Presenters (each speaker justification -150 words)
Community Panel
Windsor Diversity Committee Presentations
This panel will be organized by Windsor Diversity Committee member to present the landscape of
Windsor Essex.
Academic Panels:
Panel 1: Challenging Eurocentricism:
This section brings together contributions that seek to challenge Eurocentric epistemology to explore ontological alternatives opened up by working with non-western experiences.
Andrea Clarke , Philosophy
Andrea Sullivan-Clarke is a member of the wind clan of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma. A first-generation college student, Andrea graduated in 2015 from the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the use of analogy and metaphor in knowledge-generating communities. She is the chairperson of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Native American and Indigenous Philosophers. A President’s Indigenous People’s Scholar at the University of Windsor, Andrea is working on a summer workshop for Indigenous High School students called Empowering Exchanges.
In As We Have Always Done, Leanne Simpson argues for an Indigenous Resurgence that is neither an appeal to settler sentimentality/conscience nor an affirmation of recognition politics. Instead, Simpson highlights the actions of Indigenous individuals and communities that are derived from the philosophical thought of their ancestors as the solution to today's anti-Indigenous oppression in North America. An interesting question motivated by Simpson's position is what to make of non-indigenous allies. Simply put, what roles do potential allies play given Simpson's view? Having presented Simpson's view, I suggest that an interesting implication is that the individuals generally considered to be the most valuable of allies (those from the dominant, white settler society) are in fact the least desirable. The more preferable alliances would be formed (and have been formed) between other groups marginalized by colonialism.
Paul Datta , Sociology
Ronjon Paul Datta is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminology at the University of Windsor. Recognized for his expertise in Durkheimian and Foucauldian studies, his work has appeared in major scholarly venues including, International Social Science Journal (Paris: UNESCO), The Journal of Classical Sociology, L’Année Sociologique, Critical Sociology, and The Canadian Journal of Sociology. He was recently appointed to the International Advsiory Board of of Durkheimian Studies/ Études Durkheimiennes (Oxford and Paris). Dr. Datta is a social theorist working on power, normativity, and nominalist metatheory in Durkheim and Foucault.
His contribution will problematize race politics, axiology and ontology in relation to sociological realism and nominalism. Through a meta-critique of Foucault's nominalism, he will assess neo-Foucauldian accounts of race, racialization, and class (e.g., Stoler, Balibar, etc.), arguing for the strategic importance of sociological realism in anti-racist politics.