Dr. Alison Marshall

Dr. Alison Marshall, Professor in the Department of Religion at Brandon University, recently launched her latest book, Cultivating Connections: The Making of Chinese Prairie Canada. This is Dr. Marshall’s second monograph on Chinese Canadian History in addition to the award-winning Way of the Bachelor: Early Chinese Settlement in Manitoba, published in 2011. Both works are the result of major grant funding from SSHRC and the Taiwan-based Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, totaling almost $400,000.

“This research is the result of a decade of work and more than Grant Fuels Professor’s Research with Local Significance 300 interviews with people from Quebec to British Columbia,” says Dr. Marshall. “During the decade of research I built an archive of more than 4,000 Chinese and English documentary and photographic materials. Many of the research participants were Brandon University alumni and dozens were from the Brandon and Westman area.”

Dr. Marshall is working on two additional book projects; one is on Filipino Canadian history and features Brandon area research participants, and the other is an edited volume on Multiculturalism in Canada with chapters written by SSHRC-funded research assistants, including BU alumna, Morganna Malyon, who is completing her Masters degree in History at Trent University.