Date & time
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
Registration is closed
Workshops & seminars, Meetings
Share this event:
Exploring tensions in (re)claiming ancestral practices as a settler mixed-race educator
Speaker(s)
Emil Briones
Cost
This event is free.
Organization
Contact
Where
Pavillon Henry‐F.‐Hall
1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Accessible location
Yes - See details
This workshop is part of the Contemplative Practices Summit series.
Please note that this is an in-person event capped at 30 participants. All are welcome to register, regardless of identity.
As an educator practicing and relating in contexts shaped by colonialism, white supremacy, and other legacies of oppression, what might it mean to use or integrate elements from non-Indigenous ancestral practices in the University teaching context? Through my multidisciplinary practice – drawing from my own lineages as a mixed race member of the global Filipinx diaspora, storyteller-artist, and facilitator-educator – I will accompany participants in an exploration of the following questions
- Defining ancestral practice – what are the ancestral knowledges and practices from which I draw, and what have been the possibilities and tensions in using them in university teaching?
- How has my relationship with Tio’tia:ke as a mixed-race settler, with colonizer and colonial-survivor lineages, shaped my practice as an educator and facilitator? What are the practical and ethical questions arising from this – within and beyond the context of university teaching?
Participants can expect story-telling/witnessing, guided self-reflection, and group co-creation activities to support their exploration of the themes and questions. This 60-minute session will include personal story-telling of colonial, racial, and gender-based violence. While the facilitator has extensive experience in social justice education and trauma-informed facilitation practices, participants should understand that they are not a qualified licensed psychotherapist nor a mental health crisis intervention specialist. The session will be in-person and there will be light movement (moving from plenary to small groups for example).
Facilitator’s bio
Emil Briones (en: they/them; fr: ael/elle) is an organizational development consultant, community-based researcher/facilitator/mediator/educator, and musician based in Tiohtià:ke, unceded Kanien'keha:ka territories (“Montréal”). They are a settler and mixed-race member of the Filipinx diaspora (Southern Tagalog, Hiligaynon, Chavacano), and is also of part Western European ancestry. Born in the Philippine islands and moved to Turtle Island as a child, they use the words transfeminine, non-binary, and bakla to further describe their identity and experiences of gender. Since 2009, their practice has been informed, nourished, and challenged by community care/organizing, the performing arts, ancestral inquiry, the critical social sciences, and non-profit management. They are trained in various group facilitation and learning approaches, and conflict mediation, including through programs by St. Stephen’s Community House and the Lewis Method of Deep Democracy. From 2016 to 2021, they served as Faculty Lecturer at McGill University’s Faculty of Oral Medicine and Dental Sciences, where they taught a course on critical social topics in oral health. They continue to support groups and organizations in their learning and change journeys through the power of connection, relationships, and collective leadership.
This program is funded by Quebec's ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, through contributions from the Canada-Québec Agreement on Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction.