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Congratulations to Our Recent Honours Graduates!

The Department of Social Justice and Community Studies congratulates our recent Honours graduates on their achievements!

Rena Alexander
Honours Thesis Title: Operationalizing Justice: Translating Reconciliation Mandates into Anti-Racist Human Resources Management (HRM) Action in Nova Scotia

Abstract:

Despite a wave of national equity mandated and organizational commitments to reconciliation, diversity and anti-racism following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action and Nova Scotia’s Dismantling Racism and Hate Act (2022), a question remains: How do Human Resources Management (HRM) policies in Nova Scotia nonprofit and public sector organizations operationalize (or fail to operationalize) provincial and federal reconciliation mandates into anti-racist HRM action? This research argues that HRM is not merely a neutral administrative function. Rather, it serves as a colonial apparatus that has ongoing encoded exclusion through hiring practices, professionalism standards, performance management, and the invisible labour extracted from racialized employees.
This research conducts a critical policy audit of HRM handbooks from both the public and nonprofit sectors in Nova Scotia, drawing from Two-Eyed Seeing (Etuaptmumk), Critical Race Theory, and Africentricity as guiding frameworks. Organizational documents were compared against provincial and federal benchmarks to examine racialized systemic barriers.
Findings reveal what this research terms the performative paradox. Although all the organizations analyzed have strong language around equity, reconciliation, and justice in their mission statements, their HRM frameworks continue to reproduce colonial structures. Most alarming, the public sector organization, which is the most legislatively obligated to meet equity standards, produces internal HRM documents that are the least equity-oriented. These findings suggest that mission alignment and legislative mandate alone do not foster HRM transformation. This research proposes a different approach, the reparative relations framework, as an alternative to colonial HRM. By grounding policy standards in Black and Indigenous epistemologies, we can begin to close the gap between what organizations say and what they do.

Callum Burrell
Honours Thesis Title: Knowing Our Past to Better Our Future: A Policy-Driven History of Housing and Social Welfare in Nova Scotia, and Its Impacts on Contemporary Housing and Homelessness Programs

Abstract:

Although homelessness in Canada has been widely studied, limited attention has been paid to the interconnected policy foundations that have shaped the country’s social welfare system, fostered persistent negative attitudes toward poverty and homelessness, and enabled the financialization of housing within Nova Scotia. This thesis addresses that gap by bringing these phenomena together, tracing the historical development of Canadian social welfare policy, and situating the current state of housing resources and social housing developments within broader historical trends, with particular attention to housing and service provision in Nova Scotia.
The study examines how past policy decisions continue to shape contemporary approaches to housing and homelessness, arguing that current reliance on non-profit social services reflects a largely reactive policy landscape. Central to this analysis is the withdrawal of the Canadian state from social housing provision and its relationship to the rise of housing as a financial asset. This shift has included incentivizing increased investor activity in housing markets, contributing to declining affordability and rising homelessness.
Guided by a framework that integrates historical institutionalism, critical political economy, and critical realism, this research seeks to address the primary question: How have the history of social welfare and housing policies in Canada served to influence current housing policy in Nova Scotia, and how must the approach to housing be altered to better serve low-income, precariously housed, and homeless individuals?
The findings suggest that while expanding the supply of social housing is necessary, it alone is insufficient. Meaningful reform requires coordinated federal and provincial action to regulate housing markets and ensure rental affordability, alongside municipal involvement that supports the needs of their residents. By connecting historical policy trajectories to present-day challenges, this thesis contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of homelessness and unaffordable housing in Canada and offers policy-relevant insights for addressing it.

 

Faculty News!

Dr. Roshan Arah Jahangeer (she/her/elle/li) joins the Department of Social Justice and Community Studies at Saint Mary’s University. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from York University and taught in both French and English at Glendon College (York University). She was the inaugural postdoctoral fellow in Islamophobia in health professions education at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and served as a Research Fellow in Islamophobia Studies at the Carleton Centre for the Study of Islam (Carleton University).

Dr. Jahangeer’s research examines transnational Islamophobia through the circulation of anti-veiling laws between France and Québec, and explores their impacts on Muslim women in relation to secularism, feminism, and migration. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections, including Secularism, Race, and the Politics of Islamophobia and Producing Islam(s) in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality and Politics. She has collaborated with Muslim community organizations such as the Tessellate Institute, where she served as both Research Director and Board Member.

 

Award News

Dr. Rachel Zellars (SJCS) received the Father Stewart Medal for Excellence in Teaching (2025) & the Dr. Geraldine Thomas Educational Leadership Award (2025). 

Dr. Rachel Zellars (SJCS) received the SMUSA Award for "Overall Excellence in the Field of Education” (2021), recognizing her work in creating rigorous, respectful learning spaces and teaching challenging subjects with great care.

The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami's 2018 Inuit Cultural Repatriation Award recognized the collaborative work of the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC, Inuvik, Inuvialuit Settlement region), the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Val Marie Johnson (SJCS), and the Anglican Church General Synod Archives (Toronto), to repatriate copies of archival documentation from Shingle Point Eskimo Residential School (1929-1936), to the ICRC: "National Inuit org honours Inuit and Inuit allies: Precious archival materials from 1930s-era residential school returned to the Inuvialuit," Nunatsiaq News (August 17, 2018)

SJCS applauds the work of its stellar faculty.

For Dr. Rachel Zellars’ work on the uprisings against racist, including state, violence see: Reakash Walters & Rachel Zellars, “We don't need the police. We need each other,” rabble.ca (June 10, 2020) https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2020/06/we-dont-need-police-we-need-each-other

For SJCS-organized guest speaker, Dr. Malinda S. Smith see:

"Diversity and equity scholar Dr. Malinda Smith shares knowledge," SMU Campus News (October 30, 2019)
https://campusnews.smu.ca/campusnotes/2019/10/30/malinda-smith

For media engagement with Dr. Val Marie Johnson's research see:
Julia Jacobs, "Their Land Became Part of Central Park," New York Times (October 20, 2019) 
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/arts/lyons-seneca-village-monument.html

For a recent brief interview with SJCS faculty see: 
"Saint Mary’s University Arts: Ethical community engagement," Career Minded in The Coast (March 01, 2018)
Saint Mary’s University Arts: Ethical community engagement
A new program aims for action, not just words, to fight injustice.

SJCS & Inuit Cultural Repatriation: 
See recent news on the collaboration of the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC in Inuvik, Inuvialuit Settlement region), the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Dr. Val Marie Johnson (SJCS, SMU), and the Anglican Church General Synod Archives (Toronto), to repatriate to the centre copies of archival documentation from the Shingle Point Eskimo Residental School (1929-1936), recently awarded the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami's Inuit Cultural Repatriation Award:
" National Inuit org honours Inuit and Inuit allies: Precious archival materials from 1930s-era residential school returned to the Inuvialuit," NUNATSIAQ NEWS (August 17, 2018) 
http://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/65674national_inuit_org_honours_inuit_and_inuit_allies/

 

 

 

 

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