Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples and Politics

L17(c) - Workshop: Socially Engaged Teaching – Reflections on Pedagogy & Ethics

Date: Jun 6 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location: ESB 2012

Chair/Président/Présidente : Laura Pin (York University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Laura Pin (York University)

Working at the Intersection of Research, Teaching, and Action: Community Mobilization in Crisis: Emily Regan Wills (University of Ottawa), Nadia Abu-Zahra (University of Ottawa), Diana El Richani (University of Ottawa)
Abstract: The Community Mobilization in Crisis project began with interest from the university administration to create a distance-learning program for Syrian refugees in the Middle East. Through dialogue and exploration with actors and innovators worldwide, we have become a research-teaching project (with partners in Canada, Lebanon, Brazil, Iraq, Palestine, and the US) which develops open-source multilingual digital tools for community mobilization education, focusing on the experiences of forcibly displaced, conflict-affected, and indigenous communities. After developing research-based learning materials reflecting needs expressed by our academic and community partners, we are beginning to pilot these materials in post-secondary and community education contexts worldwide, with the hope of launching formal programs in the months to come. In this presentation, we will explore our journey from our original mandate to our current form of action, and frame the development of our approach in our experiences along this path.

The Politics of Pedagogical Sharing: Critical reflections on an emerging community of practice: Jessica Jurgutis (McMaster University), Jessica Merolli (Sheridan College)
Abstract: This paper comes out of last year’s CPSA conference panel, “Let's Give Them Something to Talk About." In this paper, we reflect on our experience as a presenter and audience member at that panel. We use our subsequent discussions as an entry point into conversations about pedagogical practices in Political Science. We identify four questions that emerge from this exchange: (1) How do we borrow and adapt from other's teaching practice when particular activities are situated in specific course contexts, and what responsibilities do we have when we share and take up that work? (2) How do we support the learning of those new to these conversations in ways that don’t over-rely on the same people’s labour and acknowledging that much of that labour is racialized and gendered? (3) How does the panel format for these conversations stifle, rather than facilitate the development of a community of practice? And (4) What does it mean to support anti-oppressive and de-colonial pedagogy within the development of such a community within Political Science in Canada? Attendance is steadily increasing at teaching and learning panels. This requires thinking more carefully about how we create space for these conversations and inhabit those spaces as differently privileged and situated teachers and learners. As teachers who are also committed to intersectional feminist pedagogy, we argue more sustained conversation is required about the relationship between our tools and methods and the kinds of pedagogical communities we hope to create in our classrooms and in the field.