Graduate Student Conference

Transformative Justice within Academia: A radical institutional reflection

Conference date: March 16, 2021 — Online

View the full program online

Download the program as a PDF

The Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies Graduate Student Conference wants you to experience the common tenets of academic conferences—virtually! Transformative Justice within Academia: A Radical Institutional Reflection is thoughtfully organized to reinvigorate the academic community’s love for deep, thoughtful and creative discussions with colleagues, networking opportunities as well as sustenance in the form of food to keep us going throughout the day.

The aim of this conference is to engage in conversations about structural and systematic inequality, social and racial injustices towards a radical institutional reflection of academia, a place that has long established itself as an exceptional, progressive, critical, and safe environment. As academics focused on institutional violence embedded within the Canadian legal framework, we call for an internal investigation of how similar processes of violence are augmented in academia. Through an application of a radical institutional reflection, the conference papers focus on curriculum, policies & procedures as well as personal experiences of historically marginalized groups in the field of criminology and socio-egal studies. As student researchers who are responsible for shaping the future of the field of criminology and socio-legal studies, this conference serves to imagine critical and radical transformative justice that starts from within the very institution we are all a part of.

Please refer to our conference schedule for more information. This is an open event; everyone is welcome to attend. If you have special accessibility needs, please send us a request 14 days prior to the event. This is to ensure that we are able to provide the requested service. We do not require documentation from doctor etc for request for accommodation.

Contact: crimslsgradconference@gmail.com

Call for papers (now passed)

Deadline for submissions: January 22, 2021 - EXTENDED

Download the CFP: Transformative Justice within Academia - Call for Papers EXTENDED

Academia has long established itself as an exceptional, progressive, critical, and safe environment. However, its policies, bureaucratic processes, research, teaching and mentorship practices are replete with structures that perpetuate inequalities, highlight mental and health implications and continue to disproportionately harm graduate students. As BIPOC students continue to experience structural and interpersonal violence such as hyper policing, carding and police violence on and off-campus, the institution continues to posture around issues of inequality. Politically correct emails sent out by faculty, staff and students do not address inequality, race, racism, police brutality/privatized security/campus police, and colonial violence within academia. This conference promises to begin a conversation about the structures that reproduce inequalities and the punitive state within educational spaces, unevenly impacting BIPOC students. Furthermore, the conference recognizes graduate student researchers as the future of academia and, as such, we aim to collectively imagine critical and radical educational spaces and pedagogies, while collectively contributing to theory-making, as well as drafting practical recommendations and policies targeted at achieving institutional changes that support graduate students.

Consider the following themes and questions:

• How do current institutional structures perpetuate inequalities and accentuate vulnerability within academia?
  • Policies/procedures on how to handle ‘difficult’ students
  • Mandated leave policy
  • New marijuana laws and University’s policies on cannabis use
  • Campus police and other surveillance mechanisms that disproportionately impact BIPOC students or students that live with mental health conditions
  • Normalization of students’ poverty, angst, stress, and uncertainty
• What knowledge and ways of knowing are awarded and/or penalized?
• What do transformative justice and non-punitive academia look like? What changes are required to produce it?
• Drawing on critical race studies, prison abolitionists, anti-colonial, decolonizing and postcolonial scholarship, what can a reimagined space of learning look like?

Submission guidelines:

Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2021

We welcome abstract submissions from criminology, sociolegal studies, sociology, and related disciplines. Please send an abstract of not more than 200-250 words to crimslsgradconference@gmail.com

Include a paper title, your full name, institutional affiliation, your program of study, and email address. Further information about panels, the conference dynamics, and the length of presentations will be sent out at a later date once the program is finalized.

Graduate students are welcome to present ideas that are not fully developed into papers. The conference provides an opportunity for emerging academics to think through transformative justice collectively.

The conference will have a workshop format where participants will be able to further work on their papers. Selected papers will be considered for a collective publication.

Contact

crimslsgradconference@gmail.com

Power & Protest: Rethinking Mobilization in Canada & Beyond

Date: March 12, 2020 & March 13, 2020
Location: 14 Queen’s Park Crescent West
Toronto, Ontario (M5S 3K9)

Mass mobilizations are often framed as power struggles between governmental institutions and civilian organizations with specific end goals. However, from Indigenous anti-pipeline protests in the Global North to the #MeToo movement, resistance has manifested itself in many distinct shapes and forms. In a time of increasingly growing economic, social, and political inequality, within and across nations, there is a pressing need for change. It is important to diversify current socio-legal narratives surrounding what constitutes power and protest. This conference aims to provide the opportunity for emerging scholars to critically understand, rethink, and re-contextualize mobilization in today’s world.

Revised Schedule

This year’s conference will span over two days, beginning on March 12 with a workshop series.

In the MORNING, a Writing Workshop will be organized and facilitated by Dr. Daniel Newman, Director of Graduate Writing Support at the University of Toronto.

Following, in the AFTERNOON, Dr. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah will lead a Professional Development workshop on the topic of Scholars and Social Media.

Registration and Breakfast 10:00 AM — 10:30 AM

WORKSHOP 1—Writing: Daniel Newman, PhD 10:30 AM—12:00 PM

Developing Your Scholarly Voice: Strategies for Writing Like a Pro/f

Lunch 12:00 PM—12:30 PM

Speaker Series: Professor Constance Backhouse (attendance is optional) 12:30 PM—2:00 PM

Racial bias and judging: spotlight on the R.D.S. case, 1993-97

Break 2:00 PM—2:15 PM

WORKSHOP 2—Professional Development: Professor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah,
PhD 2:15 PM—3:45 PM

Scholars in Public Scholarship

On March 13, panels will open with a keynote address from Dr. Mugambi Jouet, Assistant Professor at McGill University, lawyer, and author of Exceptional America: What Divides Americans from the World and from Each Other.

Registration and Breakfast 10:00 AM—10:20 AM

Opening remarks—Professor Audrey Macklin, Director of Centre 10:20 AM—10:30 AM

Keynote Address & Q+A—Professor Mugambi Jouet, McGill University 10:30 AM—12:00 PM

Break 12:00 PM—12:15 PM

PANEL/SESSION I 12:15 PM—1:45 PM
POWER AND DISSENT: MAKING SENSE OF STATE AND NON-STATE VIOLENCE

Danielle Hurd
Reconceptualizing Violence: An Argument Against the Categorization of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front as Ecoterrorists

Inês Ferreira
Digilantism as a Breach in the State’s Violence and Legal Monopoly

Robert Giannetta
Canadian Justice/Indigenous (In)Justice: Decolonization of the Criminal Justice System

Julia Conceição Mogus
An Assemblage Theory Analysis of the Relationship Between Indigenous Intellectual Property And State Resistance To Shared Sovereignty in Canada

Lunch 1:45 PM—2:30 PM

PANEL/SESSION II 2:30 PM—4:00 PM
MOBILIZING IDENTITY AND GROUP BELONGING

Jennifer Del Riccio
Nevertheless, They Persisted: The Indian Act, R v Barton, and Power Through Protest by Indigenous Women in Canada

Sara Fruchtman
‘All the Work We Do as Women’: Solidarities Between the Wages for Housework
and Sex Workers’ Rights Movements

Isra Saghir
Crushing Culture, Dismantling Defiance: Cultural Heritage and Mass Mobilization in Iraq

Katelyn Squires
The Opium of Nationalism: Belonging, Trauma and Dissidence in Northern Ireland

Mix & Mingle: Conference Social—Centre Lounge (second floor) 5:30 PM—7:30 PM
Join us for hors d’œuvres and canapés as we bring the conference to a close.

Participation

As this is an interdisciplinary graduate conference, we welcome submissions from graduate students involved in research outside of, but related to, the disciplines of criminology, sociolegal studies, and sociology. Some critical issues this conference will cover, but are not limited to, are the following:

• Race and racism in the criminal justice system
• Political violence and repression
• Inequality and social polarization
• Social justice and criminal justice activism
• Accountability, oversight and legitimacy
• Protest policing
• Anti-protest strategies and legitimacy
• Mobilization organizations and tactics

We invite graduate students to submit abstract proposals to discuss these critical issues, or explore other issues that fall within the realm of this year’s conference theme.

Registration is free and lunch will be provided.

For further inquiries, please contact crimslsgradconference@gmail.com.

The University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies is pleased to announce its one-day graduate conference entitled Borders and Barriers: Understanding Criminalization and Challenges to Human Rights

Conference date: March 8, 2019 (9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.)

Location: Canadiana Gallery (14 Queen’s Park Crescent West, Toronto, ON M5S 3K9)

The simplest way to imagine borders is to think of a territorial divide. However, socio-legal narratives have continuously challenged and broadened our familiar conceptualization of borders and boundaries. They have also come to represent invisible yet concrete barriers that affect different communities, identities, and individuals, particularly those in conflict with the law and those affected by it. This conference provides the opportunity for emerging scholars to critically understand, rethink, and reconcile our common conceptualization of borders. Our goal is to explore not only the human rights barriers they erect through policy and practice, but also their dire consequences on individuals and societies at a global, humanistic level.

Preliminary Schedule

CrimSL Student Conference Program 201910:00 AM to 10:20 AM – Registration

10:20 AM to 10:30 AM – Opening Remarks.

10:30 AM to 12:00 PM – Session I – Institutional Barriers in Criminal Justice Policy (Facilitator: Daniel Konikoff)

• Road Safety and the Lifeworld: Unintended Social Barriers of Canada’s New Drug-Impaired Driving Legislation, Devon Valentine, Sociology, Queen’s University
• Problematic Justifications for Border Control Policies: Family Separation in the United States, Kanwal Khokhar, Criminal and Social Justice, Ryerson University
• Putting the Crown on Trial: An Exploration of Law and Practice of Prosecutorial Discretion in Sexual Assault Cases, Priyanka Sharma, Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
• The Rape Shield’s Defective Policy Cycle, Danielle McNabb, Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy, University of Guelph

12:00 PM to 12:10PM – Break12:15 PM to 2:00 PM – Session II – Criminalization of Migration and Asylum (Facilitator: Jona Zyfi)

• Religion or Economy: What Makes Rohingya Stateless, Atm Shaifullah Mehedi, Sociology, Queen’s University
• How Are We Doing? Newspaper Representation of Migrant Criminality in Western Democracies, Victoria Harraway, Criminology, Simon Fraser University
• Asylum Seekers in Lacolle, Quebec: Securitized Encounters at the Canadian Data Border, Jamie Duncan, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto
• The Humanitarian Governance of Victimhood: Identifying Migrant Victims of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery in the UK, Abbey Wright, Sociology, Carleton University
• Furthering the Discussion on Trans-National Radicalization: Somali Canadians on Al-Shabaab, Nadar Mahamud, Criminology and Social Justice, Ryerson University

2:00 PM to 3:00 PM – Lunch Break3:00 PM to 4:15PM – Session III – Carceral Barriers (Facilitator: Kadija Lodge-Tulloch)

• Bounded Bodies: Carceral Spatialities of Institutional Transfer and Urban Parole Upon Indigenous Prisoners, Joshua Shaw, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
• Removed and Replaced: The Psychosocial Barriers to Prison Re-Entry, Alyssa Leblond and Samantha Cima, Criminology, University of Ottawa
• Monetizing Trauma: The Case of Omar Khadr, Aqsa Bhagat, Socio-Legal Studies, York University
• Spatial Closure and Practical Penalization: The Case of Goutte d’Or in North-Paris, Khalil Habrih, School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies, University of Ottawa

4:15 PM to 4:30 PM – Closing Remarks5:00 PM – Social (Prenup Pub)

For further inquiries, please contact crimslsgradconference@gmail.com

(CrimSL Student Conference CFP 2019 – please note January 25th deadline)

We invite you to join the 2018 Annual Graduate Student Conference hosted by the University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. Our school is on territories governed by the Dish With One Spoon Treaty, home to the Anishinaabe, Mississauga, and Haudenosaunee peoples. We are grateful to work and learn on this land.

The conference provides graduate students an opportunity to present their academic research in an interdisciplinary context and network with others doing work on related issues.

With the spread of extreme nationalism and populism across Canada and beyond, disputes over social exclusion, immigration and refugee policies, and shifting modes of regulation have captured public attention. The current political climate has contributed to the further marginalization of subaltern groups, while calls for progressive reform have failed to produce, or meet demands for, substantive change. It is essential, perhaps now more than ever, that we map the current criminological and sociolegal landscape in Canada, to examine how we define and respond to current events, emergent trends in governance, and question if and how individuals and the institutions that regulate the already marginalized are held accountable.

Graduate Student Conference Program, 2018

11:00 am – 11:20 am: Registration11:20 am – 11:30 am: Opening Remarks from Prof. Audrey Macklin, Director of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies

11:30 am – 1:00 pm: Session I – Canadian Carceralities and Penology Facilitator: Samantha Aeby

• A Questionable System of Penal Reform in Canada: A historical approach to understanding rehabilitation for ex-offenders, Kadija Lodge-Tulloch, Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
• A Comparative Analysis: The wrongful convictions of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and Australia, Ferdouse Asefi, Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
• Life After Wrongful Conviction: Exploring potential aggravating and mitigating factors related to exoneree reintegration, Tyler King, Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
• Loose Coupling and Defining Deviance Down: Correctional Officers’ perceptions of organizational responses to mental health and well-being, Victoria Baker, Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto

1:00 pm – 1:45 pm: Lunch1:45 pm – 3:30 pm: Session II – In/excluding Bodies through Law: Citizenship, sexuality, and migration Facilitator: Andrea Sterling

• The Racial Exclusionary Mechanisms of Citizenship, Brianna Garneau, Criminology, University of Ottawa
• Contagion and the Public Body: A Re-ordering of Private and Public Spheres in R. v Gowdy, Joshua David Michael Shaw, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University
• A Positive Monster born from the Judicial Page: Governing Positive Sexuality through the Criminal Law as a Tool of Public Health Containment, Maxwell Philip Tristan Miller, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
• Humanity, Civilization and Western Modernity: Inquiry into the Colonial Roots of Development, Joaquin Sabat, Sociology, Université Laval
• Canada’s Migrants and Affordable Housing, Kunal Variawa, Criminology and Social Justice, Ryerson University

3:30 pm – 3:45 pm: Coffee Break3:45 pm – 5:15 pm: Session III – Securitization, Surveillance and Regulation Facilitator: Jihyun Kwon

• The Materialization of Securitization Practices: Living under security certificates, Subhah Wadhawan, Criminology, University of Ottawa
• Technology of Surveillance in Crime Control: Foucault Revisited, Subrata Banarjee and Mohammed Jahirul Islam (non-presenting co-author), Criminology, University of Ottawa
• Governing the Firearms Privilege: The power dynamics of gun ownership in Canada, Derek Cooper, Sociology, Carleton University
• A Gendered Case for Governmentality: Campus governance and the institutionalization of sexual violence, Ravita Surajbali, Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto

5:15 pm – 5:30 pm: Closing Remarks from Prof. Scot Wortley, Graduate Coodinator6:00 pm – 8:00 pm: Meet and Greet – Prenup Pub (191 College St. West)

Attendance is free, please RSVP to confirm your attendance.

Lunch, coffee, and pub snacks will be provided – please email the organizing committee if you have any dietary restrictions.

The event will be held in an accessible space with a wheel-chair accessible washroom. Please let us know if you have any access needs so we can better accomodate you.

For out of town visitors, Grad House Accomodation is a reasonably priced option that is a 10 minute walk from our Centre. Details can be found here: http://gradhouse.utoronto.ca/guest-rooms/

If you have any questions or concerns, please email the organizing commitee at crimslsgradconference@gmail.com

We look forward to meeting you soon!

CrimSL Student Conference CFP 2018

Surveillance, Resistance, and [In]Justice in a Time of Unrest

(CrimSL Student Conference CFP 2017) (CrimSL Student Conference Schedule 2017)

Social Justice in the City Graduate Student Workshop

(CrimSL Student Conference CFP 2015) (CrimSL Student Conference Schedule 2015)