Supervisor: Dr. Mirna Carranza
Thesis Title: Black farming settlements, land justice, and community food movements
 

Abena’s research focuses on Black farming settlements in Canada, a history that goes as far back as Guysborough, Nova Scotia, in the late 1700s; Buxton, Queen Bush, and Dresden in Ontario in the mid to late 1800s; and Amber Valley, among other smaller communities, in Alberta in the early 1900s. Abena endeavors to spotlight the issues facing Blacks in agriculture, as very little studies have examined and analyzed their role in agriculture historically; this stark gap in history speaks to how Black farmers are socially and culturally positioned as a minority among Canadian farmers. Abena explores and examines Black farming settlements in Canada as an opportunity to disentangle and disclose how meanings attributed to land are grounded in the history of race, class, gender, and culture. She also investigates how the history of who could access and interact with the land unravels how policies of exclusion are founded on racialized and gendered constructions and representations that have affected, informed and influenced how Blacks relate to food, farming and community cooperation.