Joseph Mensah

• Professor at York University

Drawing on various literature sources, including secondary data and media reports, this article adds to the emerging literature on international students and COVID-19 by exploring the experiences of international students amid the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the economic consequences of the pandemic on Canadian universities. The article argues tha...

Due to the persistent and tenacious practices of anti-Black racism, embedded in White supremacist policing practices, Black and Indigenous people are overwhelmingly overrepresented in the Canadian criminal justice system. Unsurprisingly, a disproportionate number of Black people are killed at the hands of police in Toronto. The Canadian criminal ju...

As several commentators and researchers have noted since late spring 2020, COVID-19 has laid bare the connections between entrenched structurally generated inequalities on one hand, and on the other hand relatively high degrees of susceptibility to contracting COVID-19 on the part of economically marginalized population segments. Far from running a...

Recently, a burgeoning literature has emerged on the return experience of migrants, with some analysts touting the benefits of return to the socioeconomic development of countries of origin, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Still, only few studies have examined how return migrants create and sustain transnational connectivity with their countries...

Despite African governments' increased interest in tapping the development potential of their diaspora, the transfer of skills by professors and researchers in higher education institutions abroad has received limited attention. Known as the academic diaspora, these groups are recognized as reliable mediators for African universities in the midst o...

While a bourgeoning literature exists on how African Americans are using tourism to connect with Africa, only a handful of studies have examined the nature of African American tourists’ spending on the continent. This study identifies popular Ghanaian handicrafts that are produced for African American tourists; examines the spending patterns of the...

Even though research on return migration has flourished in the last decade, we still know very little about how immigrants contemplate the decision to return to the homeland. Using multinomial logistic regression, we examined the variables underpinning the return intentions of African immigrants in Canada—specifically, Ghanaians and Somalis in Toro...

While Zongos have become a permanent abode for many people, especially migrants in urban Ghana, the dynamics of these communities are quite poorly understood. This paper provides a geographic analysis of the formation of Zongos, drawing heavily on a complex systems approach to explore how various variables, including space, ethnicity, class, citize...

International students in Canada make enormous contribution to the Canadian economy. As domestic students’ enrolment has declined, international students’ admissions have compensated for economic losses that Canadian universities incur from the decline of domestic students’ enrolment. The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting international students’ admis...

That dialectics, as a mode of reasoning, is routinely used to explain the worlds of both nature and society per their inherent complexities, contradictions, and states of flux makes it quite amenable to robust theorizations of development. However, since many are those who see Africa(ns) in simplistic and wholly pessimistic terms, it is unsurprisin...

This paper problematizes large-scale residential real estate redevelopment in Canada and examines its impact, using the Herongate Community in Ottawa as a case study. Among other things, it profiles the Community, its history and present redevelopment, and explores the legal framework, and the limits thereof, constraining mass evictions of this typ...

Prior to the seminal work of Nina Glick Schiller and her colleagues in the 1990s, scholars of international migration assumed that most immigrants from the global South make a permanent move to settle in rich countries and thereby sever ties with their homelands. More recently, however, a burgeoning literature has emerged on the transnational and r...

Blacks are the primary scapegoats for the maladies of the world. This might sound melodramatic to those who are privileged enough to steer clear of this reality. The piece does not offer a definitive answer to the tripartite riddle of why Blacks are dying more than the rest, why they are being blamed for the virus, and why, so far, Africa remains t...

Written with Christopher Williams, this book draws on the dynamics of racism in six specific realms of Canadian life, including urban housing, the labour market, health care, education, sports, and the criminal justice system, to show how the racism meted out to Blacks and other minorities eventually comes back to hurt members of the majority, as w...

How is the Canadian national identity constructed? What are the relationships between the national identity and the immigration policy of Canada? And how has the Black presence in Canada influenced Canada's national identity formation and immigration policy? This paper examines the extent to which Black, continental Africans are implicated in the n...

With increased transnational ties to their homelands, immigrants' ontology now verges on being double – and, consequently, on seeing double – most of the time. This double consciousness, and the attendant dearth of fixity in identity among immigrants, has led some to wonder where the allegiance of minority immigrants, in particular, lies. Can these...

Since the mid-1990s, the term “globalization” has become an all-purpose buzzword in public and scholarly debates. It is now used in a variety of ways, “some of which are mutually reinforcing, while others are outright contradictory”2 We thus find Friedman observing, perhaps sarcastically, that “globalization is everything and its opposite”;3 and Be...

Notwithstanding the role of immigrants' transnationalism and identity formation in shaping their settlement and integration process, the burgeoning literature on Canadian immigration has paid only a perfunctory attention to this area of study. Similarly, despite the enormous diversity among Blacks in Canada, portrayals of Blacks as a homogenous gro...

Societal change and the conceptualization of knowledge production are key instruments in defining the trajectory of academic disciplines. This chapter discusses the evolution of the discipline of geography and its contribution to knowledge and public policy and practice in Ghana. It examines the writings and portfolios held by key geographers and t...

This qualitative study examines the lived experiences of Ghanaians and Somalis in Toronto, highlighting the multifaceted interplays between their cultures, housing problems, and coping strategies. We found that, unlike the situation in their homelands where many were involved in communal living out of desire, in Toronto many are driven to live comm...

Just when health care financing in Africa is expected to pick up due to perceptible improvements in many economies, including those of Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Angola, the global financial crisis gathers momentum for contagion. This paper examines how the financial crisis is undermining access to health care in Africa, and offers some suggestions to h...

Stimulated by a wide range of factors, the sons and daughters of Africa have relocated to Canada in significant numbers in recent years, and have, in turn, prompted research and public discussions about the extent to which they are incorporated in the host society. While the racism-laced economic challenges faced by these African immigrants have fe...

The Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was established as part of a poverty reduction strategy to make health care more affordable to Ghanaians. It is envisaged that it will eventually replace the existing cash-and-carry system. This paper examines the views of NHIS administrators, members/enrollees, and health care providers on how the...

Starting from the premise that "culture" has generally been overlooked in the analysis of immigrant housing in Canada, this study examines the housing experiences of Ghanaian and Somali immigrants in Toronto, by exploring the instrumentality of these immigrants' cultures in the complex dynamics of the city's rental market. The study relies on a mix...

While access to postsecondary education in Canada has increased over the past decade, a number of recent studies demonstrate that youth from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are vulnerable to some degree of exclusion from postsecondary education. These studies tend to emphasize the lack of financial resources and social capital as the main s...

Following the creation of the Metropolis project and its network of research centres in the mid-1990s, there has been a flood of publications on immigration and settlement issues in Canada, and Integration and Inclusion of Newcomers and Minorities across Canada is a welcome addition to this burgeoning literature. Edited by John Biles, Meyer Burstei...

This book examines the history, experience and socioeconomic conditions of Blacks in Canada from a multidisciplinary perspective. It explores the incorporation of Blacks into Canadian society from the standpoint of their differential access to resources and rewards. A wide range of topics, including the history of Blacks, the spatial distribution o...

In 2003 the Government of Ghana established a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to improve health-care access for Ghanaians and eventually replace the cash-and-carry system. This study evaluates an important aspect of its promise in the context of the Millennium Development Goals #4 and #5 which deal with the health of women and children. We...

Canada, like most immigrant-receiving nations of the West, is home to many visible minorities, some of whom have arrived only recently, while others, including the African Diaspora, have a long history in this country. In 2001, some 13 percent of the Canadian population belonged to a visible minority group. It is estimated that by 2017 roughly one...

While the importance of immigrants' transnational economic activities is readily acknowledged, the cultural factors that facilitate their initiation and sustenance of memberships in multiple locations have been overlooked. It is this lacuna that the present study addresses, using Ghanaian immigrant churches in Toronto as a case study. The paper exa...

This entry examines how the ILO was founded and discusses its efforts to strengthen the working conditions of workers around the world through various regulatory instruments and advocacies.

The work profiles the origin and functions of the World Bank, and offers a critical appraisal of its activities over the years.

This entry provides a comprehensive overview of origins and functions of the IMF and discusses its partnership with the World Bank regarding Structural Adjustment programs over the years.

Thanks to pioneering work within anthropology, students of international migration acknowledge that most immigrants do not sever their ties with the homeland, but rather maintain them through a variety of cross-border relationships. While scholarly work has proliferated, since the early 1990s, over the transnational economic and political activitie...

This book explores Africa's involvement in contemporary neoliberal globalization, drawing particular attention to the social, economic, political and cultural costs of the grossly unbalanced structures of global wealth and power between Africa and the Rest.

Third World solid and semisolid urban wastes may contain human faecal matter, which is particularly hazardous to health. A survey of a typical West African city revealed five behaviours and five attitudes or perceptions associated with public and domestic refuse and its disposal, and some relationships with gender, educational level, and ethnicity....

Complex socio-economic and spatial relations combine uniquely in different locations within the city to create variable employment prospects for the poor. Drawing on a survey conducted among low income housing residents of Edmonton, this article investigates the spatial variations in employment-related problems faced by the urban poor, and explores...

That contemporary globalization is characterized by a “speed-up in the pace of life” (Harvey 1990, 240), or the shrinking of the world into a global village, is hard to deny. The dynamic time-space compression that underpins this characteristic feature of globalization has generally been presented in the available literature as though it applies ev...

Since the 1980s, there has been a proliferation of academic discourse on globalization emanating from virtually all visages of the social sciences and humanities, with disciplines such as sociology, economics, political science, geography, and cultural studies taking the lead in this intellectual project (Held et al. 1999; Waters 1995). Perhaps the...

So far we have examined the ways in which Africa and its people interlace with the phenomena of neoliberalism and globalization and their associated discursive practices. As with other regions of the world, internal and external forces are exacting considerable pressure on the economies, societies, and cultures of Africa. The recurrent narratives f...

This entry provides an overview of the history, geography, and contemporary socioeconomic and cultural trends in Ghana

Discusses how decertification is conceptualized in the extant literature, and examines how it is growing from the Sahara to the Southern segments of Africa

This entry deals with the origins and activities of the preeminent regional economic integration body in West Africa--i.e., the ECOWAS

This entry offers a succinct biography of Idi Amin--arguably, the most notorious person to ever lead an African country.

This entry deals with the origins and functions of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

This piece profiles the life and accomplishments of the late President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia

This is a brief overview of the foundation and functions of the Economic Commission of Africa (ECA).

This is a concise overview of the origins, functions, challenges of prospects of the Organization of African Unity-now the African Union (AU)

This a a concise profile of the life of Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel prize winner and a formidable leader of the anti-Apartheid struggles in South Africa

This is a brief profile of the life and accomplishments of the preeminent Pan-Africanist who became the first President of the Republic of Ghana

This entry is on the how the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was founded, and what it has accomplished over the year, with some insights into the challenges it faces in the coming years.

This entry profiles the history and geography of West Africa, and discusses the contemporary socioeconomic development trends in that part of Africa.

As the primate and capital city of Guyana, Georgetown has multiple functions: it is not only the seat of government, but also the hub of industry, commerce, and international trade. We take an in-depth look at the history of this metropolis to gain some understanding of its present city structure, economy, and urban development concerns. Like many...

This is a comprehensive overview of how ECOWAS was created, and what its challenges and accomplishments have been over the decades.

This is a short profile of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),

This entry details the history, geography, and socioeconomic development trends in the Canadian province of Alberta

This a a brief overview of the history, geography and socioeconomic development trends of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan

This a a brief profile of the the African Development Bank (ADB)

This entry offers a succinct historiography of the northern Canadian territory of Yukon

What is race, and how is different from ethnicity? How is racism sustained? What are the impacts of racism? This short piece addresses these foundational questions.

This is a profile of Manito; it offers a synopsis of the history, geography and development trends in this Prairie province of Canada

This paper explores the activities and problems of indigenous women's organisations in Ghana. The survey data that form the basis of the analysis were collected in 1998 from a sample of 66 women's organisations in the districts of Atebubu and Techiman of Brong Ahafo Region in Ghana. The results suggest that despite the debilitating impacts of patri...

This book argues that globalization is a process that is not only contested but also has significant human factor implications. The human factor, as used in this book, connotes a wide range of personality attributes and other dimensions of human performance (e.g., discipline labour force, rule of law, and political harmony) which facilitates the su...

This is the first edition of my Black Canadians. Like the second edition, it examines the conditions of Blacks in Canada and reveals the persistence of structural racism in many spheres of life in Canada, particularly in employment, housing, education, and sports. The book is an authoritative reference for teachers, students and others who wish to...

Gender differences in work trip and job search patterns have received several analytical attention in recent years. A consistent finding in the literature is that women work closer to home than men because of their lower income, greater household responsibilities, and heavier reliance on public transit. While these findings pervade the literature,...

This paper presents empirical evidence of gender differences in environmental perception and behaviour regarding urban waste in the context of Africa, using samples drawn from Techiman, Ghana. The study found that females were less likely than males to litter, more bothered by urban waste, and conditioned by culturally imposed gender roles to be mo...

The refuse problem in most West African cities has attained such a massive proportion that even the most insensitive city dweller cannot overlook it. Of the very few studies undertaken on the issue most emphasize the distribution, the magnitude and the economic effects of refuse on the urban environment. Although evidence suggests that culture is t...