Book Exhibit Committee

Nikoli Attai, Co-Chair

Dr. Nikoli Attai is a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada. He is currently working on his first book manuscript titled “Real Queer? Interrogating Human Rights Activism in the Queer Caribbean,” and is co-editing an anthology of essays titled “Free Up Yuhself: Transgressive Bodies and Contestations in the Carnivalesque.” Dr Attai is also curating an archive of Trinidad and  Tobago’s queer history, as part of a larger project that traces legacies of queer community making and resistance in the Caribbean.

Dr. Attai has recently published two peer- reviewed essays. His latest (2019) essay, “LGBT Rights, Sexual Citizenship, and Blacklighting in the Anglophone Caribbean: What Do Queers Want, What Does Colonialism Need?”, appears in the Oxford Handbook of LGBT and Sexual Politics, while another (2017) titled “Let’s Liberate the Bullers: Toronto Human Rights Activism and Implications for LGBT Activism”, is published in the Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies. Four other essays are currently in press and scheduled for publication shortly.

Dr. Attai’s other research and scholarly interests include queer carnival tourism in Trinidad and Tobago, transgressive community making in the Caribbean and social media visibility by gender-nonconforming people in the Caribbean.

Fatimah Jackson-Best, Co-Chair

Dr. Fatimah Jackson-Best is a public health researcher with a specialization in mental health and whose work focuses on communities in Canada and the Caribbean. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and conducted her dissertation research on Black women’s experiences of maternal depression in Barbados. Following this, Dr. Jackson-Best took an appointment as a Global Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Ottawa and conducted a cross-analysis of mental illness, HIV/AIDS, and physical disability stigma with a focus on interventions and intersectionality frameworks. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as BMC Public Health, JENdA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies, Gender and Education, and the Journal of International Women’s Studies. Dr. Jackson-Best also does research consultancy work in Canada and the Caribbean, and recently worked with the Trinidadian NGO I Am One to pilot ‘Your Story’- a research study exploring the lived experiences of LGBTQ people in the Caribbean. She is currently the Project Manager for Pathways to Care, and is designing a mental health intervention for Black children, youth, and their families in Ontario.