Unveiling Equity | Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP)

The Unveiling Equity series invites participants to unpack, unsettle, and critically reposition themselves from a decolonized perspective in order to engage more actively with social justice issues. Through thought-provoking discussions and reflective activities, the series challenges conventional views, encourages deeper self-awareness, and promotes meaningful action toward equity and justice. This series is designed to inspire participants to critically examine their roles and responsibilities in fostering inclusive and transformative change within their communities and professional spaces.

The series is directed by CSLP Research Coordinator Zeina Ismail-Allouche, and has implicated members Ghayda Hassan (Université du Québec à Montréal), Abdelwahed Mekki-Berrada (Université Laval), and Vivek Venkatesh (McGill University).

The Unveiling Equity workshops are co-sponsored by the Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Extremist Violence (CPN-PREV) and the Concordia University Indigenous Healing Knowledges Research Chair, Catherine Richardson.

The first sessions took place in February, 2024, with additional programming offered in 2025 and a third year recently launched in 2026.

The Stage as a Site of Refusal: Aesthetics & Acts of Resistance

The hybrid event brought together participants for a dynamic exchange examining the stage as a decolonial space where embodied practices, storytelling, and artistic expression challenge erasure while creating space for counter-narratives, relational ethics, and collective imagination.

The conversation featured a panel of scholars and practitioners: Safia Boufalaas, whose research explores the representation of bodies in contexts of extreme violence through documentary imagery; Rita Barotta, a scholar of gender, sexuality, and feminist epistemology whose work bridges journalism, research, and creative writing; and Chadi Ayoub, a visual artist whose sculptural and participatory work interrogates identity, visibility, and belonging. Zeina Ismail-Allouche facilitated the discussion.

Gaza, Witnessing, and the Shifting Compass of Humanity

This event on January 13, 2026, brought together Dr. Samah Jabr, psychiatrist and leading voice in liberation psychology, and Dr. Ghayda Hassan, clinical psychologist and Director of CPN-PREV, for a critical conversation on witnessing, narrative, and justice-centred care amid ongoing mass violence in Gaza moderated by Zeina Ismail-Allouche. Drawing on her clinical and advocacy work in Palestine, Dr. Jabr explored how occupation, torture, and collective trauma shape individual and communal suffering, emphasizing personal narrative as a form of ethical witnessing and resistance. Dr. Hassan contributed perspectives from anti-oppressive and culturally grounded clinical practice, highlighting the importance of lived experience, positionality, and reflexivity in ethical intervention. Read our full coverage.

Safety and the Ethics of Vulnerability

How can we share stories of pain, resistance, and survival without retraumatizing ourselves—or unintentionally inviting voyeuristic responses? This question anchored the most recent event in the Unveiling Equity workshop series, Safety and the Ethics of Vulnerability, held on Monday, November 11, 2025, at 4TH SPACE, Concordia University. The in-person session invited the participants, Catherine Richardson, Rawda Harb and kimura byol lemoine, to reflect on the power and politics of recounting personal histories. Where healing meets the risk of exposure, how vulnerability can be navigated with care, and what it means to reclaim agency in telling one’s truth. Together, attendees considered the responsibilities we hold—to ourselves and to others—when sharing stories shaped by trauma, oppression, and resilience. Read our full coverage.

Resisting Colonizations: Anger and Hope

From April 24 to 26, 2025, the CSLP and its partners proudly hosted Resisting Colonizations: Anger and Hope, a three-day international symposium held in collaboration with the Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Extremist Violence (CPN-PREV), Concordia University’s Indigenous Healing Knowledges Chair, Recherche et Action sur les Polarisations Sociales (RAPS), Espace Culturel Kawalees and Université Laval.

The event created an unforgettable and transformative experience for all who participated - in addition to CSLP members Ghayda Hassan and Abdelwahed Mekki-Berrada and CSLP Research Coordinator Zeina Ismail-Allouche, CSLP Student Affiliates Neslihan Sriram-Uzundal, Guillaume Jabbour and Rawda Harb were also engaged in facilitating the event.

Grounded in the lived experiences of communities impacted by settler-colonial violence — with a specific focus on Palestine, Lebanon, and Turtle Island — the symposium invited participants to reflect on the enduring legacies of colonization, and to connect in solidarity across geographies and histories. After being welcomed by centre co-Director David Waddington, attendees explored their personal and collective journeys in resisting colonization. Read our full coverage.

This symposium later launched a podcast series, Resisting Colonizations: Healing Narratives, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

2025 Unveiling Equity sessions launched with a double session

January 13, 2025, the Unveiling Equity workshop series returned with two sessions focused first on the role of women working to bring peace to Lebanon, and a second session with several comedians on how they employ humour to explore and define identity issues and resist social pressures.

Women as Peace Builders

The morning session, Women as Peace Builders, brought together several women who’s work is focused on peace in Lebanon. Jumanah Zabaneh (Programme Management Specialist with UN Women Lebanon), Christina Foerch Saab (co-founder of the Lebanese NGO Fighters for Peace), and Pascale Bafitos (Detention Program Coordinator at Restart Center in Lebanon) joined moderator Zeina Ismail-Allouche for a fascinating discussion that explored the issues around peacebuilding and preventing violent extremism (PVE) among the complexity of a war-torn and colonized country. Read our full coverage.

Laughter as Resistance

The second session of the day, Laughter as Resistance, featured comedians Johnny El Hage (@estroubia), Saad Fennich (@saad.humoriste), and Sandy El-Bitar (@sindee_elb) in a lively, entertaining and poignant conversation with Zeina Ismail-Allouche. The conversation reframed laughter as an expression of joy and a subversive tool that challenges dominant narratives and defies oppression. Read our full coverage.

A podcast later resulted from this session, featuring Johnny El Hage. Listen on SoundCloud or Spotify.

It is the violence not pathology that is the problem!

October 29, 2024, Concordia’s 4th Space hosted a special event co-sponsored by the CSLP along with the Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Extremist Violence (CPN-PREV) and the Indigenous Healing Knowledges Concordia Research Chair, that brought together Catherine kineweskwêw Richardson (School of Community and Public Affairs, Concordia) and Ghayda Hassan (Département de psychologie, UQAM) to discuss dignity in violence prevention. The conversation was adeptly moderated by CSLP Research Coordinator Zeina Ismail-Allouche. Read our full coverage.

<dis> representation: an experiment and workshop addressing pluralism in the art

In March the first round of the Unveiling Equity workshop series concluded with the interactive webinar <dis> representation: an experiment and workshop addressing pluralism in the art, organized by Veronica Mockler (CSLP Artist-in-Residence) and José Cortés (PhD student, Art Education) and featuring research-creator Kathleen Vaughan, curator and educator Daniel Fiset, socially engaged artist Florencia Sosa Rey, as well as Galerie Galerie's co-director Sophie Latouche. The online webinar delved into the intricacy of plural representation of socially engaged art online in a wide-ranging conversation about the intersection of art and social media, and the role of a curator vis-à-vis the artists curated. Read our full coverage.

Allyship: From tokensim to activism

Held on March 18, 2024, this workshop brought a diverse array of speakers and viewpoints to the table for a discussion of the meaning of allyship and how to ethically navigate this role. The panel was moderated by Zeina Ismail-Allouche and featured Catherine Richardson, kimura byol-nathalie lemoine (multimedia artist and feminist curator), and Dr. Lisa Ndejuru (independent researcher and psychotherapist).

A separate but similarly themed panel discussion, L'allieship : de la symbolique à l'activisme, was held in French later in the day, this time moderated by Safia Boufalaas (CSLP Research Professional) and featuring Amandine Gay (filmmaker and afrofeminist activist) and Samantha Lopez Uri (anti-racism consultant).

Read our full coverage.

Unveiling Equity Gets Underway

On February 7 and 8, 2024, the CSLP’s new Unveiling Equity workshops launched with with back-to-back workshops hosted by Concordia University's 4th Space.

Tackling Structural Racism

The first workshop was on February 7, with a morning session in English and an afternoon session in French. Vivek Venkatesh was joined by colleagues from the University of Alberta’s Department of Native Studies, Nykkie Lugosi-Schimpf and Celina Yellowbird, with the panel moderated by Kathryn Urbaniak (PhD candidate). The panelists shared strategies for sensitizing the public and building dialogic spaces to counter different forms of structural racism. They also discussed recommendations for policy makers in education, mental health, social service, public safety, and other fields. In the French session, Lugosi-Schimpf swapped out with University of Alberta’s Paul Gareau and the session was moderated by Rawda Harb (PhD candidate).

Dalia Elsayed, Leena Abdelrahim & Marlihan Lopez. Photo by Azfar Adib.

Decentering the Margins: Routes for Liberation

The second workshop was held on February 8 and featured Leena Abdelrahim (PhD candidate, University of Toronto) and Marlihan Lopez (Black feminist community organizer with Harambec) in discussion with Dalia Elsayed, research professional with Project Someone and 2024 Concordia Public Scholar. The panelists discussed how to identify and implement effective and sustainable routes or strategies that lead to the liberation of marginalized groups from systemic oppression, fostering a more inclusive and equitable society, particularly as the issue relates to academia.