Moska Rokay

A refugee settler from Afghanistan, Moska Rokay is currently living and working in Tkaronto (Toronto) as a doctoral student at the University of Toronto (UofT) Faculty of Information. Her doctoral research project explores the archival needs of diverse Afghan diaspora communities in Canada and analyzes the landscape of existing Afghan community memory-making projects to challenge the archival field towards more community-centered practices for refugee communities. Through the creation of a counter-archive of Afghan refugee knowledge that amplifies their lived experiences and stories, her research will contribute to existing knowledge in critical refugee studies and diversify Canada’s historical and archival record. Moska received her Master of Information degree from the UofT in 2019. She is fluent in English and her native tongue is Farsi (Dari). When she is not devouring fantasy stories, practising Muay Thai, playing board games or tinkering with obsolete audiovisual equipment, Moska has been volunteering in the Afghan-Canadian diaspora community since 2013 as part of student and professional associations, and resettlement support. Through the Scholarship program, Moska seeks to learn how to realize a model of values-based leadership in community-engaged research that can also extend beyond academia and enable her to continue to serve diasporic Afghans.