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Steering Committee

The Steering Committee of the R.A.C.E. Network is made up of the following academics and activists:

  • Dr. Sedef Arat-Koc, Associate Professor Political Science and Public Administration,  Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
  • Dr. Yasmin Jiwani, Associate Professor, Communications Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
  • Dr. Lynn Lavallée, Assistant Professor, Social Work, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
  • Dr. Gada Mahrouse, Assistant Professor, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
  • Dr. Tanisha Ramachandran, Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Wake Forest University, North Carolina
  • Dr. Sherene Razack, Professor, Sociology and Equity Studies, OISE, University of Toronto, Ontario
  • Dr. Malinda S. Smith, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta.
  • Dr. Sunera Thobani, Associate Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.

 

Dr. Sedef Arat-Koç

R.A.C.E. Network Steering Committee

Dr. Sedef Arat-Koç is an associate professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Toronto, her M.A. at the University of Waterloo, and B.A. at Boğaziçi Üniversitesi (Turkey). Before joining Ryerson University in 2006, she taught at the Women’s Studies Program and the Department of Sociology at Trent University.  Her research interests include immigration policy and citizenship, especially as they affect immigrant women; politics of imperialism; racialization and the politics of racism; and reconfiguration of social and political identities under neoliberal globalization. Currently, she is working on “whiteness” in Turkey as a cultural, political and class identity in the context of neoliberalism and post-cold war geopolitics. She is the author of Caregivers Break the Silence (2001) and co-editor (with Wenona Giles) of Maid in the Market: Women's Paid Domestic Labour (1994). Dr. Arat-Koç’s recent publications include:  “A Cultural Turn in Politics: Bourgeois Class Identity and White-Turk Discourses.” In Hegemonic Transitions, The State and Crisis in Neoliberal Capitalism, ed. by Yildiz Atasoy (2009); ‘(Some) Turkish Transnationalism(s) in an Age of Capitalist Globalization and Empire: “White Turk” Discourse, The New Geopolitics and the Implications for Feminist Transnationalism.’ Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 3:1 (2007); “Whose Transnationalism? Canada, “Clash of Civilizations” Discourse and Arab and Muslim Canadians.” In Transnational Identities and Practices in Canada, ed. by Lloyd Wong and Vic Satzewich, (2006); “The Disciplinary Boundaries of Canadian Identity After 9/11: Civilizational Identity, Multiculturalism and the Challenge of Anti-Imperialist Feminism.” Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict and World Order, 32:4 (2005).  For more information, please go to her Ryerson University web site at: http://www.ryerson.ca/politics/facultyandstaff/bio_SedefArat-Koc.htm

Dr. Sedef Arat-Koc, Associate Professor Political Science and Public Administration, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
http://www.ryerson.ca/politics/facultyandstaff/bio_SedefArat-Koc.htm
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

Dr. Yasmin Jiwani

R.A.C.E. Network Steering Committee

Dr. Yasmin Jiwani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal.  Her doctorate in Communication Studies from Simon Fraser University examined issues of race and representation in Canadian television news. Prior to her move to Concordia, Dr. Jiwani was the executive coordinator and principal researcher at the BC/Yukon FREDA Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children. Her recent publications include:  Discourses of Denial: Mediations of Race, Gender and Violence.  (Vancouver:  University of British Columbia Press, 2006), as well as an edited collection with Candice Steenbergen and Claudia Mitchell titled:  Girlhood, Redefining the Limits.  (Montreal:  Black Rose Books, 2006).  Her work has appeared in Social Justice, Violence Against Women, Canadian Journal of Communication, Journal of Popular Film & Television, Topia, International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, the University of Toronto Quarterly and in numerous anthologies.  She is also the co-editor of the upcoming issue of the Canadian edition of the Global Media Journal focusing on representations of Islam. Her previous work has focused on gendered narratives of war.  Her most recent SSHRC funded research focuses on a comparative examination of femicide reporting in the press.

Dr. Yasmin Jiwani, Associate Professor, Communications Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
Univ URL: http://coms.concordia.ca/faculty/jiwani.html
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Dr. Lynn Lavallée

R.A.C.E. Network Steering Committee

Dr. Lynn Lavallée is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Ryerson University in Toronto. She is Anishnaabeek Métis from Sudbury, Ontario. Her father was from Temiscaming, Quebec and her mother from Timmins, Ontario. Dr. Lavallée holds an honours BA in Psychology and Kinesiology from York University and an MSc in Community Health from the University of Toronto. She completed her PhD at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Social Work. Her research interests include Indigenous health, cultural, sport and recreation programs, Indigenous epistemology, and Indigenous research methods. She is passionate about bringing Indigenous ways of knowing into the academy, both through teaching and research.

Dr. Lynn Lavallée, Assistant Professor, Social Work, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
Univ URL: http://www.ryerson.ca/socialwork/faculty/bios/lavallee.html
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Dr. Gada Mahrouse

R.A.C.E. Network Steering Committee

Dr. Gada Mahrouse is an assistant professor in the Simone De Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. She completed her PhD in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies, University of Toronto.  Prior to joining Concordia University she held a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University in Ottawa. She also holds a B.A. in English literature from Concordia University, an M.A. in Education from the University of Ottawa, and has been employed at community anti-violence women’s organizations. Her research interests include critical race, postcolonial, gender, and cultural studies, and feminism. Her doctoral research explored anti-racist challenges to transnational solidarity movements. Building on this, she is she currently engaged in two research projects. The first is a three-year project that is funded by FQRSC and is entitled: La convergence troublante du privilège, du militantisme et du tourisme politique. The second is a SHHRC funded pilot study of ethical or alternative “reality” tourism through a focus on race, gender, and class. She has also been researching, writing and speaking about the “reasonable accommodation” debates in Quebec.  She has published articles in Citizenship Studies, The International Journal of Cultural Studies, Pedagogy Culture and Society, and the Canadian Journal of Communication.

Dr. Gada Mahrouse, Assistant Professor, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
Univ URL: http://wsdb.concordia.ca/people/full-timefaculty/mahrouse.php
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Dr. Sherene Razack

R.A.C.E. Network Steering Committee

Dr. Sherene Razack is professor, Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Her research and teaching interests lie in the area of race and gender issues in the law.  Her courses include: ‘Race, Space and Citizenship;’ Race and Knowledge Production’ and ‘Racial Violence and the Law.’  Her most recent book is entitled Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims From Western Law and Politics (University of Toronto Press, 2008). She has also published Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism (University of Toronto Press,  2004),  an edited collection Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping A White Settler Society (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002), Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998,1999, 2000) and Canadian Feminism and the Law: The Women’s Legal and Education Fund and the Pursuit of Equality (Toronto: Second Story Press, 1991).

Dr. Sherene Razack, Professor, Sociology and Equity Studies, OISE, University of Toronto, Ontario
Univ URL: http://www.ws.arts.ubc.ca/bios/bio_sunerat.html
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Dr. Sunera Thobani

R.A.C.E. Network Steering Committee

Dr. Sunera Thobani is Associate Professor at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of British Columbia.  Prior to coming to UBC she was the Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Professor in Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University (1996-2000). Dr. Thobani was the Lansdowne Scholar in Residence at the School of Social Work, University of Victoria (1997), and the Robert Sutherland Visitor at Queen’s University (2009). Since her appointment at UBC, Dr. Thobani has been committed to using an interdisciplinary approach in her teaching and research, and to maintaining her involvement in community and social justice activities.

Dr. Thobani's academic publications include articles in journals such as Canadian Woman Studies, Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal, Journal of Canadian Women and the Law, Refuge, Feminist Theory and Race & Class. Her research focuses on globalization, citizenship, migration and race and gender relations. Her book, Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada, was by the University of Toronto Press (2007), and her current research projects focus on Gender, Race, Globalization and Media Representations of the War on Terror.  Dr. Thobani is also past president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), Canada's then largest feminist organization (1993-1996). The first woman of colour to serve in this position, Ms. Thobani's tenure was committed to making the politics of anti-racism central to the women's movement. In her community work she has written and spoken on many issues, including the impact of globalization on women's citizenship; Canadian immigration and social policy; new reproductive technologies; violence against women; and women and APEC. She has been invited to help organize and give addresses at numerous international conferences, including the NGO Forum at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China (1996), the First International Women's Conference on APEC in Manila, Philippines (1996), and the National Association of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority Councillors in Manchester, Britain (1998). She is also a founding member of the cross-Canada Researchers and Academics of Colour for Equity (RACE) network (2000).

Dr. Sunera Thobani, Associate Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Univ URL: http://www.ws.arts.ubc.ca/bios/bio_sunerat.html
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Dr. Malinda S Smith

R.A.C.E. Network Steering Committee

Dr. Malinda S. Smith is an associate professor of international relations and comparative politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. Dr. Smith has worked in the areas of equity, human rights and social justice theory, policy and practice for over 20 years. She is the vice-president (Equity Issues Portfolio) for the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Currently she serves on the University of Alberta’s Employment Equity Advisory Committee and the Faculty Association’s Employment Equity Committee.  Previously she served on the Boards of the Alberta Advisory Council on the Status of Women, the Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations, and the Parkland Institute. She co-founded the Anti-Racism and Decolonization Network; co-sponsored a new section, ‘Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples and Politics: Race, Ethnicité, Peuples Autochtones et Politique’, within the Canadian Political Science Association; and is a member of the Steering Committee of Researchers and Academics of Colour for Equality. From  2007-2009, Dr. Smith was  the University of Alberta’s representative  on the City of Edmonton’s Racism Free Edmonton Committee, which is  part of the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and  Discrimination. Dr. Smith’s current research and writing focuses on equity in the academy, race and the academic disciplines, representations of Africa and the Diaspora, and global poverty and inequality. She is the editor of three volumes, Globalizing Africa (Africa World Press, 2003); Beyond the ‘African Tragedy’: Discourses on Development and the Global Economy (Ashgate 2006); and Securing Africa: Post-9/11 Discourses on Terrorism (Ashgate, forthcoming). She has published a  number of book chapters and articles including, “Rethinking Poverty in  a Global Era” (2008), “The Constitution of Africa as a Security  Threat” (2005), “Race Matters and Race Manners” (2004), and “The  African Diaspora in Canada” (1997).  Currently she is editing two volumes, Understudy: Equity in the Academy; and Subaltern Voices: Speaking and Theorizing from the Disciplinary Margins. She serves on  the boards of three journals: as the Editor of the open access  journal, The Ardent Anti-Racism and Decolonization Review; on the  Advisory Board of Studies in Political Economy; and the International  Advisory Board of Indilinga: African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge  Systems.  She is a co-investigator on the SSHRC-funded research on ‘Racialization, Immigration and Citizenship’.

Dr. Malinda S. Smith, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta.
Univ. URL: http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/polisci/nav03.cfm?nav03=69104&nav02=60614&nav01=48166
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Dr. Tanisha Ramachandran

R.A.C.E. Network Steering Committee

Dr. Tanisha Ramachandran is an Assistant professor of South Asian Religions at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. She completed her Ph.D. in religious studies at Concordia University in Montreal. Her doctoral research focused on issues of colonialism and the transmission and commoditization of Hindu imagery in the Euro-American world beginning in the 20th century. Prior to joining Wake Forest University, Tanisha taught in the Department of Religion and the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University. She has published in various journals including The Journal of Religion and Culture and Canadian Women’s Studies/ les cahiers de la Femme and has given numerous talks on issues pertaining to race, religion and feminism.  Her other areas of interest include the racialization of religion in Canadian multiculturalism, Hindu Nationalism, and women in South Asian Religions.

Dr. Tanisha Ramachandran, Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Wake Forest University, North Carolina
Univ URL: http://www.wfu.edu/religion/Faculty&Staff/Ramachandran.html
Email: ramacht@wfu

Last Updated on Tuesday, 18 May 2010 05:46
 


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