My past and present research explores how affects such as fear, vulnerability, humiliation, and disgust are used to uphold white nationalism (i.e. in Canada, Norway, Sweden) and exile Black, Muslim, and Black Muslim populations from sites of national and human belonging and mournable life.

Black death remains one of the central themes of my research and shapes a number of my projects and initiatives. Here I have examined: (i) the dread of Black reproduction and the Black womb as a “death machine”; (ii) the “symbolic suicide” of Black Muslim women as a performative act of national assimilation; (iii) the suicidial deaths of Black maternal subjects as an escape from racial tyranny. I have also used autoethnography to explore how Black maternal subjects dually contend with expectations of their good motherhood/maternal sacrifice as well as their constant surveillance by the trope of the “bad Black mother” — by either leaning into death, or leaning into badness.

My research and teaching stretch across the theoretical and methodological intersections of Black political thought, Afro-pessimism, Black visual culture, Black feminist theory, queer and sexuality studies, feminist philosophy, postcolonial thought, and Islamophobia studies. I also regularly engage questions of the human and non-human.

Media appearances

Interview with Centre for Feminist Research, York University

Research methods

1. Theory as method (affect theory, Afro-pessimism, feminist theory)
2. Media analysis (news articles, social media, video footage)
3. Visual and performance art analysis (photography, paintings, mixed-media installations)
4. Qualitative interviews

Current research projects

1. “Investigating Suicide as a Social Outcome of Anti-Black Racist Violence”

2. “Black Suicide in Canada: Death in the face of Racism”

Informed by Black political theory and Afro-pessimism’s reasoning that anti-Black racism is ceaseless and Black death is unremarkable under white supremacy (Sexton 2011; Sharpe 2016; Wilderson 2021), these projects hypothesize that Black people might choose to end their lives rather than endure anti-Black racism’s relentless sufferings.

The goal is to understand how experiences of anti-Black racism in Canada might impact Black people’s decision or desire to end their lives through suicide or medically assisted dying. Currently, these projects focus on Canada (Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia) by conducting interviews among three participant groups:

• Friends/relatives/acquaintances of suicide victims,
• Black Canadians who are seeking medical assistance in dying (MAID)
• Medical doctors who access/perform MAID and, health practitioners who address Black mental health

3. Black Feminist Summer School 2026 (Amsterdam, July 13 - 17)

The Black Feminist Summer School creates space outside the university campus for collective theory building and in-depth reading that contextualizes Black death and Black aliveness, as they shape Black experience on a global scale. Together, participants will wrestle with the complexities and possibilities that arise from Afro-pessimist and other Black Studies’ readings of

Black death and Black exile from the human. At the same time, the insistences found in work that attends to Black life and the im/possibilities of Black aliveness will also orient our discussion and queries.At root, this Black Feminist Summer School encourages participants to occupy and examine the tensions, rebellions, fatigue, fantasies, hopelessness, and potentialities that the theme of “Black Death/Black Aliveness” inspires us to contend with.

We welcome applications from students, early career scholars, activists, artists, and organizers who have particular interest, lived experience and politics grounded in Blackness. Applications due January 7, 2026. Apply via this link

Research grants & honours

2025- 2027. Impulse Grant. Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research. University of Amsterdam. Awarded for project: “Black Suicide in Canada: Death in the face of Racism.”

2025-2026. Leader Seed Grant. Research Priority Area: Conflict and Society. University of Amsterdam. Awarded for project: “Investigating Suicide as a Social Outcome of Anti-Black Racist Violence”.

Courses

• Studies in Black Visual Culture, Media, and Black Feminist Theory. Department of Sociology. Course Catalogue number: 73330027AY.
• Sociology MA Thesis Seminar: “Approaching Studies of Racism, Nationalism, and Gender through Belonging and Non-Belonging”. Department of Sociology. Globalizing Cultures. Department of Sociology. Course Catalogue number: 7332C004AY.