The Pan-African Initiative for Research (PAIR) is a groundbreaking initiative at the University of Waterloo dedicated to collaborative, community-rooted, and globally engaged research across Pan-African spaces — including Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the global Black diaspora.
Led by Black Pan-African scholars, PAIR centres African and Afro-diasporic knowledge systems, histories, and futures. PAIR builds reciprocal partnerships with local and global communities, ensuring research is conducted with communities, not on them. PAIR welcomes non-African and non-Black researchers engaged in Pan-African work, fostering an inclusive and interdisciplinary research community.
Research with Purpose
Our work advances Pan‑African and Afro‑diasporic scholarship that addresses pressing global challenges.
News
Exploring Black Barbadian Migration to Canada
On February 15, Season 8, Episode 1 of the Dis A Fi Mi History Podcast launches with a powerful conversation on Caribbean migration, identity, and belonging. This episode features Dr. Christopher Stuart-Taylor.
Waterloo Launches PAIR
The University of Waterloo launches the Pan African Initiative for Research (PAIR), a new interdisciplinary research initiative designed to advance collaborative, community rooted, and globally engaged scholarship across Pan African contexts, including Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Afro-diasporic communities worldwide.
Events
Dr. Paul Ugor - Book Launch: Stories, Justice, and Work of Truth
This book launch will focus on how social transformation and justice are formed not only through legal mechanisms, but through the cultural aspects of storytelling, memory, and narrative form. The book launch and discussion will focus on three major scholarly works by Dr. Paul Ugor and his co-editors.
PAIR Speculative Futures Visiting Writer Series
The PAIR Speculative Futures Visiting Writer Series brings visionary writers working in Afrofuturism, speculative fiction, and related genres to Waterloo to engage with students, faculty, and community around diasporic futures, worldbuilding, and resistance narratives.
PAIR Speculative Futures Visiting Writer Series
The PAIR Speculative Futures Visiting Writer Series brings visionary writers working in Afrofuturism, speculative fiction, and related genres to Waterloo to engage with students, faculty, and community around diasporic futures, worldbuilding, and resistance narratives.