Minelle Mahtani has been awarded the AAG Media Achievement Award and the Enhancing Diversity Award.
The AAG Media Achievement Award is conferred in recognition of exceptional and outstanding accomplishments in publicizing geographical insights in media of general or mass communication. This award recognizes Mahtani’s exceptional contributions as the creator and host of Sense of Place, a daily radio show broadcast from 2015-2018 on Roundhouse Radio in Vancouver, British Columbia, and streamed globally. Through Sense of Place, she promoted public dialogue on issues of inclusion and equity. She provided a voice for people and groups who are under-represented on popular and public media. Mahtani fostered discussions of complex issues and challenged listeners to confront uncomfortable topics.
The AAG Enhancing Diversity Award honors geographers who have pioneered or actively participated in efforts toward encouraging a more diverse discipline over the course of several years. Her theoretical and applied work has made great inroads into the problem of racism in our discipline as well as in racist policy practices in Canada. Mahtani’s work on mixed race identities; the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and gender; and the production of identity and knowledge have laid the foundations for other geographers’ work and teaching.
