. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  10. "York receives $6.2 million from CIDA for international research projects". yfile.news.yorku.ca. February 4, 2013. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  11. "York's inaugural Research Gala recognizes excellence". yfile.news.yorku.ca. March 5, 2013. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  12. "Students in Dadaab refugee camps first to graduate with York U certificate". yfile.news.yorku.ca. October 20, 2015. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  13. Lynn Desjardins (October 19, 2015). "Canadian university graduates Somali refugees". rcinet.ca. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  14. Grayson, Catherine-Lune (May 7, 2018). "Book review: Refugees in Extended Exile: Living on the Edge". icrc.org. Retrieved April 28, 2019.
  15. Crisp, Jeff (December 14, 2017). "Refugees in Extended Exile: Living on the Edge. By Jennifer Hyndman and Winona Giles". Journal of Refugee Studies. 30 (4): 633–634. doi:10.1093/jrs/fex033. Retrieved April 28, 2019.
  16. "New archival donation by Anthropologist Wenona Giles to Clara Thomas Archives". pchp-phlc.ca. September 15, 2017. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  17. "About". wgiles.info.yorku.ca. Retrieved April 19, 2019.
  18. "CRS Professor Wenona Giles Invited to Join Royal Society of Canada". crs.info.yorku.ca. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  19. "au:Giles, Wenona". worldcat.org. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
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