OUR TEAM

Bengi Akbulut

Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Planning and Environment
Co-Director, Social Justice Centre

Bengi Akbulut received her B.A. from Boğaziçi University (2004) and PhD from University of Massachusetts at Amherst (2011), both in economics.

Dr. Akbulut’s research is in political economy, ecological and feminist economics. She has worked extensively on the political economy of development and critiques of developmentalism, with a particular focus on Turkey. A significant part of her recent work focuses on economic alternatives, including community economies, commons and degrowth. She is currently working on two related themes within this broader field: the first focuses on developing a case for economic democracy from an ecological economics perspective; the second is on the question of work and the future of work from a degrowth perspective.

Dr. Akbulut’s joint and independent work appeared in the Cambridge Journal of Economics, Development and Change, Journal of Peasant Studies, Ecological Economics and Geoforum, among others. She has also co-edited the book Neoliberal Turkey and its Discontents: Economic Policy and the Environment in the Justice and Development Party Era (IB Tauris, 2017) with Fikret Adaman and Murat Arsel.

Dr. Akbulut is a part of the research group on democratic economic planning at the Research Center on Social Innovations and Transformations (CRITS) of the Élisabeth-Bruyère School of Social Innovation at St. Paul University and a member of the Centre de Recherche sur les Innovations Sociales (CRISES).

In Spring 2023, Dr. Akbulut received the “Promising Scientist Award” at the 18th ceremony of Kadir Has Awards held in Istanbul for her research in the fields of political economy, political ecology, and ecological economics, and in particular her recent work focusing on the pillars and institutions of a just and sustainable economy.

In 2025-26, Dr. Akbulut taught a module in the Online Masters’ on Degrowth: Ecology, Economics and Policy (Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, and Research & Degrowth). 

Dr. Akbulut joined SHIFT’s Research and Advocacy Program Hub and the Executive Board of the journal Studies in Political Economy.

Pablo Gilabert

Professor, Department of Philosophy
Co-Director, Social Justice Centre
Co-Director of the Ethics and Politics axis, Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ)

Specialization: Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy

Pablo Gilabert did his PhD in philosophy at the New School for Social Research in 2003. He is currently doing research on social justice, human rights, and the role of the concept of feasibility in moral and political reasoning (including the consequences for the relation between “ideal” and “nonideal theory”).

His research and teaching interests also include topics in global justice, distributive justice, democratic theory, contractualist theories in normative ethics, the Frankfurt School tradition of critical theory, Kant’s practical philosophy, Marxism and socialism, and the history of moral and political philosophy.

He has been an HLA Hart Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford, a DAAD Fellow at the University of Frankfurt, a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Montreal, and a Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Center for Human Values at Princeton University.

In 2022, he was a visiting scholar in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.

His papers appeared in journals such as The Journal of Political Philosophy, Political Theory, The Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Studies, Kant-Studien, Kantian Review, Human Rights Quarterly, and Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, among others. He is the author of three books on social justice: From Global Poverty to Global Equality. A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford University Press, 2012), Human Dignity and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Human Dignity and Social Justice (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Dr. Gilabert was awarded a 5-Year Insight Grant by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for the project “Work, Well-Being, and Social Justice.” The research project focuses on the ethical aspects regarding access to work, its quality, and the justice of the social relations shaping it.

He also created, with Denise Celentano from the Université de Montréal, the international Philosophy of Work Network, in partnership with the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ). 

Christiane Bailey

As the coordinator of the Centre, Christiane Bailey is helping faculty members whose research focuses on social justice issues.

She has a Master degree in Philosophy at Université de Montréal and a fellow at Wesleyan University (Connecticut) in the Animals and Society Fellowship program (ASI-WAS). She does research on ecofeminism, critical animal studies, the political repression of environmental and animal rights activists, and the history of women in the animal rights and environmental movements.

She is a member of the GRÉÉA, Groupe de recherche en éthique animale et environnementale, at the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ) as well as a member of APPLE - Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law, and Ethics. 

She published La philosophie à l’abattoir. Réflexions sur le bacon, l’empathie et l’éthique animale with Jean-François Labonté at Éditions Atelier 10. The book led to a series of conferences in Cégeps as well as media coverage:

• Interview with Serge Bouchard and Jean-Philippe Pleau, Radio-Canada, émission “C’est fou”, épisode du 24 février 2019.
• Interview with Catherine Dubé, “La révolution végane”, L’actualité, vol. 44, no. 2, février 2019.
• Interview with Véronique Leduc, “Peut-on manger de la viande de façon éthique?”, Le Devoir, 9 mars 2019.

In February 2019, La Presse reprinted the introduction of the book in the online edition. In 2024, she was interviewed by Radio-Canada on new laws protecting animals in Québec. 

In 2025, Christiane was interviewed in the media about the lawsuit against the MAPAQ regarding mistreatment of animals in rodeos in Québec. 

In Fall 2025, she organized a series of 5 sessions on animal law and animal ethics with 400 registrations, and, in Spring 2026, she organized the first Montreal Animal Law Conference.