Paula Butler

Lecturer    

Paula Butler
Faculty
Faculty

Paula Butler

Lecturer

Paula Butler is a white settler Canadian whose ancestors arrived from England and Ireland and established livelihoods in Mi’kma’ki in the 1700s. For most of her adult life she has lived in Toronto (Mississauga and Haudenosaunee territory). Some of her time in the past decades has been dedicated to understanding what this means and what obligations it places on her. Paula has had two major career tracks. One was working in the international ecumenical social justice community, addressing (for instance) global North-South economic inequities (SAPs, debt crisis, impact of WTO), racism (apartheid in South Africa), human rights and international development. During this era she was regularly hosted by “partner organizations” in Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Malawi and Zambia. Her second and current career is as a contract/sessional university professor. Paula teaches “critical social sciences” drawing on critical race theory, critical political economy, postcolonialism, decoloniality, and some transnational feminist thought. Her doctoral research – and subsequent research and writing – analyzed the Canadian global mining industry through a critical race lens. Recently, she has delved into scholarship on “racial capitalism” and has started to incorporate this concept into her teaching. Last but certainly not least, she has raised up three human beings to adulthood, and remains the main caregiver of two cats and a very wonderful Labrador retriever.

Select Publications

  • Butler, Paula. “Global Governance via Local Procurement? Examining Local Procurement as a CSR Strategy”, in Nathan Andrews and Andrew Grant, eds. Corporate Social Responsibility and Canada’s Role in Africa’s Extractive Sectors. University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 2020.
  • Butler, Paula. “Gold ‘n’ Girls: Why Canada Weds Gender Equality with Mining Capitalism in Burkina Faso”. In Rebecca Tiessen and Stephen Baranyi, eds., Omissions and Obligations: Canada’s Commitments to Gender and Development in the Global South under the Harper Conservatives. McGill-Queen’s University Press: Montreal and Kingston, 2017.
  • Butler, Paula. Colonial Extractions: Race and Canadian Mining in Contemporary Africa. University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 2015.
  • Butler, Paula. “Colonial Walls: Psychic Strategies in Contemporary Mining-Related Displacement”.    Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees (2014) 29:2.
  • Butler, Paula. “Canadian Mining and ‘Resource Nationalism’”. Canadian Dimension (Sept.-Oct. 2014) 48:5, 17-20.
  • Butler, Paula. “Shattering the Comfort Zone: Ethical and Political Aspects of Anti-Racism Research in Canadian Churches” in George Dei and Gurpreet Singh Johal (eds.), Critical Issues in Anti-Racist Research Methodologies. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005.
  • Butler, Paula. “Tanzania; Liberalisation of Investment and the Mining Sector: Analysis of the Content and Certain Implications of Tanzania’s 1998 Mining Act” in Bonnie Campbell (ed.), Regulating Mining in Africa: For Whose Benefit? Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2004.
  • Butler, Paula. “Native People and Environmental Crusaders: Racism, Recolonisation and Do-gooders. Interview with Rodney Bobiwash” in Sacred Earth, Sacred Community: Jubilee, Ecology & Aboriginal Peoples. Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative: Toronto, 2000.

Education

  • 2006 PhD, Education: Sociology and Equity Studies, University of Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  • 1988 MA, International Affairs: Development Studies, Carleton University: Norman Paterson School of International Affairs
  • 1985 BEd: Teachable – Secondary School English, Dalhousie University
  • 1982 BA, English (Honours with Distinction), Mount Allison University
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