Erica S. Lawson
Associate Professor
Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies
MA, PhD (OISE, University of Toronto)
Office: Lawson Hall 3234
Phone: 519-661-2111 ext. 86941
elawso3@uwo.ca
Research
I write, study, think, and teach in the Black intellectual tradition. I am interested in how Black people construct knowledge from the margins. And I investigate how Black, Caribbean, and African women mobilize against structural violence as politicized maternal subjects. My current SSHRC Partnership Development Grant (2024-27) is titled Commemorating the Experiences of Liberian Women Survivors of Conflict Related Sexual Violence for Collective Healing. This community-university based partnership project addresses the ongoing erasure of the experiences of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) from public memory in Liberia twenty years after the end of that country's civil war. The research team, with partners based at 深夜福利站 and in Liberia, seeks to engage a cross-section of Liberian society to produce arts-based activities, events, and publication outputs designed to remember the war and center the experiences of women survivors.
Recent and Select Publications (2020-2025)
Peer-Reviewed Journals
Anfaara, F. W., Lawson, E. S., & Luginaah, I. (2025). “Similar health emergencies, different commitments: Comparative strategies to end Ebola and COVID-19 in “post-conflict” Liberia.” Social Science & Medicine, 365, 117609.
Lawson, E. S. (2024). “Sexual violence against Liberian school girls: White benevolence, anti-Black racism, and colonial continuities in post conflict recovery.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 47(3), 482–501. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2024.2388917
Lawson, E.S. (2023). "Black women’s mothering practices in the Canadian racial ttate: Reflections on maternal sufferation in the afterlife of slavery." Journal of Canadian Studies 57.1: 1-19.
Lawson, E. S., Anfaara, F. W., Flomo, V. K., Garlo, C. K., & Osman, O. (2020). “The intensification of Liberian Women's social reproductive labor in the coronavirus pandemic: Regenerative possibilities.” Feminist Studies, 46(3), 674-683.
Lawson, E. S., & Flomo, V. K. (2020). Motherwork and gender justice in Peace Huts: a feminist view from Liberia. Third World Quarterly, 41(11), 1863-1880.
Lawson, E. S. (2020). “Anti-Black racism on the sidelines: The limits of “listening sessions" to address institutional racism at Canadian universities. Canadian Review of Sociology, 57(3), 491-495
Book Chapters
Lawson, E.S., and Osman, O. (2025). “Maternal activism and the politics of memorialization in the Mothers of the Movement.” In A. Crosby and H. Evans (eds). Memorializing Violence Transnational Feminist Reflections (pp. 160-172). Rutgers University Press, pp. 38
Lawson, E. S. (2024). “Black maternal grief and grievance against the liberal state: visionary pragmatism and politics otherwise.” In M. Caputi and P. Moynagh (eds). Research Handbook on Feminist Political Thought (pp. 284-303). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Lawson, E.S. (2022) “Black Canadian Feminist Thought.” In Jean-Pierre; V. Watts; C.E. James; P. Albanese; X. Chen; and M. Graydon (eds.). In Reading Sociology, 4th edition (pp. 78-81) Oxford University Press.
Book Reviews
Non-Refereed Publications
