Critical Research for Change Summer Intensive

Interested in cultivating critical skills and literacies to create knowledge (research) in support of social, economic, political and ecological justice in your workplace or community?

This series is an opportunity to engage in experiential learning about knowledge creation and mobilization for change from a diverse range of facilitators in different community-based locations around Victoria, BC.

With a small cohort of people from varied backgrounds and sectors, our work together will cultivate a community of learning in which we’ll share research ideas, support each other’s work, and identify approaches that can confront complex problems and bolster change.

The broader intention of our work is to challenge academic approaches to research that continue to situate control and expertise as being held by post-secondary institutions, while extracting knowledge from communities. Instead, critical social research is about shifting power relations and practices of research. Research is a right and can be a powerful tool for change, especially when research is driven by and for communities.

Organizers (Dr. Willow Samara Allen (StFX) & Tracey Murphy (UVic)) are hoping to learn more about teaching and learning approaches to critical social research, so your feedback throughout our time together will be invaluable (also please see voluntary research opportunity below).

Please bring a current project or area of interest that you wish to work on, with the final goal of creating a research action plan to implement in your respective work or community context.

To get the most of our experience, participation requires a commitment to attend every session, be actively engaged each day, and complete readings before sessions (approximately 8 readings). Registered participants will receive the syllabus and readings for the series via email by July 1, 2024.

This opportunity is supported by St. Francis Xavier University (SSHRC-SIG Exchange, 2024-2025) and is being offered in partnership with CIFAL and the University of Victoria.

This series is also accredited by CIFAL, meaning that participants will engage with research through the lens of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Participants will receive a United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR) certification upon completion of the series.

Participant Learning Objectives:

• Gain greater knowledge of research that examines socio-economic realities & food sovereignty; climate justice, and community activism and learning
• Have familiarity with critical approaches and rights-based understandings of knowledge creation and impacts
• Cultivate conceptual and applied research skills and literacy in antiracist and antioppressive approaches to the research process
• Identify links between critical research and the implementation of the UN SDGs, from a ‘glocally’ informed standpoint
• Adopt critical research approaches and foreground commitments and accountabilities to participants/communities in knowledge creation projects

As a first step to registration, please read and complete the following .

Fees:

The following sliding scale payment model is inspired by Bayo Akomolafe and borrowed from Corporeal Writing, as quoted:

As you decide what amount to pay, please consider your present-day financial situation governed by income, but also the following factors: historical discrimination faced by your peoples; your financial wealth (retirement/savings/investments); your access to income and financial wealth, both current and anticipated (how easily could you earn more income compared to other people in your community, country, and the world; are you expecting an inheritance); people counting on your financial livelihood including dependents and community members; the socio-economic conditions of your locale (relative to other places in your country and in the world); your relationship to food & resource scarcity.

Through the donation tab, please add one of the following:

$250

$200

$125

Scholarships are available for anyone requiring financial support to participate. Child care and transportation subsidies can also be arranged as needed. Please email Tracey at [email protected].

Once you have registered, you will be invited to respond to a brief introductory survey.

Questions? Please reach out to us!

Organizers:

Willow Samara Allen, PhD (she/her) is a white settler scholar and an Assistant Professor of Adult Education at St. Francis Xavier University on the unceded lands of the Mi’kmaw people. Her interdisciplinary work centers on antiracist and anticolonial pedagogies and methodologies, social inequity and change, settler colonial socialization in public sector work, critical adult learning, and leadership, race, and whiteness. Email: [email protected].

Tracey Murphy, (she/her) is a PhD candidate in Education at the University of Victoria, on the unceded territories of the the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples. In her doctoral research, Tracey is exploring how arts-based research and embodied storytelling can disrupt colonial and patriarchal violence, and create platforms for truth telling and change. Email: [email protected]

Voluntary research participation:

There is an additional opportunity to voluntarily contribute to a separate research project that will explore supportive teaching and learning approaches to critical social research literacy in formal and informal learning contexts (University of Victoria, Antiracism Initiative Grant, Learning and Teaching Support and Innovation, 2023-2024). Voluntary and confidential involvement in this project may include two brief interviews. Participation in this research study will not impact your participation in the workshop series in any way. Further details will be provided. Please reach out to Dr. Willow Samara Allen anytime if you have any questions.

Host or Publisher Willow Samara Allen & Tracey Murphy