The Department of Sociology is proud to announce that PhD student Harmata Aboubakar has been awarded the Best Student Paper Prize at the 2025 Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) Conference.
Her paper, titled “Shared History Yet Divergent Memory: Reconstructing the Violence of Chad’s Cut-Cut Massacre,” explores how collective memory of the 1917 Cut-Cut Massacre—during which French colonial authorities ordered the execution of approximately a hundred Islamic scholars—diverges between communities in Chad and its diaspora. Through qualitative, comparative methods, Aboubakar examines how contemporary social and political contexts shape the way this historical violence is remembered, commemorated, and resisted.
The CSA Best Student Paper Award is presented annually to the graduate student whose paper, presented at the Association’s annual conference, is judged to be the most outstanding by the Awards Committee.
Aboubakar is a SSHRC CGS-Doctoral Scholar and SSHRC Storyteller award holder. Her research focuses on collective memory, historical erasure, Black and African studies, violence, and resistance.
Congratulations to Harmata on this well-deserved recognition!