ABOUT ME

Karen Flynn is an Associate professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Department of African-American Studies Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies from York University, Toronto, Ontario, in 2003. Her research interests include migration and travel, Black Canada, health, popular culture, feminist, Diasporic and post-colonial studies. 

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My Book

MOVING BEYOND BORDERS: A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora

A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora Moving Beyond Borders is the first book-length history of Black health care workers in Canada, delving into the experiences of thirty-five postwar era nurses who were born in Canada or who immigrated from the Caribbean either through Britain or directly to Canada.

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My Book

MOVING BEYOND BORDERS: A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora

A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora Moving Beyond Borders is the first book-length history of Black health care workers in Canada, delving into the experiences of thirty-five postwar era nurses who were born in Canada or who immigrated from the Caribbean either through Britain or directly to Canada.

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ACADEMIC ARTICLES

Caribbean Migration to Canada

Migration has long been a feature of Caribbean societies. Created irst as a result of the Atlantic slave trade, and later due to other involuntary forms of migration such as that produced by indentured servitude from India, Caribbean territories such as Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, and Haiti are generally viewed as migration-oriented societies. Emancipation and independence from colonial powers did little to transform the economic and social reality of these societies.

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Black Canadian Nurses and Technology

Generally speaking, when feminist scholars conceptualize the meaning of technology for women in relation to paid work in North America, they either view technology as reinforcing social inequality—that is, women are viewed as victims of technology—or they see technology as a mixed blessing.
For the fi rst group, a major concern is how technology reinforces and maintains social inequality, based on race, class, gender, age or other markers of difference. Eileen B. Leonard, for example, points out that “for many women workers developing technologies have yet to deliver as promised . . . it has done little to improve the status of women in the workplace.” 

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PUBLIC APPEARANCES

‘Trailblazing came at a cost’: The history of Ontario’s Black nursing pioneers

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Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre – panel discussion - tackling some of these issues and the historical contributions of Black nurses in Canada.

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Podcast with Garvia Bailey: Strong and Free | West Indian Domestic Scheme: Nurturing a Nation

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Battles faced by black nurses in Canada

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Moving Beyond Borders is the first book-length history of Black health care workers in Canada, delving into the experiences of thirty-five postwar era nurses who were born in Canada or who immigrated from the Caribbean either through Britain or directly to Canada. Karen Flynn examines the shaping of these women’s stories from their childhoods through to their roles as professionals and community activists. Flynn interweaves oral histories with archival sources to show how these women’s lives were shaped by their experiences of migration, professional training, and family life. Theoretical analyses from post-colonial, gender and diasporic Black Studies serve to highlight the multiple subjectivities operating within these women’s lives. By presenting a collective biography of identity formation, Moving beyond Borders reveals the extraordinary complexity of Black women’s history.