CrimSL's 2023 Graduate Student Conference "Legal Contradictions: Identifying Iterations of Us versus Them" was held September 22-23, 2023 at the University of Toronto's Canadiana Gallery.
The annual conference provides graduate students with an opportunity to present their academic research in an interdisciplinary context and network with others doing work on related issues.
The conference opened on September 22 with opening remarks from Professor Beatrice Jauregui, CrimSL's Graduate Coordinator, followed by a keynote presentation from Dr. Nicole M. Myers, Associate Professor of Criminology in the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University.
Over the course of the two-day event, 21 graduate students from across Canada presented their research in sessions on Criminal Justice and Rights Advocacy; Governance, Ideology, and Conflict; and Migration, Identity, and Exclusion.
All attendees enjoyed forming new professional connections through informal networking at coffee and lunch breaks.
The conference program wrapped up on September 23 with a Fireside Chat panel discussion featuring moderator Dr. Phil Goodman, Associate Professor and Chair, Sociology, University of Toronto, and panelists Dr. Nicole M. Myers and Dr. Julius Haag, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Sociology, University of Toronto.
An informal closing reception capped the conference.
Congratulations to the conference organizers — CrimSL PhD students Sara Ali, Camille Hazzard, Joana Jabson, and Jeffrey Wong — and volunteers on the success of the conference!
View the 2023 Graduate Student Conference Schedule here..
Summary of scheduled graduate student presentations
Criminal Justice and Rights Advocacy
- Kate Mitchell, The Limits of Prisoners’ Rights Litigation
- Mads Baker, Podcasts, Prisons, and the Panopticon: The Commodification and Colonization of “Crime”
- Jingkun Liu, Coerced Guilty Pleas and the Paradox of Due Process
- Sarah Arbaji, Criminalizing Poverty? The Rise of Neoliberal Retrenchment and the Use of Surveillance Tools in Social Welfare in Ontario
- Al Cunningham Rogers & Danillo Onetto-Bolefski, Hegemonic Narratives Surrounding Police Violence in Metropolitan Toronto
- Claire Ruth Silverstone, Them and Us – How conditional is acceptance back into an already closed community following punishment for involving criminality in your life?
- Elliot Fonarev, Squatter: The Language of Punishing Unhoused People in Prince George, BC Through ‘Safe Streets’ Bylaw Enforcement
- Khalid M’Seffar, Dangerous Offenders: The Normalization of Exceptionalism in Canadian Criminal Law and its (Post) Colonial Condition
Governance, Ideology, and Conflict
- Christian Costanzo-Vignale, Disinformation, Exclusion, and its Politics: Canadian Right-Wing Extremist Community within a Digital Landscape
- Basema Al-Alami, Imperialism, Enmity, and the Making of Piracy Law
- Laura Baron-Mendoza, FARC-EP’s Environmental Governance: Towards a Theory of Legal Reconciliation
- Anduamlak Molla Takele, The Construction of “Otherness” Through Law in the Horn of Africa: Examining the Genesis and Repercussions of Otherness in Contemporary Ethiopia
- Lingyu Jing, Between Desecration and Freedom of Expression: Symbolic violence, Political theology, and the Sacrificial Origins of Law
- Oliver Grondin, Can a concept kill? A constructivist analysis on the effects of the concept of ‘Suicide by Cop’ in the coroner’s investigation following the deadly use of force by police in the province of Quebec
- Chika Maduakolam, Revisiting Human Rights: Canada’s Compliance with CEDAW on Gender- Based Violence
- Lt. Dr. R. Sivakumar (ZOOM), Conflict and Ethnic Violence: Origins, Dynamics and Preventive Approaches
- Paul Persaud, Carceral Practices and the ‘Colonial Mentality’ in Global Development: How Liberal Peacebuilding Restricts Upward Socioeconomic Mobility in Kosovo
Migration, Identity, and Exclusion
- Meray Sadek, Between Belonging and Exclusion: Examining Migration, Nationhood and Anti- Coptic Sentiment of Afro-Indigenous Coptic Orthodox Christians in Cairo, Egypt and Coptic Orthodox Christian Migrants in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
- Marjan Alipur, Barriers to Education as a Form of Epistemic Violence in the Lives of Afghan Women Living Under the Taliban
- Neela Hassan, Refugee women solidarities: How a restaurant turned into a site of connection and solidarity-building for Refugee Women
- Hkaung Stella Naw, Resisting Sovereign Criminality of Burman State and the Politics of Belonging