Join us Friday March 13th 5pm-10pm and Saturday March 14th 9am-730pm as we showcase research and knowledge with a community organizing focus!
OPIRG-Guelph’s Social and Environmental Justice Symposium is a convergence of academic and community research, activism, and art focused on social and environmental justice issues. We are aiming to make research more accessible to all and to foster deeper relationships and idea sharing between academics and community activism. Our goal is to support the development of research that is useful to community based campaigns and projects working for social change and fostering a space for this exchange to take place. We would like to encourage opportunities for students and community members energy and work to be useful as a valuable resource to improve community organizing. This symposium will highlight community – based social justice research by students and community groups.
This conference is for the campus AND the community. Whether you are a student, community member, organizer, mobilizer, or just curious of activism we encourage you to come out and participate! We are working to challenge the shift our understandings of the role of research and foster a space for academics and activists to collectively examine and engage with community issues through creative and alternative skill and idea sharing.
This is beyond your typical research conference. We are fostering a space for research presentations, panels, roundtables, breakout groups, multimedia and art displays, interactive activities, zines and more.
The Panel Topics:
*each panel holds individual(s) discussing their research related to the topic and grassroots organizers/ activists doing this work.
1. Food Industrial Complex: A Conversation on GMO’s and Pesticides
2. Politics of Trauma: Alternative Healing Strategies
3. We don’t want your Pipelines: Strategies for Challenging Pipelines in Ontario
4. The Borders Crossed Us: Understanding the Impacts of Immigration Laws and Borders in Canada
5. Mining: Canada’s Toxic Legacy
6. Capitalism isn’t working: What else is there?
7. The Impact of Environmental Movements on Indigenous Sovereignty
8. Using Academia to Further Indigenous Sovereignty
9. Freedom to Learn: Challenging the Education Paradigm in Ontario
10. The Power of Storytelling: Using Stories to Create Change and Understanding
11. Slapp Suits: Slapping movements into silence
12. Ontario’s Electricity Future – Nuclear or Renewable?
13. We are the Ocean: The Knowledge Within Indigenous Feminisms & it’s Relationship to the Academy, Activism and Social Structures
14. Seeds of Change: Exploring and Unpacking Food Justice Movements
15. Resisting the Rise of Anti-Muslim Violence
16. Money Walks: Strategies for Divestment from Mining, Fossil Fuels and Israeli Apartheid
What else to expect:
-Free food!
-Rebel Knowledge Fair: Zines, Books, Posters and DIY Apparel
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-Gallery Walk: History of Guelph Activist Art – Let us know if you want to submit!
-Film screening: The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz – YouTube
-After Party @ Atmostphere
The space is wheelchair and scooter accessible. If you have any specific needs in order to feel comfortable please let us know. symposium@opirgguelph.org