Social Justice Fellow Seminars

Join us for the first session of our Social Justice Graduate Fellow Seminars. 

We will hear about the work of three fellows: 

• Moe Clark (1:00 - 2:05 pm)
• Marcus Xavier-Granada (2:20 - 3:25 pm)
• Frédéric Côté-Boudreau (3:40 - 4:45 pm)

The goal of these seminars is to give constructive feedback to our fellows on their work-in-progress.

Each talk will last 30-35 minutes, followed by an invited commentary of 5-10 minutes, and a discussion of 15-20 minutes.

Vegan food and refreshments will be served. Everyone is welcome. 

Note: Please arrive early to get coffee and snacks, so we can start at 1 pm on the zoom. 

Join us

In person: John Molson Building on the 14th floor (MB 14.250)

Join us remotely: Register on zoom to get the link

Session 1: 1:00 - 2:05 Moe Clark 

Title: "tastawayihk dreaming * 2Spirit drumming: resurgent practices of reclamation and cultural continuity"

Abstract: tastwayihk-iyiniwak / 2S people have been particularly harmed by colonial and gender-based violence, resulting in higher rates of suicide and loss of cultural identity (Wilson & Laing, 2018). In response to this attempted cultural erasure, "tastawayihk dreaming" serves to reanimate our sacred relationships to the drum, and to celebrate 2S resilience and roles, through resurgent practices of language reclamation, song creation and creative kinship. (L’Hirondelle & Naytowhow, personal communication, July, 2013). As a 2S Métis artist and researcher, drumming is central in my process of miskâsowin - finding belonging (Cardinal & Hildebrand, 2000), and plays an active role in my nêhiyawêwin (Plains Cree language) acquisition through song creation with Elders. For this presentation I will share, through song and storytelling, the resulting creations of my research from interviews with six 2Spirit drum carriers across Turtle Island, highlighting how drumming and song can help 2S kin decolonize themselves and nurture pathways of self-determination.

Moe Clark: âpihtawikosisâniskwêw (Michif/ mixed-settler) multidisciplinary artist moe clark is a 2Spirit singing thunderbird. With roots from Treaty 7 and the Red River Settlement, moe is a proud member of the Métis Nation of Alberta. Currently residing as a guest in Tio'tiá:ke/ Mooniyang/ Montréal (QC) moe works across disciplines of vocal improvisation, workshop facilitation, land-based oskapêwis/ Elder support, and performance creation. They are a dedicated nêhiyawêwin (Plains Cree language) and Michif (Métis language) learner, working intimately with Elders and language keepers to advance language resurgence through song-based practices. As a master’s candidate in the INDI program Moe’s research and creation, “tastawayihk dreaming / 2Spirit Drumming: Resurgent Practices of Reclamation and Cultural Continuity” aims to re-centre 2Spirit drum carriers roles and relations in community, through the lens of creative kinship, embodied knowledge, and Indigiqueer resurgence.

Respondent: 2Spirit Michif Elder Barbara Bruce (Red River Métis Homeland)

Session 2: 2:20 - 3:25 Marcus Xavier-Granada 

Title: "(Un)touchability and Existential Conversion: Loosening the Grip of Racializing Habits of Perception"

Abstract: My research comes out of my lived experience as a person in recovery transitioning from a life-world of addiction toward a life-world of sobriety. As someone trained in Philosophy, I wanted to understand how this radical conversion, or fundamental shift in an individual's fundamental project or way of being-in-the-world, could be explained by examining the structures of experience. My journey toward this question came as I was studying existentialism, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon, and Hegel, while simultaneously participating in group meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. Out of the dovetailing of these introspective milieus, I became acquainted with ideas that resonated with my experience.

A key idea which my research centers on is found in Maurice Merleau-Ponty's text Phenomenology of Perception, in the concept of the body schema, i.e.: the idea that our knowledge of the world is mediated by our bodies movement in the world and its capacity to retain this knowledge through habit. Merleau-Ponty primarily points to habit--a form of automatic, or mechanical and thus non-thetic action or behaviour, as primarily constructive and necessary for our learning and self-reflection. However, I became interested in the adverse effects of habit, or "bad" habits, in which our learned behaviours we inherit from without, produced by institutions such as the family or culture, foreclose the possibility for autonomy. Our immediate inhabitation of certain roles and attitudes inhibit possibilities of bodily reorientation, and thus a life one can choose, and deeper, more meaningful relations with others.

A possible solution to escaping bad habits is presented in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, when he illustrates a therapeutic moment in which a patient experiencing aphonia (a loss of the ability to speak) regains her voice through her doctor's touch that initiates a "conversion that gathers her entire body together, through a genuine gesture" (Phenomenology of Perception, 168). Her memory or voice are rediscovered when her body again opens to others or to the past, "when it allows itself to be shot through by coexistence and when it again signifies (in the active sense) beyond itself" (Phenomenology of Perception, 168). This opening towards others is what I experienced in the church basements of AA meetings, and the sharing of stories together in this space about alcoholism showed me how I was not alone, and that another life was possible. The shared act of mutual vulnerability was a kind of supportive linguistic holding or contact that anchored me in the early days of my journey toward sobriety.

My research project focuses on the therapeutic possibilities of the intersubjective encounter, and the existential dimensions of touch, and how touch is necessary for the experience of conversion. Fanon, as well as R.D. Laing and Simone de Beauvoir all recognize however, that true healing can begin once the structure of society undergoes a radical change, so that patients who leave the doctor's office are not returned into the same conditions from which they developed their symptoms. I argue that understanding the role touch plays in conversion is of vital political importance, especially as it pertains to sociogenically produced pathologies such as the technologies of racialization, gender-based violence and other forms of identity-based oppression. Identity-based forms of violence and discrimination ensnare both the discriminated and discriminator in psychological double-binds that can only be undone through structural change in which a politics of touch is foregrounded. My talk will primarily focus on this experience of conversion in Merleau-Ponty, as well as offer some key insights into touch given by DeafBlind poet and scholar John Lee Clark, in his book "Touch the Future".

Respondent: Dr. Lisa Guenther, Professor (Queen’s University) and Queen's National Scholar in Political Philosophy and Critical Prison Studies

Session 3: 3:40 - 4:45 Frédéric Côté-Boudreau 

Title: "Should Animals Have Labour Rights?"

Abstract: Domesticated animals contribute to the wealth and functioning of our societies: it is the very reason why they are exploited in the first place. Their time, efforts, skills, and bodies are used to produce goods and services but almost always through coercion and at the cost of their own lives. While scientific and legal institutions increasingly recognize that most exploited animals are sentient–and not mere things–, they are still treated, in economic terms, as resources and merchandise, as machines and tools.

This situation is untenable. Some philosophers, legal scholars, and sociologists argue that domesticated animals deserve labour rights—they indeed provide genuine labour, but one that goes unrecognized and virtually unprotected. Beyond simply improving their working conditions, this “labour rights” approach to animal rights seeks to guarantee breaks, holidays and leisure time, a right to retirement, fair monetary compensation, and a right to be represented in the workplace. It promises to go beyond the welfarist paradigm, which keeps animals under human dominion, and posits that human-animal relationships can truly be mutually beneficial if properly regulated.

Despite its best intentions, I will argue that this strategy might fail animals and offers only limited parallels with human labour rights. First, I will map out the various ways in which domesticated animals work (or are worked upon). Second, I will outline the case for labour rights for animals. Third, I will present four key issues with this approach—some pragmatic, others more normative. Finally, I will argue that animals’ flourishing is better secured through unconditional socio-economic rights, which can recognize the value of their care work and social reproduction work without making them vulnerable to productivist systems.

About: Frédéric is a postdoc at the Centre working on the political turn to animal rights as well as on the links between speciesism and ableism. His research is supported by the Chaire de recherche du Canada en éthique féministe under the supervision of Naïma Hamrouni (UQTR) in partnership with the Social Justice Centre, under the supervision of Pablo Gilabert (Concordia) and the CRÉ, under the co-supervision of Christian Nadeau (UdeM). He is also affiliated with the Groupe de recherche en éthique environnementale et animale (GRÉEA) and the Animals in Politics, Philosophy, Laws & Ethics (APPLE) and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Montreal SPCA.

Respondent: Pablo Gilabert, Professor, Philosophy Department, Concordia University