Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to African Studies and CAAS: recognizes senior colleagues who have been CAAS stalwarts and have retired or nearing retirement. Two awards are presented annually with attention to EDID. The first of this award will be presented at the 2021 conference, if approved by the Board.
CAAS Award for Meritorious Service: recognizes senior colleagues who have contributed to CAAS through many years of extraordinarily long service. Recipients do not have to be Africanists but must have made significant contributions to CAAS, its activities or any of its organs.
Miriam Grant, recipient, Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to African Studies and CAAS
Bio
Miriam Grant is Professor Emeritus (Geography), Dept. of Community, Culture and Global Studies, UBC Okanagan, Associate Member, Geography, UBC Vancouver and Adjunct, Geography, University of Calgary. She served as Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, UBCO (2011-2018); and Associate Dean Graduate Studies (1999-2004) and Associate Dean, Research (2007-2011) at the University of Calgary. Her research interests, centered on Zimbabwe/ Southern Africa, include: Urban Food Security; Lodging (Private Rental) and Urban Development; HIV/AIDS Care; and the African Elite in Bulawayo (1953-1990). She has had the privilege of supervising twenty-four graduate students. While serving as a volunteer with the World University Services of Canada in Lesotho (1983-85), Miriam travelled extensively and became fascinated by Zimbabwe. In 1990, she returned to Zimbabwe to conduct her Ph.D. research, thus starting an extensive research engagement. Miriam is a Co-Investigator on a SSHRC Partnership grant on South-South Migration and Migrant Food Insecurity (pending) and was a Collaborator on a CIDA UPCD Tier II grant on Urban Food Security and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa. She is currently- in between walking Spencer the dog- working on a MS, with Arja Vainio-Mattila, on Lodging Stories: (Land) Lords, Ladies and Lodgers in Urban Zimbabwe.
Miriam has served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Association of African Studies since 1997. This has included tracking CAAS memberships and conference registrations, taking minutes at Board and AGM meetings, finalizing the annual financial statement and the conference financial statement, paying conference expenses, liaising with Routledge regarding membership CJAS subscriptions, completing the annual CRA return for CAAS, and maintaining the CAAS charitable status with Corporations Canada.
Christopher Youé, recipient, Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to African Studies and CAAS (posthumous)
The late Christopher Youe (1948-2018) ranks among the intellectual giants in the field of African Studies in Canada. When he was not the affable and insightful professor of history at Memorial University of Newfoundland (1985-2013), Chris for the final two decades of his life was a distinguished author and editor of the Canadian Journal of African Studies (CJAS). His leadership role within the African Studies community of Canada was also reflected in his three decades of service on the Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS) Executive, including two terms as President.
Professor Youé’s contribution to African Studies is most evident in his substantial research and writing that focused on African history, politics, and society, with a special emphasis on colonialism and imperialism as well as labour organization in South Africa and East Africa. His awareness of and access to the most recent African Studies publications, especially during his long service as CJAS Book Review Editor, motivated him to preside over the adjudication process for the Joel Gregory Prize awarded biennially by CAAS to recognize the best book published in African Studies in the humanities and social sciences. Professor Youe was also celebrated for his inspiring teaching that featured acknowledgement in Maclean’s special university edition as best loved professor, in addition to receiving the first ever MUNSU (Memorial University Student Union) Award for Distinguished Teaching. He was especially proud of the coterie of graduates whom he shepherded into academia to become successful Africanist scholars in their own right. Always keen to open doors for young scholars, he became well known for his special presentations on “Getting Published,” attracting a sizeable audience annually at the CAAS Conference and often at the African Studies Association (ASA) meeting in the United States. Despite his heavy editorial responsibilities, Chris would always be the first to volunteer to help adjudicate the Fraser Taylor Prize, awarded annually to the best graduate paper presented at the previous CAAS Conference.
Roger Riendeau, recipient, CAAS Award for Meritorious Service
Bio
Roger Riendeau has been Managing Editor of the Canadian Journal of African Studies since the position was first created in 1986. He has thus been the journal’s only Managing Editor – a remarkable 35 years of service to both CJAS and the Canadian Association of African Studies. There have been profound changes in the production and administration of CJAS during this time, especially the move from a subscription-based, print-only publication, where Roger oversaw journal management, production, and subscriptions, to the combined digital and print publication through Taylor & Francis that we all know today. Indeed Roger, along with Coordinating Editor Chris Youé, was instrumental in making the move to T&F that took effect in 2012. That transition has seen the role and function of Managing Editor adapt and change, but Roger has remained an essential source of administrative and accounting support, along with wise counsel based on his deep knowledge and experience of CJAS and CAAS over several decades. This has allowed Coordinating Editors and other members of the editorial team to concentrate on the academic business of the journal. Roger has provided important continuity through the various Editors who have served CJAS over the decades, helping them navigate the changes and challenges the journal has faced.
Roger’s inestimable contributions to CJAS and CAAS have occurred alongside his own academic career outside African Studies. His research and writing focused on Canadian urban history, notably municipal services and infrastructure in the metropolitan Toronto area. A graduate of Glendon College, York University and the University of Toronto, he joined the faculty of the University of Toronto’s Innis College in 1976. He taught in the Writing and Rhetoric Program at Innis College, and also at Woodsworth and Trinity Colleges. He was Vice Principal of Innis College from 2003 to 2016 and retired from the University of Toronto in 2019.