You’ve just been awarded the inaugural National Medal for Excellence in Feminist Scholarship in Canada. At the same time, we are witnessing a live-streamed genocide in Gaza, where you have personally set foot and created relationships. Can you talk about what it is like as a Palestinian scholar/activist to win this award in the midst of such horrors in Gaza?

Let me first say that I'm grateful to the people at CFR who chose me for this inaugural prize. At first, I wasn't eager to apply for this award. Why? Because I never believed my “feminism,” which includes the fight for Palestinians' freedom from Zionist settler colonialism or the broader struggle for indigenous freedoms from colonialism, was considered part of Canadian or Western feminism. I also never thought Canadian or Western feminism was interested in including my Palestinian feminism as part of theirs.

If it hadn’t been for the wonderful friends and colleagues from F4P/Carleton who applied on my behalf, I wouldn’t have received this award. I am truly grateful to all members of F4P/Carleton who encouraged me (and insisted) on applying and took the initiative to do so. They collectively made a compelling case about my academic and activist experience. I have been engaged both intellectually—through my teaching, writing, and publications—and through activism in the struggle for freedom and justice for Indigenous peoples everywhere, especially in Palestine. My activism primarily focuses on women and the processes of change they experience and/or create for themselves, which constitutes a significant part of my research. Receiving this prize from 91��ɫ has made me optimistic about the future of feminism here in Canada. Once again, I am thankful to the 91��ɫ Committee for recognizing my academic work and activism as a Canadian feminist, considering them worthy of this award. This recognition, I admit, has alleviated my frustration with Western feminism. For Canadian feminists (women and men) to acknowledge a Palestinian academic and activist as a national feminist is a meaningful gesture. It says something to me. I truly appreciate the recognition. 

Still, my frustration with Canadian feminism and my disappointment with Western feminism overall remain largely unchanged, despite the Zionist genocide of the Palestinians. Yes, the aftermath of the genocide did not unfold as the Zionists had hoped. Quite the opposite, young women and men around the world, especially in the West, have risen against the policies, politics, and actions of this state and have shown full support for the Palestinian victims of settler colonial Apartheid Zionism. The students’ movement of university encampments across various locations, mainly, though not exclusively, led by women, along with weekly, if not daily, protests by Western communities, and the international Flotilla attempts to reach Gaza to break Israel’s blockade and starvation of the Palestinians, are just a few examples of the growing resistance to the Zionist colonial regime. The support pouring in from everywhere, including F4P (Faculty for Palestine), IJV (Independent Jewish Voices), PYM (Palestinian Youth Movement) and other Jewish anti-Zionist groups, the BDS movement, and L4P (Labour for Palestine), have all become part of the widespread public backing for Palestine and a strong critical voice against the Zionist entity. All of this is true, but no mainstream feminist movement has been involved in these activities, even though individual feminists are present in all such organizations.

My question, for many years, has been: where exactly have feminism — or the feminists — been before the genocide? How could we, in the twenty-first century, watch a live-streamed genocide on our phones and do nothing as feminists? Where is the feminist voice defending women’s freedoms, their dignity, and their rights? Isn't Palestine itself a feminist issue? Aren't oppression, Apartheid, occupation, colonialism, settler-colonialism, and genocide part of the feminist concern? If not, then what are the concerns of feminism? I'm at a point where I no longer understand what feminism truly stands for because I haven't seen a strong, vocal feminist movement voicing its concerns around this issue. Yes, I've seen many women, especially young women in the U.S., here in Canada, and all around the Western world, partaking in the resistance movement. But not necessarily as a united movement. While we see feminism addressing various issues—talking about this, supporting that—I haven’t seen them adopt any Palestinian cause.

So, where are you, Western feminists? Why is there such a deafening silence? What are you doing? I know I am writing and participating in the encampment in my town, supporting others elsewhere, attending protests, and making my voice heard. But where are you? Why haven't I heard Western feminists raise their voices in support of the women and children in Palestine who are being murdered and genocided every day? This is a major concern for me. What’s happening is genocide, not just a war, as Israel and the West want us to believe.
Dr. Nahla Abdo

As many now acknowledge, even if some continue to deny the true history of the region and refuse to accept it, the Zionist genocide against the Palestinians did not begin two years ago but nearly a century ago. What Ilan Pappe referred to as "incremental genocide” started with British colonial rule over Palestine in the early 20^th century—at least a hundred years ago—not in 1948. This was when the British issued the “Balfour Declaration” (1917), which granted outsiders (European Jews) the right to settle in Palestine and inevitably displace Palestinians from their homes, land, and homeland. By 1948, and fully supported by Zionist terror groups (Stern, Etzel, Lehi, Irgun…), already established in Palestine, trained and equipped with British weapons, they became the main force of terror—leading to the destruction of over 500 Palestinian villages, towns, and cities, and the forced expulsion of about 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands. While expelled Palestinians became refugees, European Jewish settlers colonized the country and called it their own.

Israel began occupying Palestinian land in 1948. Over the past two years, and still ongoing, we have witnessed what genocide is. No one, not even feminists, can deny awareness of these events. Failing to act makes you complicit with the perpetrator. Remaining silent or pretending not to see or know makes you part of this evil, inhuman, and immoral act. A strong, collective voice of Western feminism still needs to be raised. I understand the influence of myths, propaganda, fabrications, and lies, especially when supported by significant capital and Israeli propaganda or Hasbara. I also acknowledge the roles of whiteness, Orientalism, racialization, and white supremacy in deeply shaping this situation—an issue worth serious reflection. Why is it that we can criticize any country, including our own, but not Israel? Why can we criticize any fascist group, yet not Zionism? I know Israeli propaganda is extensive, with many millions spent on it, largely by the World Zionist Organization. Yet, it has become clear that such lies cannot deceive a growing group of young Jewish women and men, particularly women. I have seen them in Congress denouncing Israel and Zionism. I have seen them in the streets, in our encampments, in Ottawa, and in many other Canadian cities. I have worked with them and continue to do so.

What are the ways in which Palestinian women around Palestine and in the diaspora are engaging in resistance?

The reality is that feminist and women's struggles and activism often occur under specific circumstances worldwide. Palestinians, whether at home or in the Diaspora, have been fighting for years to expose the nature of the Zionist settler colonial state and its efforts to eliminate indigenous Palestinians. They fight against genocide everywhere they are; they reveal Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land; they oppose the detention of Palestinian men and women, who are not criminals but freedom fighters, and the severe torture they endure in Israeli torture prisons. The recent release of a video by an Israeli military official showing Israeli prison officers raping a Palestinian man in Sde Teiman prison is just one example of Israel’s torture of indigenous Palestinians in detention camps. Palestinian women political activists are also subjected to Israeli imprisonment, torture, rape, and sexual harassment in prisons. Palestinian women political detainees, as I note in my Captive Revolution: Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle… (2014), have faced similar forms of torture. The genocide Israel is committing against the Palestinians in Gaza has little, if anything, to do with what Israel claims to be “terrorism”. This claim was no more than a Zionist propaganda to cover its eliminatory policies. What do pregnant women, women with babies and children, have to do with Israel’s claim? Except for the fact that Israel has been intent on eliminating current and future generations. In other words, targeting women and children is not random, nor “a mistake” committed by the Zionist settler colonial state. It is a deliberate strategy to wage a war of elimination and erasure of the indigenous Palestinian people. They target women because they are the reproducers of the next generation, and they target children because they represent the future of the Palestinian people/nation. 

Indigenous women, like women everywhere, resist on their own terms as life givers, producers, and reproducers. However, as indigenous groups, they also struggle for freedom, rights, and dignity. Palestinian women fight using all forms of resistance. Over the past two years, we have seen hundreds of thousands of women uprooted from their (bombed) homes, carrying their babies and holding other young children, forced to find refuge where it is hard to come by. We have observed women, surviving on very little, starving themselves to provide for their children. These acts of struggle and survival reflect women's nurturing nature and sacrifices. Resistance depends on circumstances. Palestinian women living under Zionist settler colonial harsh conditions have learned to cope with difficulties under occupation, colonialism, and apartheid. Their struggle is part of their feminist resistance and a way of opposing oppression. It is both a survival strategy and a form of rebellion that exemplifies Palestinian women’s Sumud (resilience and resistance).

The bombing of schools, universities, the healthcare system, hospitals, and all aspects of life in Gaza has prevented tens of thousands of women and men from accessing health and education. Nevertheless, women (and men) have organized alternative educational initiatives in the camps. They try to compensate for many lost opportunities to survive. It is also important to note that all Palestinians, including those who are citizens of the state, have also been targeted for silencing and repression. Cases of students and faculty speaking out against the genocide and being forced to leave their positions have become a genuine concern.

When we think about colonialism here on Turtle Island and in Palestine, our older and less active genocide can be easy to ignore as we watch bombs drop on Gaza. What have you noticed about the two settler-colonial projects and how can we work from Canada to dismantle the structures of oppression that sustain them both?

Historically, the mantra of colonialism in all its forms has been ‘divide and rule.’ The strategy is to split and conquer. So, Israel has used this policy ever since 1948. Immediately after its establishment, it imposed a military curfew on the remaining Palestinians, separating and isolating them from each other, establishing three geographically separate groups. For the same people who for centuries lived together, Israel forced them into isolated geographical locations: the Al-Galeel (Galilee), the Muthallath (the Triangle), and the Naqab (Negev), with no contact between them from 1948 until 1966. A similar divide-and-rule approach also occurred in Canada among the indigenous peoples, who were placed on reserves far apart. Still, you are right, time is important. Zionist settler colonialism is relatively recent, compared to European Settler colonialism in North America. But time never wiped out the pain of indigenous people, anywhere in this globe.

One might think that settler colonialism could feel shame for its past genocide and humiliation, and that it would be concerned about similar practices by others, while simultaneously using harsh tactics to keep Indigenous peoples under control. Instead of feeling ashamed of its past, apologizing for its wrongdoings, let alone trying to compensate indigenous peoples, Canada continues to support genocide by Israel. The Canadian state, its policies, and practices do not want anything to destabilize or disturb Israel because it is itself a Western product of imperialism. Therefore, if you are revolutionary and oppose Israeli settler colonialism, it means you will also oppose Canadian settler colonialism, as some—though not many—of us do. But again, timing, geography, and demography can also influence the persistence and control of settler colonialism, making it another significant difference between the two. Canada is a vast country with a relatively small population. At the same time, Israel is a small territory with a relatively large population, composed of an increasing Indigenous demographic as well as an influx of Jewish settlers from various parts of the world, although their numbers are somewhat dwindling.

So, it's that similarity of “socializing” typical of settler colonial regimes that makes Western regimes sensitive when it comes to Israel. Because Israel was created from the very beginning as an imperialist tool to serve the latter, the whole West has begun to see the Zionist state not as an illegal entity of occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism but as one of their own, and all efforts have been directed in support of this state. The area, as we know, has capital, oil, gas, and rich minerals, all of which are essential for the Western industrial complex. 

Canada used different methods to eradicate many Indigenous peoples. It began an initiative to imprison a large generation of Indigenous individuals in residential schools. The aim was not to educate them but to assimilate them, to strip them of their soul, identity, and everything they believed in—different beliefs, cultures, histories, and identities. That was the entire goal. Essentially, they sought to eliminate them as Indigenous and reshape them as settlers. Palestinians have learned from other indigenous peoples about colonial modes of ruling and control.

Often, activism and scholarship around Palestine is deemed antisemitic. We’ve both been called antisemitic for our work; why is this strategy —of deliberately conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism—so effective in silencing people? And how can we challenge this weaponization of antisemitism in ways that protect both Palestinian advocacy and genuine efforts to combat real antisemitism?

If I was called a self-hating Jew, I was also called anti-Semitic, but both accusations are false and vindictive, mainly aimed at silencing critics of Israel who are anti-Zionist. In Canada, various Zionist groups [e.g., CIJA, B’nai B’rith, ADL, etc.] label any critic of Israel’s settler colonialism and apartheid regime as anti-Semitic, including Jewish critics. Israel tries to make the world see it as something it is not, rather than as what it actually is. Israel has never been truly democratic for all its citizens, nor can it ever be, especially after insisting on calling itself a Jewish state. A Jewish and Democratic state? An oxymoron. It’s as simple as that. My response to such critics is: Neither the Jewish anti-Zionist is anti-Semitic, nor should the Palestinian or any non-Jewish person critical of Israel be labelled anti-Semitic.

I'm just explaining what has been happening, both historically and today. I'm simply describing this fascist, genocidal state. This is all I am doing. Why do Israel or its allies in the West use such labels against Israel’s critics? Because, especially recently, there has been a rise in objections and resentment towards the policies of the State of Israel, particularly among young Jewish women and men. Millions of people all over the world have watched live on their screens the brutal treatment of the Palestinians. Anti-Zionist activism and education have been effective. Students and others are well aware of the change around them. They see, hear and witness genocide in the 21^st century and Israel couldn’t hide it. Now, more than ever before, I see many of my students finding it easy to take a critical stance on Israel. Israel’s discriminatory policies and acts of genocide reveal all the ugliness of Zionism, it reveals its fascist ideology. But at the same time, it is this ideology of Zionism that feels the pressure of time, senses they are under scrutiny, and faces significant opposition to their policies and actions. Witness what they're doing right now in New 91��ɫ regarding Zohran Mamdani. 

Before proceeding further, I want to highlight the growing movement of Jewish support and solidarity with the Palestinians, especially among the youth. The voices of young people worldwide are becoming louder each day. The rising support among young Jewish women and men is especially inspiring because this group can put significant pressure on the Zionist lobby, challenge and dismantle its myths, propaganda, and fabrications, which they (the Zionists) claim are from a Jewish perspective. While Jewish challenges to Zionism might not yet go all the way, they hold strong potential for the future. Jewish critics might say: "I just happen to disagree with their political stance because I support peace, justice, and indigenous rights, which Zionists do not." But when it comes to Palestinians, other challenges emerge. More voices are speaking out against what's happening. Solidarity is growing worldwide, and that’s wonderful.

Regarding anti-Semitism, it now forms a major part of Israel’s Hasbara or propaganda campaign. While anti-Semitism has existed and still exists, its use against critics of genocide is unfathomable. Initially, anti-Semitism originated as a European issue, not one tied to Arab, Muslim, or Palestinian communities. However, the Zionist movement has used it to shield Israel’s apartheid, occupation, settler colonialism, and, in the past two years, its genocide. Capital and institutional activism, including Israel’s Hasbara serve as Zionist tools to monitor critics of Zionism and Israel, often branding them as anti-Semitic. The target in this case is not only professors—who rely on experience and knowledge—but mainly students, whom Zionists see as the future of society. These young people are speaking out against Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Black racism. Zionists frequently use accusations of anti-Semitism as a fear tactic to silence critics of Israel/Zionism. This approach is also used to maintain Israel’s image as a Jewish state. . 

Being anti-Zionist doesn’t mean being anti-Jewish. Zionism has tried to use this tactic, claiming to speak for the “Jews,” but with little success. The youth understand this—they’re not fools. They see what's happening and say, "Not in my name." They clearly state that Israel doesn’t represent them, nor does it speak for them. And this is what displeases the Zionist movement. It’s what weakens imperialism because, fundamentally, Zionism is dialectically linked with imperialism. I’ve heard many young voices—both Jewish and non-Jewish—say, "I'm not scared of being labelled anti-Semitic anymore!"
Dr. Nahla Abdo

Particularly for Palestinian students, the struggle is on two fronts: ending the genocide in Palestine but also combating anti-Palestinian racism here in Canada. What advice do you have for them? How can the rest of us support this strong Palestinian leadership in Canada?

First, thank you for this very timely question; all previous questions were considerate of the urgency of the situation.

You are right. Palestinian women face challenges on multiple fronts. Here in Canada, while they struggle against anti-Palestinian racism in the West, including in Canada's official, institutional, and educational systems, they also contend with the Zionist genocide of their people. Palestinian women, like their Arab, Muslim, and other allies, are also working to combat an unwelcoming environment marked by racialization, orientalism, and Islamophobia. This hostile atmosphere has intensified since 9/11 and worsened considerably following the Zionist/Israeli genocide. The Canadian government's adoption of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) has further worsened the situation. Though IHRA is not legally binding, it has influenced various educational institutions, with some universities even considering adopting it, if only subtly. The recent proposal for the by Carleton University’s President, which faces opposition from faculty and students, exemplifies this. How can you be impartial when a genocide is occurring right before your eyes? How can you remain impartial when witnessing daily instances of apartheid, occupation, and settler colonialism terrorizing the indigenous Palestinians? Lastly, how can Palestinian women remain impartial when confronting APR (anti-Palestinian Racism) at school, work, or even on certain streets?

We recognize that, in their struggle, Palestinian women have successfully connected with a wide segment of the Canadian population, especially through progressive groups on university campuses, union movements, and other social and political struggles, including people of colour and Indigenous peoples. They are reaching out to these activist groups to foster more support and solidarity.

Let's discuss students, the young generation who are fighting, as you say, at various levels: opposing anti-Palestinian racism here and the destruction of their people there. These young people are the ones doing most of the resistance work. This is the group most of us Canadians need to support. I am calling on all Canadians—Indigenous, Black, people of colour, and of course Jewish allies—to stand beside the Palestinian struggle. 

When discussing genocide and settler colonialism, we recognize that Canada is not an outsider in this context. As a settler colonial state, Canada has contributed to the harm inflicted on Indigenous peoples and has also played a role in spreading Islamophobia, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian racism. Nonetheless, other Canadians, including various groups and individuals mentioned earlier, are part of the movement advocating for Palestinian rights and freedom. After all, most immigrants (settlers) in Canada have faced oppression and racialization themselves, which often deepens their empathy for others' suffering. Consequently, support from progressive and critical voices is vital for young Palestinians and their allies in this struggle. I only wish more people would step up to support them and challenge the Zionist propaganda and fake news about Israel.

I understand that there isn't just one feminism. The feminism discussed here, as the undesired one, is the orientalist, racializing, and uncritical kind, which might believe in an abstract rather than a real world, and which believes myths more than reality. The anti-Zionist voice worldwide is calling to stop the genocide and restore Palestinians’ rights to freedom and their return home. This is the call supported by critical feminists in Canada and around the world (students, faculty, unions, and other activists). It is also the voice of various UN and other organizations. Hundreds of humanitarian and human rights groups have accused Israel of committing or suggested that Israel's actions may amount to genocide against Palestinians. This includes special committees and commissions of inquiry of the United Nations, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Genocide Watch, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’tselem, Addameer and several independent Jewish scholars. As a Palestinian, I hope that we, Canadian progressive feminists, students, faculty, activists, union members, and others, will join such voices and firmly demand an end to genocide and justice for Palestine and the Palestinians

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The Palestine Research Cluster (PRC) was established in August 2025 to promote the academic study of Palestine by supporting multidisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary research, teaching, and intellectual collaboration among scholars within 91��ɫ. PRC is housed within the Centre for Feminist Research and aims to provide an institutional home for faculty, graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and students at 91��ɫ interested in research on Palestine.�� Read more about us at the following link: /cfr/palestine-research-cluster/

Our current priority is to build connections with students and researchers at universities in Palestine (Gaza and the West Bank) to: support and strengthen Palestinian academic institutions and their individual and research teams; develop the study of Palestine and Palestinians throughout Canada and the world; and develop research on Palestine with both academic and non-academic institutions in Canada and elsewhere.

Join us on��Friday��October 31��to learn more about ongoing research projects that PRC affiliates are leading, our plans for the coming months, and how you can engage with PRC.

If your research and/or academic work centers Palestine, we would love to have you join us for this launch event and add to our growing community!

Please email��cfr@yorku.ca��with questions, or to request becoming a member of the Palestine Research Cluster.

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The resolution states:

"Be it resolved that, the Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) formally��endorses and will honour the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions��due to their complicity in the state’s violations of human rights, occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid. This boycott will suspend events, activities, institutional agreements, collaborative projects, or academic exchanges with institutions in Israel. This academic boycott targets Israeli academic institutions, not individual academics."

The motion was put forward by the CFR's Director and passed by the CFR's Executive Committee.

The CFR's new commitment coincides with the , which includes a specific call for an of Israeli universities.

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Named in honour of Dr. Mary McEwan, a feminist psychiatrist, this annual award of $1,000.00 will be awarded to one PhD dissertation produced in the 2024-2025 academic year at 91��ɫ in the area of feminist scholarship. A committee of faculty affiliated with the Centre will choose the winners.

To be eligible:

1. Nominees must be a 91��ɫ graduate student who successfully defended a dissertation during the 2024-25 academic year (September 1 2024-August 31st, 2025).
2. The nominee's dissertation must concern feminist theory and/or gender issues.
3. The examining committee for the dissertation must unanimously recommend it for an award.

Find out more about the award and the nomination requirements at this link: /cfr/mary-mcewan-award-nomination-process-2025/

The post Now Open: Nominations for the 2024-25 Mary McEwan Award appeared first on Centre for Feminist Research.

Position Description��
��
The Executive Committee is responsible for matters of regular management of the Centre and serves in a consultative and monitoring capacity in relation to the Director (and any Associate Directors). For 2025-26, meetings will take place monthly or bimonthly online via Zoom. The term of office for graduate student members is one academic year.��

Grad reps will represent the interests of graduate students to the CFR and have the opportunity to be involved in special projects, including events, research clusters, and the “Feminisms in Focus” blog and interview series.����

  
Application 
 
If you are interested, please send your CV and a 1-page letter of application that includes: 1) A statement of interest explaining why you would like to join the CFR Executive; 2) Special projects you would like to be involved with or initiate; 3) Your past involvement with the Centre for Feminist Research (if applicable); and 4) Your past involvement in departmental committees or other Research Centres (if applicable) 

 
Please email all applications and any questions to the CFR Coordinator Andi Schwartz ���� c�ڰ�-���Ǵǰ�����ǰ����.����.  Applications are due Tuesday, September 30, 2025.  

The post Now Open: Call for Graduate Student Representatives on the CFR Executive Committee appeared first on Centre for Feminist Research.

Katherine Hubbard was the 2024-2025 Visiting Scholar in Sexuality Studies at the Centre for Feminist Research. In April 2025, she gave a talk titled "Me, Margaret Lowenfeld and Margaret Mead: Queer Kinship in the Past and in the Present" about her article "" published in History of the Human Sciences. In this interview, Hubbard and Andi Schwartz discuss these works, the importance of queer subjectivity in historical studies, and the role queer history can play in fighting against far-right movements today.

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In your article and visiting scholar talk about your work on the child psychologist Margaret Lowenfeld and anthropologist Margaret Mead, you describe how Lowenfeld literally ‘captured’ Mead in London in 1948 and made her pay attention to her work, and how Lowenfeld figuratively ‘captured’ you in the archives. How did you first encounter Lowenfeld, and what was so captivating about this figure?

It was during my PhD research into the history of projective tests in the UK that I first took note of her work and realized there was a disproportionate number of women involved in this area of Psychology. From there, I delved into the lives of some of these women and discovered they were arguably rather queer. With Lowenfeld, her rich archive at the was such a resource, yet some of the more personal elements of her life are somewhat absent. I think what became so captivating initially was the investigative aspect of discovering about her personal life and her relationship with Ville Anderson. She was a bit of an enigma that resisted clear identification. People who knew her seemed to have rather contradictory things to say about her. I just found this so intriguing and this started my own thinking about what I thought of her. Did I like her? Often historical figures get overly simplified into neat narratives and their human complexity gets reduced. With Lowenfeld, I found she seemed to resist all simplification, and I was so intrigued by my own inability to make up my mind about her.

"There is so little concern about historical figures being viewed as cisgender and heterosexual; in fact, it’s taken as a given. Queer lineage and heritage can be owned by us if we name it as such."

Katherine Hubbard

Yes, in your work you describe Lowenfeld as an intense personality who was “at once both muscular and charming, frail and feminine.” You have also detailed this fascinating relationship with Ville Anderson, which spanned decades. There is certainly a queerness, it seems, to Lowenfeld’s gender and sexuality. I know historians have been hesitant to label figures from the past with modern terms for gender and sexuality, so could you talk a little about your decision to articulate Lowenfeld as queer, and what you mean that your work provides an antithesis to common heteronormative narratives?

Initially I was so hesitant and apprehensive about being explicit in my naming of Lowenfeld and others as queer. We are taught to be awfully careful about making these sorts of calls. But I was lucky enough to work with and other incredible lesbian historians who made me think about this in a totally different way. For example, in , Diane talks about the title being deliberately anachronistic. I felt like I’d been given permission to make the claims I believed in. I’ve now totally swung the other way. To fear calling someone LGBTQ+ in the past when they might not have understood themselves that way implies a few things. One, that it is in some way offensive to be a gender or sexuality minority and that these are specific characteristics that we ought to be wary of applying, unlike plenty of other characteristics that are applied with no such regard. Two, that we always need to stick with terms grounded in the context of the figures of the past. I disagree with both of those points, and that is what I mean by an antithesis to common heteronormative narratives. Firstly, there is so little concern about historical figures being viewed as cisgender and heterosexual; in fact, it’s taken as a given, and something LGBTQI+ historians must ‘prove’ otherwise in order to stake a queer and/or trans claim. Secondly, I think it’s important to use contemporary understandings to frame the past: it’s one of the ways violent and systematically oppressive systems get called out. It is also queer people’s history: it’s my history. This queer lineage and heritage can be owned by us if we name it as such. All history is anachronistic and it’s important to embrace that subjectivity. In doing so it can be (re)claimed and things can be done with it. After all, history is not passive, it does things.

Related to that question, common wisdom is that academics should be “objective.” But what did bringing your own subjectivity as a queer, feminist, woman offer to the research and analysis? And what is the significance of this approach in the field of queer history?

In embracing my own subjectivity, I have not only felt more confident in my own epistemology and belief in my lived experience, but I’ve also deepened my analysis. To shed the shield of pretended objectivity has allowed me to quite literally feel my way through the archive and literature in a different way. Research is personal and the questions we ask are related to us. So by feeling my way through and paying closer attention to the feelings that arise, I’ve been more attentive to what materials do and don’t say, between the lines. The absences speak more loudly. I feel more connected to what I am studying and I genuinely believe it’s a more honest and transparent approach. Epistemological advantage is real. In valuing and recognizing my own specific and partial view, I am more open to learning from others. Especially those with different viewpoints to me, which I think is conducive to more reparative readings. In terms of queer history specifically, I think coming from a queer perspective and being aware of affective impact puts you in a valuable position to interpret materials and see things that might otherwise go unseen. Queer and trans history is one of bonfires, so it takes an extra level of analysis to interpret it. In my view, that level of analysis requires queer inclusive and affirmative perspectives that begin from a place of queer belonging and expand from there.

"Feminist work and queer work continues to be marginal, liminal, and outside of the mainstream of most academic fields. So it’s really useful for us to find one another, experience that kinship, and share resources."

Katherine Hubbard

In your talk, you described feeling nervous to present this work to the trustees of the , many of whom are her descendants. What has the reception of this work been like?

Reception has been very positive! Again, I think I was carrying the fear of being called anachronistic and unfair in my analysis. Once that impossible goal of objectivity was shed, it was possible to open up. I know that some people will disagree with my analysis, especially since I’ve been more transparent about my own perspectives and identities in conducting the analysis. But I’ve stopped being concerned about it: I probably wouldn’t agree with their interpretation either. Instead, I’ve found an incredible array of transdisciplinary literature which embraces subjectivity, affect, and emotions in research. This body of work is often the work of feminist and queer scholars who I deeply admire. This is a good place for me: this feminist space is where I shall stay.

I think your work offers a very capacious understanding of queer kinship that can include our friends, colleagues, lovers, children, ancestors, and even historical figures we are drawn to. You describe Lowenfeld’s work as benefitting from queer kinship—specifically, her professional relationship with Mead and her intimate relationship with Anderson—and yourself as feeling a sense of kinship with these archives. I’m curious about the importance of these capacious kinship networks for doing research in the field of gender and sexuality?

Thank you, I’m so glad you think so. As history shows us, marginalized groups are often rather good at generating diverse kinship networks and reimagining family ties, and of course the queer community is an exemplar of this. For scholarly work I think the need for capacious kinship networks is deeply important. One reason for this is that LGBTQI+ studies continues to live a little on the outskirts. Its transdisciplinary nature means it doesn’t quite fit. Feminist work and queer work continues to be marginal, liminal, and outside of the mainstream of most academic fields. So it’s really useful for us to find one another, experience that kinship, and share resources. Going back to feelings a little, it helps avoid isolation, vulnerability, and low confidence in queer work. Finding your people is always a good thing: to align with others who have the same outlook, politically and epistemologically. All research is politically motivated in some way, and in gender and sexuality research that is even more evident. For me, situating myself within communities of inclusive and affirmative researchers has been critical.

I find it interesting that for last two years in a row, the Visiting Scholar in Sexuality Studies at the CFR has been a scholar working with queer archives, or queering archives! (And I got to interview both of you!) What do you think is the significance of queer historical or archival work in the current moment, in which we are seeing anti-queer and, especially, anti-trans sentiment, policy, and movements on the rise in places like the UK, the US, and Canada?

There is certainly a very real and alarming rise in anti-queer and especially anti-trans sentiment, policy, and movements, as you say. Queer historical and archival work certainly has a role to play. I’ve noticed that many affirmative slogans emerging out of current trans and ally movements have historical leanings. For example, statements around how trans people have always existed and will always exist. These draw upon certain discourses of universality and temporal continuity and this actively fights against anti-trans sentiments that suggest being trans is somehow ‘new.’ In terms of research and scholarly work it’s important to recognize the political nature of what we produce and how activism is integral to academic work in gender and sexuality studies. What we produce has effects, it has some degree of power, so use it for as much good as possible. I’d also argue that this shift to the far-right we are seeing is further evidence that progress is neither linear nor easily won. Using the tools we have is critical to continue to resist these broader anti-equity and anti-diversity initiatives. That is why finding queer and trans inclusive and affirming community is critical, in both activism and academia.

Andi Schwartz is the Coordinator of the CFR and a researcher on the SSHRC-funded project "'On Our Own Terms': An Oral History and Archive of Queer Femme Community and Culture in Toronto, 1990-2000" and with the Critical Femininities Research Cluster.

The post Feeling Queer in the Archive: An Interview with Dr. Katherine Hubbard appeared first on Centre for Feminist Research.

IRREVERENCE

Proceedings of the Third Annual Critical Femininities Conference

Edited by Hannah Maitland, Andi Schwartz, Kathleen Cherrington, Mackenzie Edwards, Ramanpreet Bahra & Allegra Morgado

Introduction

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CONTENTS

Justine Wallace, "Queer Migration Beyond Neo-colonial Linearity: The In-betweens and Elsewheres of Afro-Caribbean Queer Migration"

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Steff(ania) Juniper, "Nothing is Sacred: Femme Subjectivity and the Politics of What Matters to Us"

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Anoosha Hasan, "How are Menstrual Relief Programs Designed and Implemented to Meet the Needs of a Vulnerable Population?"

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Emilie Collyer, "You Should Smile More: Using Poetry to Disturb and Resist Notions of Feminine Cheerfulness"

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Thea Jones, "The Outlawed Nipple: Breastless Parents and the Desire to Conform to Normative Motherhood"

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Cover image by Alexandre Dinaut (2020) & used under Unsplash License
Cover design by Andi Schwartz
Funded by LA&PS Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Research Events Fund at 91��ɫ
Published by the Centre for Feminist Research at 91��ɫ

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Interview by Hannah Maitland

Can you tell me a little bit more about what characters and works that you research? Are you looking at comic books and movie adaptations?  

Some of my newer work has analyzed Muslim superheroes on TV, like the TV series on Disney+. However, my dissertation focused on comic books and audience reactions to specific Muslim superheroines. Now that I’m starting my book, my editor and I discussed not only focusing on comic books but expanding into TV and film. The most famous Muslim superhero, and this is one of the superheroines that I looked at in-depth, is . She's a Pakistani American Muslim superheroine. She's one of the most famous superheroes in American comic books overall, right now. She's been featured in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) for the last two years in her own mini-TV series on Disney Plus, and she was also in the recent sequel to , which is, by the way, very good. I was disappointed that it didn't do well at the box office. I think was eager to make it look as though it did poorly because it centered diversity and women and girl superheroes. However, I personally think it didn’t do well because Marvel's previous films for the past year or more, which starred mostly white male superheroes, were actually pretty bad.����

I know that there's a lot of really vitriolic fan culture around superhero movies, so I was curious about what the fan reception of Kamala Khan has been like. I was wondering if you could speak a little bit to how these characters have been perceived over time.  

Like I said, there was a lot of positive fan engagement with Ms. Marvel when she was first launched in 2014 (she technically debuted at the end of the Captain Marvel comic book series in 2013). The press in particular was really fascinated by Kamala. And then eventually fans of any background really liked her and related to her. The first couple of volumes of her comic books are New 91��ɫ Times bestsellers – like the first six or seven. And her first issue became Marvel's best-selling digital comic of all time.  

There are other Muslim superheroes that I cover as well in my dissertation, and they varied. Sooraya Qadir, or , was a very Orientalist representation. She wore the face veil and an abaya, but she would turn into nude sand particles that would flay her opponents alive whenever she transformed into superhero form. I would say that some writers haven’t adapted to the times that we live in since the representation was tone-deaf. Some of my participants found her to be an offensive representation. Others, on the other hand, were like, “She's a good superhero!” so it was quite interesting to see how fans related to her.����

Another one that I analyzed, and I found this to be rather interesting, was . He's a Lebanese-American Muslim superhero, and he’s in the Green Lantern series which is a famous superhero series. He was tokenized, but I really liked him. His debut comic highlighted some of the problematic post-9/11 issues for Muslims. For instance, he was framed as a terrorist and was shipped to an offshore penal colony to be tortured. However, in the story it was revealed that a white male was the actual terrorist. This storyline challenged negative representations of Muslims. I found that it was very interesting how immediate post-9/11 superhero comics decided to cover male Muslim superheroes versus female Muslim superheroes. When it came to a female superhero like Dust, there was a white saviour element, whereas with a male superhero like Simon Baz, it was more about challenging negative stereotypes of Muslim men.����

"The press was eager to make it look as though The Marvels did poorly because it centered diversity; I think it didn’t do well because Marvel's previous films that year—which starred mostly white male superheroes—were actually pretty bad."

Safiyya Hosein

Speaking of audience reaction, in your dissertation, was there anything in particular you found fans were really looking for in these representations?  

I found it really interesting that participants were looking for who they could relate to. Relatability, obviously, was something that wasn't monolithic. So, for instance, some of them related to Ms. Marvel because they were South Asian, and she was South Asian. But also, Black Muslim participants related to her as well, because they were just like “she's in the middle.” She's engaged in her Muslim community, but at the end of the day she also fits into this culture. They basically were saying that they related to her because she straddled a life between her ancestral culture and her American culture. They specifically related to her immigrant identity.  

I'm not sure if you’ve looked into this, but what about the authors of the comics? Is it a lot of women writing? Men writing?  

It depends – the first writer for Ms. Marvel’s Kamala Khan was a white American convert, G. Willow Wilson. Her editor was a Pakistani-American Muslim, Sana Amanat, who some people think Kamala is based on, but we can't say for sure.  

There’s a white male writer, Mark Waid, who included Kamala in a new series called Champions. I’ve critiqued his construction of Kamala. I think at first, people couldn’t see it when I said that Kamala could be used in a problematic way. And certainly, in Champions, she was a less nuanced representation. In Champions, the superhero team flies to a country representative of Afghanistan where women are oppressed. There were these fundamentalist male antagonists who were trying to hurt girls in a school, and Kamala intervenes to protect them and fights these men off – which is fine. But ultimately, it's a comic book that ends up romanticizing the Afghan invasion, which had devastating effects on Afghan civilians. That invasion exacerbated conditions such as not having proper access to good health care, as well as other conditions like destitution, and starvation. So, it was a little bit much to actually romanticize the Afghan invasion when these were the outcomes. A lot of fans have criticized the comic for that.  

Thinking of that critique, what do you think is, or could be, the role of comics and literature in that struggle for accurate representation? 

There are people who would dismiss popular culture at large, but the truth is that popular culture actually informs a lot of people. Not everybody watches or listens to the news, but one way of being informed about different things or different parts of the world, or politics, is through pop culture. In the US, 1% of the population is Muslim. Over here in Canada, it's 4.9%. So, a lot of people don't actually interact with Muslims. If they're seeing pop cultural representations that reinforce negative stereotypes of Muslims, they're going to have that negative point of view.  

I was interviewed on a podcast about the Ms. Marvel series when it was released on Disney+. One of the interviewers mentioned that comics are really cool because they can trick you into a history lesson without you even realizing it. In the Ms. Marvel TV series, the Indo-Pak partition was represented – a historical event that many Americans and Canadians were previously unaware of. However, they now have some knowledge of it because they watched Ms. Marvel. So, I think pop culture's role in all of this is that it could be a very useful tool for challenging negative stereotypes of marginalized groups and representing politics in a nuanced way. 

And you make comics yourself, right? Can you tell me a little bit more about what your comics are like and what they explore? 

The few that I've actually written have tried to represent Muslims in a more nuanced way, or challenge negative representations of Muslim women. There's a zine I participated in called , which was about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There's a character in there, Safie, who's actually represented in an Orientalist way. She's almost infantilized, and there are some themes of white saviourism in there, so I wrote an illustrative essay about that.  

I did write a on the Christchurch shooting as well. It’s about me and the comic artist who illustrated the comic. She went on to win a so I'm super proud of her. At the time, we connected over our shared fear following the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand. We created that comic as a way to honour the victims and express our grief for them.

On that note about your writing, can you tell me about your upcoming book? 

My upcoming book is focusing more on my thesis of how Muslim superheroes have at times consolidated the imperial project in a post-9/11 world. So I'm looking at newer comics, but I'm also including pre-9/11 Muslim superheroes as well to give more context. I'm focused right now on the first Muslim superhero, , who came out in World War II, and I'm looking at the representation of Muslim masculinities in his construction around that time. I'm also looking at a tokenized pre-9/11 Muslim superheroine, , who debuted during the first Gulf War. But of course, naturally, my main focus will be on post-9/11 Muslim superheroes.����

I'm really interested in writing about . She's, as far as I've seen, the first Black American Muslim superheroine. It's really exciting, because I'm going to be conducting research on Black Muslim superheroes soon to explore how their representation created the conditions of possibility that paved the way for Zarina to come into being.����

My book is about creating that genealogy, but it also takes a more in-depth look at how Muslim superheroes have been represented in the post-9/11 era and examines who these constructions were really intended for. Were they for Muslim audiences? Were they not? We already know they weren’t, but I will be conducting a more in-depth analysis of their storylines to explore how they either challenge or reinforce negative representations of Muslims. 

What is your relationship to these characters? What is stuff that you relate to or enjoy, or maybe recurring things that you've noticed? 

I’m a critical scholar, so I can step away and examine how they sometimes advance ideas of American exceptionalism. At times, they promote ideas of Muslims as backward and oppressed because the language of Islamophobia is embedded in the language of racism. But that doesn't mean that I don't like them. I actually like quite a few of them. I like Kamala Khan in her own series. She's a very nuanced, fleshed-out character there, and I find her relatable as well.  

One of my essays is an autoethnography where I connect the Indo-Pak partition and its representation in the Ms. Marvel TV series to my own family history. I'm Indo-Trinidadian, so we had a different traumatic experience with colonialism compared to mainland South Asia because of Indian indentureship. I talk about my family's history with Indian indentureship and relate it to the representation of the Indo-Pak partition in the Ms .Marvel TV series. I also talk about my perception of Kamala Khan in the series too, which I found to be really awesome, personally. She was very much grounded in a South Asian Muslim representation. For instance, Urdu was in the comic book series, but also in the TV series as well. It was really fascinating to see that representation on TV because we don't see much of it. 

Thinking back to your book, what are you really hoping readers get out of it? What are you most looking forward to putting out in the world and having people learn from your book? 

It definitely reads against the grain of a lot of scholarship on Muslim superheroes. Most academic scholarship on Muslim superheroes is less critical. They have a tendency to just see Kamala Khan as the only Muslim superhero and as only positive. On the other hand, I look at the benefits of representing Muslim women and girls as superheroes, but I also look at their darker implications. By focusing on some of those implications, it'll definitely add to the scholarship on Muslim superheroes, but in a different way. I'm excited because even other scholarship about Muslim superheroes is very interesting, and there is a lot to take away from it. I hope that people take away the nuance behind this new and very exciting typology. 

You’re a visiting scholar at the CFR, so I was wondering if there are any other things you're getting to do through the CFR or other things that you're working on? Are you hoping to bring together some comics scholars while you’re here?

There's a lot of great feminist comic scholarship that have recently come out. One book that was just released, by Sam Langsdale, looks awesome. There is another one by Esra Mirze Santesso called . There is a lot of fascinating work on marginalized representations in comic scholarship. It would be interesting to collaborate with other feminist scholars or those who analyze Muslim representation in comics.  

Hannah Maitland lives and works on Treaty 13 territory in Tkaronto, where she is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies Department at 91��ɫ. Hannah is a feminist researcher whose dissertation project studies girl activists, their politics, and their relationships with their mothers and mother figures. Her other research areas include sex education controversies and pregnant Barbie dolls. Beyond her research, Hannah co-founded the Ontario Digital Literacy and Access Network (ODLAN). She currently serves as the Recording Secretary for the Sexuality Studies Association. You can find some of her writing in Sex Education, Shameless Magazine, Atlantis, and The Conversation. Hannah is a member of the Critical Femininities Research Cluster and the Girls Studies Research Network.

The post Representing Race Through Superhero Characters: An Interview with Dr. Safiyya Hosein appeared first on Centre for Feminist Research.

Recognizing that gender equity and public policy are interrelated, this research cluster brings together academic researchers, policymakers, activists, and graduate and undergraduate students seeking to understand and contribute to the production and dissemination of knowledge that provides a gendered analysis of public policy from an anti-racist and anti-colonial perspective. In doing so, this cluster considers public policy in relation to gender and other axes of identity, from historical and current perspectives, to produce knowledge that is intersectional and supports the inclusion and liberation of marginalized people.

This cluster encourages such analyses on public policy in Canada and internationally, especially for the purposes of engaging in comparative and collaborative policy work that can be used to improve policy development at the national, sub-national and global levels.

In support of this work, the objectives of this cluster are as follows:

• Sharing information and resources and encouraging discussion on public policies related, but not limited to, care work, reproductive rights, 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, paid and unpaid work,  intergovernmental relations, family law and marital status, the criminality of gender identity and non-heterosexual relationships, and the legal recognition of gender rights in support of policy development and advocacy work.
• Hosting events that educate researchers, policymakers, students, and the community about the gendered impacts of public policy development, especially in relation to changing political, economic, environmental, and social conditions.
• Cooperatively producing and disseminating knowledge on gender and public policy through publications, policy papers, op-eds, social media, etc.
• Collaborating with scholars, policymakers, and activists nationally and internationally.
• Supporting the knowledge and skills development of cluster members through regular meetings and a writing and research working group.

In 2024, a new group of scholars, activists, and policymakers reanimated the Gender & Public Policy Cluster. Learn more about the previous iteration at the link below.

News

Gender and Public Policy Cluster Member Alison Lam participated in a panel about gender policy and COP at the 2025 Bonn Climate Change Conference. Watch the panel on YouTube:

Initiatives

Check out cluster member Minakshi Das's new book,

About the Book:

This research paper critically examines the challenges of healthcare access and governance faced by Indigenous communities in Odisha, India—particularly for women and children. Through qualitative case study methods involving community members, health workers, and local officials, the study explores how gender equity and decentralized health governance intersect with systemic barriers in healthcare delivery. The author proposes an alternative model of community-led governance that promotes accountability, improves maternal and child health outcomes, and integrates Indigenous values and traditional practices with institutional health systems. A valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners in public health, global governance, and social justice, this paper contributes important insights into improving health equity in marginalized populations.

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Check out cluster member Alison Lam's blog post about the unjust impact of zoning bylaws in Richmond Hill that disproportionately affect Asian-owned businesses.

Cluster Members

Minakshi Das

Minakshi Das is an experienced educator and community development researcher with 15 years of professional experience in the realm of Social/Public Policy with the right blend of research, training, and program management. Dr.Das has a Post-Doctoral degree in Political Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She has gathered teaching, research and mentoring experience in healthcare management, experiential learning, disaster management and conflict resolution and peace building. Her expertise in maternal and child health well-being and expanded her research horizon into HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, covid-19, breast cancer , oncology nursing, refugees' access to health care, gender equity and environmental health governance. She has been working ardently for Afghan refugee integration and their mental health and well-being in India, UK and Canada having working associations with UNHCR, UNFPA, UNICEF and DFID. As an ardent advocate of human rights in practice, she has extensive global fieldwork experience with disadvantaged regions and vulnerable communities. Currently, she has been working on environmental health and community resiliency in India and Congo crisis and peacebuilding mechanism. She possess publications in national and international peer-reviewed journals. Trained in Generative AI Overview for Project Managers.

Areas of Expertise: Reproductive Health, health systems and community health governance, refugee health, integration and governance, food and water security, community based participatory research and capacity building , experiential learning, disaster management, human rights, conflict resolution and peace building and humanitarian aid.

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Shazia Dhanani

Shazia Dhanani is a current student in PhD Health program at 91��ɫ. She has an Honours Bachelor of Health Sciences from the University of Ottawa, and a Master of Public Health from Queen’s University. Throughout her academic career, she has had various opportunities to learn about health inequities persisting among Canadian and global populations, and addressing health issues through evidence-informed action. Her research interests include women and children’s health, and understanding how we can improve access to quality healthcare for these populations. Shazia’s PhD research focuses on addressing menstrual equity among South Asian populations in Canada.

Alison Lam

Alison Lam serves as the Critic for Intergovernmental Affairs, Women and Gender on the Shadow Cabinet within the Green Party of Canada. She has issued statements for the party advocating the decriminalization of sex work and collective action on International Women's Day. Moreover, Alison took the initiative of relaunching the Women's Caucus, with programs to promote gender equity and support women, such as mentorship and peer support.

In her role as the Ontario Chair of the Security and Defence wing of G100, Alison created a podcast called 100 Sisters on Security, covering such important gender justice issues as Indigenous rights and forest defence, peace and the Canadian Armed Forces, marginalization of Muslim im/migrants, and climate and gender-responsive financing. Guests have included the only Canadian woman military observer to actively verify the ceasefire in Guatemala in 1997, as well as a Ha-ma-yas Stewardship Network Guardian for the Da’naxda’xw/Awaetlala First Nation.

Radha Nayer

Radha Nayer is a part-time PhD student in New 91��ɫ, Faculty of Health, School of Health Policy and Management, Health Policy and Equity Program. Radha‘s research will consider how the nonprofit sector in Canada can re-imagine governance using Black Feminist Theory and transformative justice principles. For the last 20 years, Radha has had a consulting practice that focuses on organizational development in nonprofit, social justice oriented spaces. Her consulting approach sits within anti-Black racist, anti-racist and feminist frameworks. In addition, Radha situates her active commitment to decolonization and reconciliation as a racialized settler who has been complicit and benefitting from colonialism. In addition to her consulting practice, Radha has also worked as an organizer and activist for women’s sexual and reproductive rights and for racial justice. This includes advocacy work in Alberta to include anti-homophobia education in the Calgary school system. In Toronto, she has advocated to ensure funding to offer immigrant and refugee women mobile sexual healthcare and worked pro bono with racialized girls and women to support them to start community programs run by them, for them. She was a member of the board of Shameless, a feminist magazine for young girls and trans youth. Radha looks forward to contributing to the gender in public policy, cluster through her deep knowledge of feminist, service delivery, and advocacy being done in nonprofits and communities, as well as her knowledge of applying feminist research on the ground.

Kaitlin Peters

Kaitlin Peters holds a PhD in Sociology from 91��ɫ in Toronto, Canada. She studied the history of the childcare movement in Ontario from the 1980's to the present day. Her publications on childcare can be found in The Monitor, Jacobin, Policy Options, Spring Magazine, The Breach, and Canadian Dimension. She is currently employed as a policy analyst for the College of Early Childhood Educators. You can find her on X @ktlnapeters and on BlueSky @kaitlinpeters.bsky.social.

Maverick Smith

Maverick Smith is a Ph.D. candidate in the Critical Disability Studies program at 91��ɫ whose many post-secondary qualifications have focused on working towards social justice and equity. In addition to being an academic, Maverick is an activist and an author. Maverick is excited to be part of this research cluster and is passionate about bridging the divide between activism and academia. Their post-secondary journey to their current Ph.D. program included graduating with an M.Ed. in Adult Education and Community Development from the University of Toronto. This interdisciplinary graduate degree included a Collaborative Specialization in Sexual Diversity Studies. After completing this M.Ed., Maverick then graduated with an M.A. in Critical Disability Studies from 91��ɫ, where their Major Research Paper won the Bengt Lindqvist Human Rights Prize.

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The Disability Justice Research Cluster at the Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) convenes a dynamic community of graduate students, scholars, activists, policy advocates, and artists dedicated to advancing disability justice as an integral part of feminist thought and practice. Going beyond disability rights, disability justice is rooted in anti-racist, anti-colonial, queer, trans-inclusive, and anti-capitalist feminist politics; this cluster foregrounds the lived experiences, leadership, and creative knowledge of disabled, mad, and deaf people.  

We critically examine how ableism operates across policies, institutions, technologies, and cultural systems — and explore transformative possibilities for more just, accessible futures. This includes a deliberate focus on speaking back to ableist structures within the university itself, using collaborative, evidence-based research to make visible and challenge institutional exclusions. Engaging deeply with decolonial and feminist methodologies, we view disability not as an individual deficit but as an expression of collective struggle, resilience, and radical possibility. 

The cluster pays particular attention to how emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making, reinforce ableist and exclusionary practices — and how anti-ableist frameworks can challenge these harmful systems. 

We are also committed to rethinking conventional notions of academic productivity and participation. Guided by disability justice principles, our collective work centres access, lived experience, slower approaches, and a refusal of siloed and compartmentalized forms of labour and identity. We strive to create a space where members can engage at their own pace, in ways that honour interdependence and holistic well-being. 

This cluster envisions disability justice as a feminist practice of care, resistance, and liberation — and as a continuous process of reimagining worlds where access, interdependence, and collective freedom are fundamental. 

Objectives

• Build an inclusive space for collaborative research and mutual learning on disability justice. 

• Produce intersectional, anti-ableist research that addresses the lived realities of disabled people globally. 

• Interrogate how policies related to care, labour, family, health, migration, and technology, impact disabled lives. 

• Partner with feminist, disability-led, and grassroots organizations to inform research priorities and share knowledge. 

• Support the growth of cluster members through feminist mentorship, collective writing, and shared resources. 

• Bridge connections between academia and community, particularly by accessible knowledge sharing (e.g., digital platform to share our research in multiple formats and languages, like ASL). 

Cluster Members

Christo El Morr

Dr. Christo El Morr is a Professor of Health Informatics and the Director of the Center of Feminist Research at 91��ɫ. He is the current Health Informatics Certificate Coordinator, and has served as the Graduate Program Director (Health) and Undergraduate Program Director (Health Studies) at the School of Health Policy and Management at 91��ɫ. He is also a Research Scientist at North 91��ɫ General Hospital, Toronto. His research subscribes to an Equity Informatics perspective; it covers Equity AI (e.g., patient readmission, disability advocacy), Patient-Centered Virtual Care (e.g., chronic disease management, mental health), Global Health Promotion for equity (e.g., equity health promotion), Human Rights Monitoring (e.g., disability rights, Gender-Based Violence). As a theologian and a poet, his wider intellectual contribution to Social Justice subscribes to a defence of the human person against alienation, whether in the form of infringement of human freedom or dignity in the face of irrational powers and exploitation. His intellectual work encompasses work of freedom from oppression (e.g., analysis of exclusive identities, communion and solidarity, freedom, liberation of reason), freedom from exploitation (e.g., analysis of illusions of freedom, political and religious exploitation), and freedom to celebrate life (e.g., poetry).

Sammy Jo

Sammy Jo (she/her) is a PhD candidate in the Critical Disability Studies program at 91��ɫ. She is also a Coda (Child of deaf adults) and a research intern at the Sign Language Institute Canada. Sammy Jo’s research projects focus on participatory, feminist, and community-based approaches to education and curriculum design to work against audism and other forms of violence built into education institutions.

Nolan Krahn

Nolan Krahn (he/him) is a sociology M.A. student at 91��ɫ. His research interests include social movement policing, contentious politics, prefigurative politics, masculinities and disability justice. In his thesis research, Nolan aims to expand social movement tactical repertoires through Critical Disability Studies by highlighting the work of disabled activists in Toronto, Ontario. He is interested in qualitative methods, including semi-structured and oral history interviews, discourse analysis, and archival analysis. Prior to his M.A., he spent six years working as a transcriptionist for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and deafblind students. He produces electronic music in his spare time, both solo and as part of a band originally based in Treaty 1.

Maverick Smith

Maverick Smith is a Ph.D. candidate in the Critical Disability Studies program at 91��ɫ whose many post-secondary qualifications have focused on working towards social justice and equity. In addition to being an academic, Maverick is an activist and an author. Maverick is excited to be part of this research cluster and is passionate about bridging the divide between activism and academia. Their post-secondary journey to their current Ph.D. program included graduating with an M.Ed. in Adult Education and Community Development from the University of Toronto. This interdisciplinary graduate degree included a Collaborative Specialization in Sexual Diversity Studies. After completing this M.Ed., Maverick then graduated with an M.A. in Critical Disability Studies from 91��ɫ, where their Major Research Paper won the Bengt Lindqvist Human Rights Prize.

Email

To connect with the Disability Justice Research Cluster, reach out to one of the members or contact the CFR Coordinator at cfr@yorku.ca.

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