El Jones joins the Centre for Free Expression as a Senior Fellow

The Centre for Free Expression has named El Jones as its newest Senior Fellow.

“We are delighted that El Jones is joining the Centre for Free Expression as a Senior Fellow,” said James L. Turk, the CFE’s director. “She has been a leading voice in Canada on human rights, antiracism, and social justice.”

Jones is a poet, journalist, academic, and abolitionist who lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was the 5th Poet Laureate of Halifax and a 2015 resident of the International Writing Program at University of Iowa. She was the poet in residence at U of T Scarborough in 2021. Jones won 2 Atlantic Journalism Gold awards in 2018 and 2019. In 2016, she was a recipient of the Burnley “Rocky” Jones human rights award for her work with prisoners. She was the 15th Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University. El received her PhD in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political and Canadian Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University. 

El was the lead author of the report, Defunding the Police: Defining the Way Forward for HRM. Her second book, Abolitionist Intimacies, a collection of poetry and prose examining abolition through Black feminist practices of care and resistance is being released from Fernwood Press in November 2022.