Team

Amanda Wilson Amanda Wilson is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Innovation at Saint Paul University. She holds a PhD in Sociology, with a Specialization in Political Economy. Her areas of research include the food movement and carceral food systems, co-operatives and collective organizing, and questions related to prefiguration and enacting a politics of possibility. Outside of academia, she has worked with several non-governmental organizations in the areas of policy analysis, research, network coordination and popular education, and is a long-time community organizer and activist in Ottawa.
Julie Courchesne Julie is a Master’s student in the School of Social Innovation at Saint Paul University and a graduate of Political Science at UQÀM. She is especially interested in agriculture, food systems, social movements and relationships of power. Since 2014, she has been involved with different organizations from civil society in collective gardens, farmers’ markets, and with an urban beekeeping collective. She is currently a food systems researcher, studying carceral food systems, participatory food governance as well as urban agriculture in civil society organizations.
Ghassan Zahran Ghassan recently completed his Master’s in the School of Social Innovation at Saint Paul University. Having spent approximately two years in various federal prisons in Kingston, he has extensive experience in prison food preparation. He worked in the kitchen when preparing food for the general populace. Additionally, he served as a grocery shopper for prisoners housed in units that allowed them to prepare their own meals. Ghassan also organized the Islamic Awareness Month activities at the Frontenac Institution, which ended with him organizing a special dinner for 200 prisoners.