Workshop 6 - Anti-oppressive strategies and solidarity in and out the classroom (Presented by the Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples And Politics Section)

W601 - Workshop 6 - Race, Racism and Resistance Strategies in Québec

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 08:30am to 10:00am | Location: SJA-809 | Refreshments! Rafraîchissements!

Chair/Président/Présidente : Dani Delaney (Queen's University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Rose Ndengue (York University (Glendon College))

Refreshments will be served, join us!
Des rafraîchissements seront servis, rejoignez-nous !

Reclaiming Space: Montreal’s First Freedom School as a Black Fugitive Educational Space: Adama Kaba (Harambec), Jade Almeida (Harambec)
Abstract: Black students’ educational experiences are profoundly shaped by antiblackness, which positions them as “out-of-place” and undeserving of education (Dumas, 2016). In Quebec, schools often serve as sites where Black youth endure some of the most distressing forms of suspicion toward their intellectual capacities from both peers and school officials (Thésée, 2021). This antiblackness also translates as harsher disciplinary actions, lower expectations from educators, and a heightened likelihood of being streamed into vocational programs (CDPDJ, 2015; Maynard, 2017). This experience is further compounded by the province’s distinct linguistic landscape, where language and culture serve to mask race and racism (Austin, 2010). Echoing Christina Sharpe, kihana miraya ross (2020) asks “What kinds of possibilities for rupture might be opened up when we confront the realities of antiblackness in schools ?”. She proposes the “Black educational fugitive space” as “the ways Black students and educators enact educational fugitivity through the social production of Black space in the margin” (p. 48). In the summer of 2024, Harambec laid the foundations for a Black educational fugitive space, co-created by Black youth and educators to provide a transformative learning space of refuge, joy, and community, through Montreal’s first Freedom School. Guided by Abolitionist Teaching and African Indigenous Knowledge Traditions, our approach emphasized knowledge-building as a relational, intergenerational, holistic, and lifelong process. This presentation is both an offering and an invitation to imagine possibilities for “rebirth and resistance” (ross, 2021, p.48) in and out of formal schooling for Black youth through spaces such as the Freedom School .

‘Can we talk about race?’: Saaz Taher (University of Toronto Scarborough)
Abstract: Black and racialized individuals conducting research in critical race theory in Quebec face political and academic contexts where the concept of "race" is problematic. As a result, this theory, which is part of what is considered minority knowledge, is discredited within the university. Moreover, researchers contributing to the development of this knowledge—particularly if they belong to minority groups—are perceived as illegitimate and scientifically incompetent. How can we understand such dynamics in the production of collective knowledge and in relation to its producers within academic spheres? To address this, this presentation proposes to examine the links between epistemology, gender, and whiteness within political science, and suggests adopting an epistemology of humility in light of these dynamics.

A crisis of racial panic in Quebec academia: Vincent Romani (Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM))
Abstract: Since September 2020, several university scandals have erupted in Canada and Quebec, starting with the “N-word” incident at the University of Ottawa. They have given rise to numerous public statements by administrations, unions, politicians, teachers and students, but to very little scientific research. In this presentation, I will analyze what most of these academics have described as an “attack on academic freedoms”, to understand what is at stake in this scandal. Access to the university and to critique for a racialized public, long minoritized and obfuscated on campuses, is at the heart of these issues. As a result, this “crisis of academic freedoms” has given rise to a struggle to define what it is, which has been extended to a struggle to define what universities are, what they should be and do, and who has the power to define them. My thesis is that this “Quebec crisis of university freedoms” conceals a crisis of racial panic encoded by the scandalization of university actors, part of the long history of unthought-of university racism. I carry out a positional and thematic analysis of the public discourses of academics who have spoken out about this “crisis”. It is then possible to analyze this event as revealing the racial panic of the hegemonic group of white academics who perceive a crisis because of criticism of their dominance. What's more, their performance of panic enables whiteness to assert and reinforce its political supremacy.