Chandra Murdoch

Chandra Murdoch, “Inheritance and the Indian Act: Political Action and Women’s Property on Southern Ontario Indian Reserves”. In Family and Justice in the Archives, 2024.

Murdoch’s innovative research into Department of Indian Affairs records dealing with wills and estates in Ontario demonstrates the paternalism inherent in the Indian Act and Indian status. She shows that women’s groups actively fought against restraints on their inheritances and prioritized an ethic of care over traditional patriarchal inheritance law, making a vital contribution to our understanding of gender, colonialism and the state.

HONOURABLE MENTION: 

Melissa N. Shaw, “‘Who Used to Run the UNIA Hall’: Black Canadian Women’s Leadership of Toronto Division 21, 1919-1939”. Journal of African American History 109, 2 (2024).

Shaw’s thoughtful investigation shows how women in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) used Garveyism as a sociopolitical strategy to improve the quality of life of Black people in Toronto. Using oral interviews and archival sources, she counters previous work which characterized the women as helpmates to male political activism and places the Toronto UNIA in a larger transnational conversation about Black liberation.