Dr. Chrislain Eric Kenfack
Director and Co-Founder of the Green Reconciliation Institute.
Dr. KENFACK is a Queen Elizabeth Scholar under the “Ecological Economics, Commons Governance, and Climate Justice” project at York University. He is also a Killam Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta, and a Sessional Lecturer at Saint Joseph’s College in Edmonton.
Chrislain’s research is at the heart of the critical issues of our time. His questions concern the grounds for solidarity among social movements that are differently positioned in the struggle to create ecologically sustainable societies. As a consultant-researcher at the Centre for International Forestry Research in Yaoundé, Cameroon, he conducted fieldwork with indigenous and non-indigenous communities in the Congo Basin forests that were affected by REDD+ programs, developing a critique of the way “free, prior, and informed consent” (UNDRIP) principles were being interpreted.
His doctoral research at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, critically examined the current UN-led global climate governance (climate politics from above) from the perspective of state centrality and market-dominated approaches and analyzed the climate justice and labour movements’ proposals (climate politics from below) as possible ways forward, based on the South African and Portuguese climate jobs campaigns case studies, producing a series of publications on the lessons for Just Transition, and labour environmentalism. He has also authored critical studies of the Paris CoP framework (and market-based climate policies more generally) and on the implications of climate change for human rights and for migrant movements. His work ranges widely across ethical, political-economic, and sociological questions linked by concerns about climate justice.
He completed his Ph.D. in Political Science and Sociology at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, in 2018. Before that, he earned a Master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Yaounde II, and also completed a double BA in Theology (at the Catholic University of Central Africa) and Philosophy (at the University of Yaounde I). My postdoctoral research examines the Indigenous climate action movement and faith-based environmental organizations, asking how they are relating to one another given the long history of church involvement in settler colonialism.
He is also a professional and Qualified Mediator for the International Mediation Institute and a Restorative Practices professional.
He has studied and worked in Africa, Europe and North America.
Social and Professional Networks
- Canadian Political Science Association
- Société québécoise de science politique (SQSP)
- International Mediation Institute
- Association des Juristes d’expression Française de l’Alberta (as a Mediator)
- Arts Environmental Studies Consortium at the University of Alberta
- Development and Peace-Caritas Canada, Canada
- Kairos, Canada
- Pax Romana, working group on Climate change and Human rights dimensions.
Esther Alem Asongu
Assistant Director and Co-Founder of the Green Reconciliation Institute.
Esther Alem Asongu is a holder of a university diploma in nursing sciences from the Saint Francis Higher Insitute of Nursing and midwifery Buea Cameroon, a diploma in adult social care from the ACA Institute of London, and a certificate as a personal support worker from KLC college Whitby Ontario.
Professionally speaking, beside exercising as a Nurse, Esther has been engaged in several community activities. In Portugal she was involved in assisting newcomers with English language classes, medical aid through a community organization called AJPAS. Also, prior to moving to Canada, she was an active member in the social justice, migrant justice and environmental justice activist movements in Portugal. She is very interested in environmental justice and alternative dispute resolution.
Esther is also an IMI-Qualified Mediator, that is a Mediator of international standards, accredited by the the International Mediation Institute.
She has studied and worked in Africa, Europe and North America.
Contact: asongu@greenreconciliation.com