The scholars brought together here will place different weights on the questions raised. They can be organized into four broad categories. These categorizations will likely change as the papers get further developed. One category explores the lived experiences of different groups to generate productive analyses and definitions of the scope, meaning and theories in and around identity and specific forms of racism (Allen, Deckard, Grozelle, Sibblis). Another will challenge Eurocentric epistemology to explore ontological alternatives opened up by working with non-western experiences in order to rethink the meaning of racism and see how their work can be mobilized more specifically to challenge racism (Clarke, Datta, Douglass-Chin, Parker, Xavier). Another group explores the positionality of the scholars to see how their own scholarship is shaped by it (Glassburn, Rogin, Soni-Sinha). Finally, a panel that scopes out the issues in Windsor and its surrounding areas will be organized by the Windsor Diversity Committee to provide the experience of Windsor.

Our Audiences, and Why it Is Important to Connect with Them

The target audience for the workshops and the conference are the various scholars who are presenting and developing their own work but the conference is open to students, other researchers and administrators across the campus and elsewhere in Canada and internationally, either in person or virtually. The latter is especially important given the pandemic repercussions and anxieties that will likely still linger even as we return to face to face interaction. Researchers: The workshops are sites in which the participants confront the research objects, directions, strengths and limitations of each other’s work and disciplinary boundaries. The researchers are also prepared with a common set of interdisciplinary literature to ensure a common vocabulary and framework. Race scholarship at the University is nurtured and rendered more rigorous through strengthening of individual preparation and expertise, collective critique, exchange and dialogue among emerging scholars who bring their excitement and mature scholars who have more institutional experience and longer connections with their respective scholarship. Researchers from our university and elsewhere can provide theoretical critique of the papers while locating our institution and Windsor Essex as an important site of antiracism scholarship.

Students are another key constituent. The students employed in this project and in other ongoing ones will be invited to be panelists using their experiences of antiracism activities and experiments with writing opinion pieces. The project engages them to identify their own voice and position through a clear analysis of the issues. These activities include writing to editors, advancing their positions in social media and writing a collectively reasoned opinion piece that they can pitch to open venues like letters to news editors, social media posts/blogs, Conversation, Herizons, and Rabble. These experiences will be summarized and shared at the conference through their self-reflection on their learning and challenges.

Through these engagements, academics appreciate the level of activities and critiques made possible through targeted mentoring and training, and to plan future training, teaching and lesson planning to engage students. Undergraduate students help liaise university researchers with community experience and solidarity movements, helping to keep our ivory tower grounded in current events and experiences of racism and activism that highlight in local experience of Windsor Essex and elsewhere. Two doctoral students will also participate in the workshops/conference process for incubating and developing their papers. The conference itself is open to the larger student body for an experience in antiracism conference and discourse.