Toby Leon Moorsom is currently a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology for his study: In Search of Kind Herb: Canadian investments in Jamaican Cannabis.
He holds a PhD from the Department of History, Queen’s University, where his dissertation examined the impact of neoliberal economic policies upon Tonga ‘emergent’ farmers in Southern Zambia. Toby’s prior degrees are in Political Science (York) and International Development Studies and Political Science (Dalhousie). He specializes in the history and political economy of development, environmental and agricultural history, and Africa in the global political economy.
Toby was recently Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of International Relations at Lancaster University Ghana before taking a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowhip. He is also country lead (Ghana) in an Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) Global Challenges Research Fund study on “Farmers’ Perspectives on challenges in the food system: a collaborative research partnership”, with the Leeds University, Sustainability Research Institute, in cooperation with the Institute of African Studies at University of Ghana, the University of Development Studies in Tamale, Ghana and the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. He has previously taught at Queen’s (History, Politics), University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus (Political Science), Trent University (History), and Carleton (Institute of African Studies, Political Science).
Toby has been a contributing editor of the Editorial Board of Nokoko Journal of the Institute of African Studies at Carleton. He has published in Review of African Political Economy, Canadian Journal of African Studies, Socialist Studies, Pambazuka, The Bullet, Rankandfile.ca and Al Jazeera English, among other places.
Toby was a Research Fellow of the BRICS Initiative in Critical Agrarian Studies (BICAS) based out of the International Institute for Social Studies in the Hague. He has been a Research Affiliate in the Department of History at the University of Zambia and is currently a Research Affiliate in the Institute of African Studies at University of Ghana for the GCRF funded project.
Toby’s academic work coincides with deep commitments to anti-poverty, global justice, food justice, and labour activism. For many years he was also a DJ, most recently with the Kingston-based Soul Shakedown Collective, which raised funds for social justice organizations while spinning world-beats in a celebratory anti-oppressive space.