Join us in showcasing research and learnings with a community organizing focus!
March 19th 10am-630pm, March 20th 10am – 430pm
MacKinnon Building, University of Guelph
The 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 working to foster a space for research presentations, panels, roundtables, breakout groups, multimedia and art displays, interactive activities, zines and more.
What else to expect:
-Free food
-Children’s Programming
-Collective Care Space
-Rebel Knowledge Fair: Zines, Books, Posters and DIY Apparel
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
The Panels! Symposium Schedule!
March 19th
1000-1200-> Opening and Keynote: Bridging Communities, Recentering Movements
Speakers: Iako’tsi:rareh Amanda Lickers and Ruby Smith Díaz
PART 1: “Not Your Environmental Justice Movement” Disrupting the face of White Leadership in Environmental Justice Movements
10:30 -11:15am
Fishbowl An open critical reflection on the roles and responsibilities of white settlers /colonial invaders within our sociopolitical context of white supremacy, antiBlackness and occupation of onkwehon:we ohontsa:ke (Indigenous lands)
PART 2: Surviving Contact: Strategies for Decentreing Whiteness and Reimagining
Decolonized Landscapes
11:30-12:15
Closed to IBPOC. Fishbowl & Discussion Reflections on identity, relationships to land, oral histories of displacement, and settler colonialism. With hopes of moving forward within our communities, we will be focusing on inter and intra racialized community relations informed by distinct and intersecting geopolitical contexts of global antiBlackness, anti Indigeneity and widespread settler colonialism.
1200-100pm -> Lunch Break
100-230-> Session #1
Panel 1- Immigration in Canada: The trending of temporary and detention
Facilitator: Mina Ramos, Speakers: Alecia Golding, Ali Abdi, Camille Roberts, Lalo nideaquinidealla
Panel 2- Settler Police Violence in the Lives of Black and Indigenous Women and Girls
Speakers: Megan Bertasson, Stephanie Latt
Panel 3- (Workshop) Beyond the Pavement: Healing Justice and Cultures of Care in Black, Indigenous, People of Colour Activist Communities
Speaker – Lynx Sainte- Marie
300-430 -> Session #2
Panel 1- Art, Reclamation and Resistance
Speakers: Elwood Jimmy, Kiley May, Truth Is…, Nicole Brooks
Panel 2- Community Based Ways to Confront Intimate Partner Violence (Co-presented with GRCGED)
Facilitator: Julia Kilgour, Speakers: Sākihitowin Awāsis, jes sachse, Jen Meunier, Emmanuel Rutayisire
Panel 3- Indigenous Resistance for Environmental Racism
Facilitator: Atiya Jaffar, Speakers: Beze Gray, Amanda Lickers
500-630 -> Session #3
Panel 1- The Impact of Colonization on 2-Spirit People
Facilitator: Sarah Scanlon, Speakers: Beze Gray, Dr. Alex Wilson, Shawn Johnston
Panel 2- Navigating Poverty in Guelph: Research and Community based experiences
Facilitator: Genna Patterson, Speakers: Dave McLauchlin, Tina Brophey
Panel 3- Decolonizing and Re Centering Our Food Systems
Facilitator: Maria Shallard, Speakers: Savannah Clarke, Anan Lololi, Jamie Holding Eagle
March 20th
1000-1130am -> Session #4
Panel 1- Education, Criminalization and Transformative Strategies (Co-presented with the CSA)
Facilitator: Peter Miller, Speakers: Chinwe Nwebube, Leroi Newbold, Kahsenniyo Williams
Panel 2- Reclaiming Power of our Stories
Speakers: Badee Dwaik, Naomi Kwe, Lenore Keeshig-Tobias
Panel 3- Food Sovereignty and Reconciliation: Mohawk Seedkeeper Farm and the “Good Mind” in Agriculture
Speakers- Terrylynn “Sera:sera” Brant,Stephen Svenson
1200 – 130pm – > Session #5
Panel 1- Knowledge Mobilization for Community Engagement: Insights and dilemmas from a study of community-based water activism
Speakers: Jocelyn Kelly, Rebecca Pacheco, Robert Case
Panel 2-Creating Accessible and Engaging Avenues for Sharing Knowledge (Co-presented with the CSA)
Facilitator: Sonia Chwalek Speakers: Sakura Saunders, Polly Keeshig-Tobias, Tamo Campos
Panel 3- Facilitated Discussion on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
130-230 -> Lunch Break
Caucus For Native People Navigating Campus Spaces
230-430 -> Closing Panel- Community Work and Academia
Facilitator: Sarah Rotz, Speakers: Pascale, Mina Ramos, Mia Val
More Information:
symposium@opirgguelph.org
https://www.facebook.com/OPIRG.Guelph.Symposium/