Catherine Grant-Wata

Catherine Grant-Wata is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation focuses on the history of Jamaican culture and placemaking in Toronto, Canada and Birmingham, England 1948-1985. This research project reviews the ways in which Jamaican born black women in Toronto and Birmingham formed community connection and cohesion in the 20th century. Using oral histories of approximately 30 women (15 from Birmingham & 15 from Toronto), Black newspapers, reggae music/lyrics, and Black community organizations’ archives, this project situates a transnational and regional/urban analysis to consider the ways Black Jamaican women’s identities facilitated diasporic community mobilization. A central component of this project seeks to expand current archival research on Jamaica -Canadian and Black Canadian stories by centering black digital humanities and digitization. Catherine writes poetry and collects reggae records in her free time.