Title:
Decolonizing our Minds conference
Location:
University of Toronto – Medical Sciences Auditorium
Start Time:
10:00
Date:
2011-03-19
End Time:
16:30
The Equity Studies Students’ Union, Caribbean Studies Students’ Union, the
Women Gender Studies Students’ Union, Peace and Conflict Studies, and the
Native Students Association proudly presents the
3rd annual Decolonizing Our
Minds conference
! This year’s conference theme is *Narratives of Constructed
Identities*. It will be a day filled with panels, performances, and
delicious foods dedicated to discussion around the process of decolonization
within the nation-state of Canada.
By discussing these narratives of constructed identities, we seek to
understand the ways in which European imperialism has forcibly imposed
identities on colonized peoples around the world. We also examine the ways
in which groups self-identify in resistance to hegemonic colonial discourse.
This conference will be a forum for voices that are often silenced within
the university environment. It is a conference which speaks to the
legitimacy of personal narrative amongst people who have been most
marginalized within our society.
The day’s events are as follows:
10:00-10:30 – Opening Remarks by R3 Arts Collective
10:35-11:35- Panel 1: Narratives of queerness in the Caribbean culture
Speakers: Dianah Smith (A is for Orange), Amai Kuda (R3 Artist)
This panel will address the role of colonialism in shaping institutionalized
homophobia in the Caribbean as well as within the Caribbean diaspora in
Canada. It will examine how and why this history is ignored, erased and
often negated in mainstream queer Canadian and American campaigns, movements
and organizations while also, meditating on the complexity of the
multi-dimensional struggle for Caribbean queer bodies, which encompasses
struggles against racism, institutionalized xenophobia, sexism as well as
homophobia. Furthermore, this panel will investigate the legacy of Caribbean
queer organizing and activism in Canada and grapple with the possibilities
of transnational alliance building between Caribbean-Canadian queer
communities in Canada and queer communities in Caribbean region.
11:35-11:50- Set up
11:50- 12:00- Performance by Kayla Carter
12:05pm ? 1:05pm – Panel 2: The Politics of Diaspora in the Canadian
Nation-State
Speakers: Dina Georgis (University of Toronto Professor), Hussan Syed (No
One Is Illegal Organizer) , Sundus Balata
This panel will examine the ways in which various diasporic communities are
affected differently by system of citizenship in the western nation-state.
This panel will incorporate a discussion about the specific histories of the
diasporic communities so as to contextualize the lived realities documented
and undocumented settlement of migrants in North America and investigate the
complicity of Canada in these migrational trajectories. This panel will
address the political mobilization enacted in resistance to the Canadian
nation-state, by grassroots organizations in these communities, and look
closely at the socio-political reasoning behind such uprisings and key
strategic tools that the organizing had employed.
1:05pm – 2:20pm – Lunch
2:20pm – 3:20pm – Panel 3: The Intersection of Race and Disability in the
Education System
Speakers: Erick Fabris (OISE Ph.D Candidate), Mercedes Umana Ph.D Candidate,
Dr. Roberta K. Timothy
This panel will investigate crucial barriers that racialized, disabled
students face in public and tertiary-level institutions of education. It
will critically engage with questions around the impact of experiences of
racism in exacerbating learning barriers with institutionalized education.
Additionally this panel will address the various ways in which dominant
pedagogies have shaped and continue to shape how racialized, disabled
students understand themselves and their external environment and the
process of learning itself. How have these pedagogies worked to pathologize
racialized with different disabilities in the education system? Finally this
panel will look at anti-racist and anti-ableist initiatives that have been
formulated and implemented in public schools and hypothesize on the
possibilities of what an anti-racist, anti-ableist critical pedagogy looks
like, and elaborate on examples where this is already being practiced.
3:35- 4:00- Performance
4:00- 4: 30- Closing remarks
The Medical Sciences Auditorium is accessible and there will be ASL
interpretation at this event. If there are any additional accessibility
requests, please feel free to contact
[email protected]
. No registration
is required and the conference is free.
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