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DEATH ANNOUNCEMENT

PAULINE ELAINE BRATHWAITE

“Dr. P”

20 November 1959 – 2 June 2022

Toronto

Sociologist at U of T Scarborough who learned her craft at her father's dances

Pauline Brathwaite's first field site was her father's yard in Kingston, Jamaica, where four speaker boxes the size of wardrobes turned a vacant lot into a cathedral every Saturday night. At nine she was allowed to sit beside the turntable and write down the names of the records. At sixty-two she was one of Canada's leading scholars of Caribbean popular culture. The notebook habit never stopped.

Born in Kingston in 1959, the second of three children of Maxwell Tulloch, an electrician and sound system operator, and Gloria, a seamstress, Pauline earned her bachelor's degree at the University of the West Indies at Mona, a master's in sociology at McGill University, and her PhD at the University of Toronto in 1990. She joined the University of Toronto Scarborough that year and stayed thirty-two years, rising to full professor. Her book on sound system culture and migration is still assigned in six countries, and the first footnote of her dissertation thanks “Daddy, for the records and the volume.”

She was a teacher first. Pauline co-founded the Scarborough Black Youth Mentorship Program, supervised more than forty doctoral students, and kept a spare winter coat in her office for any first-year arriving from the Caribbean unprepared for February. She cooked curry goat for her graduate seminar every December, wore a different pair of earrings to every lecture, and could cite dancehall lyrics and Durkheim in the same sentence, sometimes the same breath.

Her husband Gerald, a Toronto high-school principal born in Barbados, and their daughter Amara were her heart. She hosted Sunday dinner in Scarborough for thirty years, with rice and peas, a record on the turntable and a firm rule that nobody left before dessert. When her father died in 2019, she said it slowed her, but did not stop the music.

Pauline died on 2 June 2022, aged sixty-two, in Toronto, after a long illness borne with humor and mild irritation at the schedule. She is survived by Gerald, Amara, her sister Hortense, her brother Delroy and generations of students who learned that the classroom, like the dance floor, needs everyone in the room.

“Every dance floor is a classroom. Pay attention to who is teaching.”

Funeral arrangements

Service
Celebration of Life
Date & time
East Africa Time (Nairobi)
Venue
St. Matthias Anglican Church
Address
Scarborough, Ontario
Resting place
Pine Hills Cemetery, Scarborough, Ontario
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Funeral committees

Family committee

Coordinating the arrangements and supporting Pauline's family.

  • chair: Amara Brathwaite
  • secretary: Aaliyah Grant
  • treasurer: Prof. Ian MacLeod

Contact: Amara Brathwaite

Meetings: Daily at the family home, Toronto, 5pm

≈ KES 0 raised

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Survived by

  • Spouse: Gerald Brathwaite
  • Daughter: Amara Brathwaite
  • Sister: Hortense Blake
  • Brother: Delroy Tulloch

Life journey

  1. 1978–1981B.A. in Sociology · University of the West Indies, Mona · Kingston, Jamaica

    Graduated with first-class honours.

  2. 1982–1984M.A. in Sociology · McGill University · Montreal

    Her first Canadian winter, survived in a borrowed coat.

  3. 1984–1990Ph.D. in Sociology · University of Toronto · Toronto

    Dissertation on Jamaican sound systems and migration.

  4. 1990–2022Professor of Sociology · University of Toronto Scarborough · Toronto

    Thirty-two years of teaching, supervision and Sunday dinners.

  5. 1996–2022Co-founder, Scarborough Black Youth Mentorship Program · University of Toronto Scarborough · Toronto

    Paired hundreds of high-school students with university mentors.

  6. 2008Teaching Award · University of Toronto Scarborough · Toronto

    Voted by students who say she remembered every name.

Condolence messages (6)

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Winston Clarke

Selector for her father's sound system

I knew Pauline when she was nine, sitting by the turntable writing names in her little book. Mr. Tulloch said, “That child will study us someday.” He was right, and she did it with love. Both of them gone now, but the bass lives.

Neil Samuels

Classmate at McGill

We met in a Montreal laundromat in 1982 where she was loudly debating Fanon with a dryer. She brought me to my first Caribbean dance in Canada and told me to stop standing against the wall. I haven't stopped dancing since.

Camille Edwards

Neighbor in Scarborough

Pauline's Sunday dinners fed half the street for twenty years. She'd knock on your door with a plate and say, “You look hungry, and I made too much.” She never made too much. She made exactly enough, and always a little extra for whoever needed it.

Prof. Ian MacLeod

Colleague, University of Toronto Scarborough

In thirty years of faculty meetings, Pauline never once raised her voice and never lost an argument. She would simply wait, smile and say, “Let me tell you a story about a yard in Kingston.” By the end of the story we had always agreed.

Aaliyah Grant

PhD student and mentee

Dr. P read my first chapter and wrote only one sentence in the margin: “Where is the music in this?” I rewrote the entire thesis. It was the best advice of my life. She had a way of asking the question that made you want to be braver.

Hortense Blake

Sister, Kingston

Pauline taught me to dance at six, to drive at nineteen and to ask for what I deserved at forty. She was the loudest person at every family gathering and the quietest at every funeral. She made Daddy proud, and she made me braver.