SJRI Grant Recipient Launches Niagara Labour History Project | Brock News

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Rachel Hirsch

Larry Savage has teamed up with History Professor Tami Friedman to create the Twitter-based Niagara Labour History Project as a way of communicating and celebrating that history.

It’s a series of Tweets based on a chronological timetable of key events, actions, achievements, and breakthroughs in Niagara labour and working-class history. The 140-character Tweets correspond to the calendar day on which the event occurred in history.

The initiative, funded by the Brock University Social Justice Research Institute, “promises to raise the profile of the region’s rich labour and working-class history in an interactive way that involves the community,” says Savage.

“We hope this localized labour history initiative will make a unique, significant and lasting contribution to the Niagara community,” says Savage.

Contributors can send labour information, questions and comments to Labour.Studies@BrockU.ca.

The Brock University Centre for Labour Studies twitter account @BrockCLS will host the tweets with the hashtag #NiagaraLabourHistory.

Read full article…

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SJRI Post-doctoral Fellow Position for 2015-2016

Posted on February 11, 2015 by mcallaghan

The Canada Research Chair in Social Justice, in collaboration with the Social Justice Research Institute (SJRI) of Brock University, invites applicants for a one-year post-doctoral fellowship, renewable for up to two years contingent upon the candidate’s successful application for external funding.

The post-doctoral fellow’s research will contribute to understanding the wave of anti-austerity and pro-democracy social movements that appeared in 2011, from the Arab Spring to Occupy, and which continue to erupt around the world. Problematics of interest include, but are not limited to, their transnational connectivity; their dis/continuity with  anti-neoliberal globalization movements; their race, class and gender dynamics; their relation to macro-historical, macro-structural transformations; their use of digital and social media. The successful applicant will have a compelling plan for research and publication, and strong potential for collaboration with the Canada Research Chair in Social Justice, Dr. Janet Conway, who will supervise the fellow. Continue reading →

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CFP [Due – March 06]: Studies in Social Justice Special Issue

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Rachel Hirsch

Call for Papers:  Special Issue of Studies in Social Justice

Mental Health as Social Justice Issue: Beyond Psychocentrism

Edited by: Lacey Croft (York University), Mandi Gray (York University) and Dr. Heidi Rimke (University of Winnipeg)

Summary of Topic

This special edition of Studies in Social Justice seeks to critically explore the complex relationship between social injustice and the pathologization of individuals.  In order to do so, focus will be placed on critical approaches to understanding the power of medicine and psychiatry in modern society.  The now commonly held view that some people are ab/normal is the consequence and reflection of the growing cultural authority of the human sciences in everyday life.  The dominance of the pathological approach can be seen in what Ian Marsh (2010) has referred to as “the compulsory ontology of pathology,” and what Heidi Rimke has critiqued as “psychocentrism,” the view that all human problems are due to a flaw in the bodies/minds/psyches of individuals (Rimke, 2000, 2003, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2011, 2014; Rimke & Hunt, 2002; Rimke & Brock, 2012).

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Women’s and Gender Studies Talk [Feb 23]: Environment and Human Rights in Central America

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Rachel Hirsch

Women’s and Gender Studies presents…

Grahame Russell, Co-Director of Rights Action

Rights Action is an NGO engaged in community development, environment and human rights work throughout Central America. Mr. Russell’s talk will focus on human rights violations and environmental and health harms being caused by Canadian mining companies.

Please join us Monday, February 23rd at 5:00 – 7:00 pm in Academic South 217.

All are welcome to attend.

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BAHRC Talk [Feb 27]: Dr. Wilma Morrison African Heritage Month Lecture

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Rachel Hirsch

NATO, Libya and Beyond: Lessons for Africa and Canada

The Brock African Heritage Recognition Committee’s (BAHRC) presents its third Dr. Wilma Morrison African Heritage Month Lecture. This year the internationally renowned Pan-African socialist and peace scholar Dr. Horace G. Campbell will present: “Canada, NATO and Libya: Lessons for Africa”. Dr. Campbell, Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University lectures around the world and has authored numerous articles and books on Africa, capitalism, socialism and peace. His most recent book is NATO’s Failure in Libya: Lessons for Africa (2012)

Based on his book, this lecture will explore the militarization in Africa through NATO
and Canada’s role. With its role in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan as part of a US- led NATO force, Canada’s role as a middle peace-keeping power was radically altered. Again under NATO, Canada played a decisive role as part of a Western bombing campaign that aided anti-government factions in the Libyan civil war that deposed Muammar Qaddafi. Now with its contribution to a renewal of military adventure in Iraq, Canada is now fully involved in a high- stakes game of international intrigue that is normalizing war-making. For all intent and purposes, Canada is being transforming into a ‘warrior state’. What, however, is the level of debate in Canada respecting the transformation of NATO into a globalized expeditionary organization? What is the level of debate about the ability and policies that enable any Canadian government to commit lives and materiel to offensive wars? What are the economic, cultural and political costs to civil society? Given the democratic deficit accompanying nations at war, not to mention the siphoning of public resources into the military industrial complex, can a nation engaged in perpetual war be a democratic one? Dr. Campbell’s presentation will contribute to critically informed perspectives that alert Canadians to the risks implicit in Canada’s growing belligerence and militarization.

Sponsor: This event is solely supported by a CRISS grant from the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Date: Friday, February 27, 2015 Location: TH 243
Time: 2PM-4PM

Open to all, light refreshments served.

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CFP [Due – March 13]: Network Ecologies Symposium

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Rachel Hirsch

Network Ecologies: Exploring Relations Between Environmental Art, Science & Activism

June 4-6th 2015

Call for Papers

This interdisciplinary symposium is open to anyone working in the fields of environmental art, environmental science and environmental activism, irrespective of whether they are PhD researchers, practicing academics or individuals not affiliated to an academic institution. The symposium is intended to be an open platform, enabling research to be effectively disseminated and shared. We welcome papers that identify methodological concerns, theoretical perspectives and case studies pertaining to the subject of environmental despoliation or industrial pollution, and its representation in the cultural sphere.

Deadline for proposals: 13th March 2015
Confirmation of Acceptance 15th April 2015 Continue reading →

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CFP [Due – Jan 31]: Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Rachel Hirsch

2015 Osgoode Forum
Call for Papers
May 15 – 16, 2015
Toronto, Ontario

Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll | Subversive Sites in the Law

Change and stability, evolution and historical continuity, progress and constancy  – these are conflicting demands that society and its members make of the law and legal institutions.  Knowledge accumulates, past truths are shown to be false, and historical anomalies come to dominate the present.  Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher stated that “everything changes and nothing stands still”.  If change is the only constant, how have, do, and should law and legal institutions respond, resist, react, accommodate, accept, or suppress social change and the agents of change?

Continue reading →

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CFP [Due – Jan 31]: Land Fictions Conference

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Rachel Hirsch

Land Fictions: The Commodification of Land in City and Country

The 8th Biennial MaGrann Conference

Department of Geography, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Organized by D. Asher Ghertner and Robert W. Lake

May 1-2, 2015

“What we call land is an element of nature inextricably interwoven with man’s institutions. To isolate it and form a market for it was perhaps the weirdest of all the undertakings of our ancestors.”  Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation

Continue reading →

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CFP [Due – Feb 27]: Migration and Late Capitalism Conference

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Rachel Hirsch

Migration and Late Capitalism:
Critical Intersections with the Asia-Pacific and Beyond

June 11 – 13, 2015
University of Victoria, BC, Canada

The Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives’ Migration and Mobility Program seeks paper proposals for an interdisciplinary conference to be held in June 2015.

In 2013, the global migrant population was estimated at 232 million people or 3.2 per cent of the world population, up from 175 million in 2000 and 154 million in 1990. In the last two decades, scholars and policymakers have theorized and analyzed the causes, necessities, and consequences of this steady growth in transnational and regional mobile populations within the context of late capitalism, neo-colonialism, intensifying global circuits of power, and national security regimes. Migrant justice activists have simultaneously exposed and mobilized around transforming the punitive, dehumanizing, and exploitative laws and policies as they affect various categories of migrants—documented, undocumented, refugees, and asylum seekers.

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Updates from SJRI’s Acting Director | David Butz

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Rachel Hirsch

Dear SJRI affiliated members:

As Acting Director of the SJRI for the next six months while Janet Conway is on sabbatical leave, I’m writing to wish you a Happy New Year and a successful Winter Term, and to update you on recent and upcoming SJRI activities, initiatives and opportunities.

As Janet noted in last term’s update from the Director, the Faculty Steering Committee has developed a short, medium and long-term plan that orients all SJRI activity around a core mission of producing world-class, transdisciplinary social justice scholarship. In addition to scholarly knowledge production we are attending to SJRI’s long-term organizational stability and financial viability; meaningful engagement of SJRI members; mentoring of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows; and building appropriate and enduring community partnerships. The items outlined below stem from this planning process.

These include: (1) Upcoming Events, Activities and Initiatives; (2) Ongoing Programs, Services and Endeavours; (3) Current Preoccupations; (4) Congratulations and Recognition; (5) Thanks and Praises.

Continue reading →

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