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Welcome to the Winter 2025 edition of the Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ) newsletter. In this publication, we highlight the research accomplishments of the faculty members, students, and others who are affiliated with CHRRJ, both in Canada and abroad. Their work helps advance the Centre’s mandate of expanding our understanding of human rights and restorative justice.
In this newsletter, we recognize the wide-ranging research activities and events undertaken by the Centre’s network of researchers and collaborators. CHRRJ brings together a multi-disciplinary network of scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and community members to study human rights and restorative justice. These researchers are actively engaged in a range of important projects and activities, both within the Centre and beyond.
This semester, the Centre is pleased to support several of its members’ events. These include Dr. Ingrid Waldron’s launch of her new book (From the Enlightenment to Black Lives Matter: Communities from the Colonial Era tothe Present); a talk in Dr. Paula Gardner’s Pulse Lab, by Dr. Smita Misra-Latty, titled “The Politics of Credibility: Medical Advocacy and the Fight for Migrant Health Justice”; and Dr. Chandrima Chakraborty’s, “Remembering Air India Flight 182: A 40th Anniversary Conference.”
The Centre’s speaker’s series this semester features a talk by Dr. Antonio Paez on transportation equity, titled “Just Transportation.” This hybrid event will be held on March 6th and it promises to be an interesting and important discussion. (Details about the talk and registration are available in this newsletter and on the Centre’s website).
In this issue of the newsletter, we are also pleased to highlight the impressive group of experts who have agreed to join the Centre’s external advisory board.
The faculty members, visiting scholars, and students affiliated with the Centre have accomplished a great deal to be proud of over the past months. Over the next year, we will build on their achievements by continuing to work together and strengthen our research collaborations in Canada and abroad. CHRRJ External Advisory Committee Members The External Advisory Committee members provide expert advice to the director on the Centre’s priorities and opportunities for growth. The current members of this committee represent a range of disciplinary perspectives and conduct research on human rights, including on gender, migration, refugee experiences, and reparations for enslavement. Dr. Verene Shepherd Dr. Verene Shepherd is a world-renowned historian, and one of the Caribbean’s pre-eminent advocates for gender justice, racial equality and non-discrimination, reparations for the impact of chattel enslavement and colonialism, and the continuing harm of colonialism on African Diaspora communities. Dr. Shepherd is currently one of the three vice-chairs of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), as well as of the CARICOM Reparations Commission. She formerly served as Chair of CERD as well as of the Jamaican National Commission on Reparations (NCR) for 2012-16. Her most recent post was as founding Director of the Centre for Reparation Research at The University of the West Indies (2016-2024). Guided by the lens of subaltern studies, her research and writing specialize on migration, human rights and social justice, gender and Jamaican economic history. Professor Shepherd has authored many works, including Lucille Mathurin Mair: A Biography (2020), The Gibson Relays: History & Impact on Jamaica’s Sports Culture and Social Development (2017), and Engendering Caribbean History: Cross-cultural Perspectives (2011). She has won several honours, including the Order of Distinction, Commander Class in 2013, from the Government of Jamaica for her work in History and Gender Studies and The UWI’s Vice-Chancellor’s Award for her public service work. Dr. Steven High Steven High is an award-winning professor of history at Concordia University whose research on the structural violence of deindustrialization has put Canada at the centre of important global conversations. Renowned for using oral history to ground his interpretations in the lives of working people, Professor High is the co-founder of Concordia University’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. He has authored or co-edited a number of books and articles on the subject, including Oral History at the Crossroads: Sharing Stories of Displacement and Survival. His recent works include Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence and Class (2022) and Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America's Rust Belt (2003). His next book, The Left in Power: Bob Rae's NDP and the Working Class (2025), considers how social democrats responded to the unfolding industrial crisis. Steven High is currently leading a large transnational project investigating the politics of deindustrialization. Dr. Pamela Appelt Pamela Appelt served for 11 years as a judge of the Court of Canadian Citizenship, the first African-Canadian woman to hold this position widely-recognized as a generous volunteer and an active community member. Judge Appelt has maintained a strong and multifaceted connection with McMaster University, contributing significantly through her support of library acquisitions, substantial donations, and fostering collaborative relationships that have helped the university, which awarded her an Honorary Degree in 2022. She has dedicated her time and energy to several other community organizations, including the Ontario Black History Society, the former Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and the Canadian Multiculturalism Council. Ms. Appelt was also a board member of the United Way of Greater Toronto; the Community Foundation of Oakville; the Healthy Community Funders of Halton; and Harbourfront Centre amongst others. She frequently addresses audiences about religious human rights, violence against women and children and issues that affect immigrants and visible-minority women. She is a recipient of the Order of Canada as of June 27, 2024. Dr. Michele Johnson Michele Johnson is an accomplished professor of history and Associate Dean in the Students in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University. Professor Johnson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and internationally renowned for her work on the history of the Caribbean and Black History in Canada, including Neither Led nor Driven: Contesting British Cultural Imperialism in Jamaica, 1865-1920 (with Brian L. Moore) and Unsettling the Great White North: Black Canadian History (co-edited with Funke Aladejebi). Her research has been published extensively in articles and books that have shaped Black studies in the last four decades. Michele Johnson was honoured by York University with a Faculty of Arts Teaching Award and the Faculty of Graduate Studies Teaching Award in recognition of her outstanding work with students in the classroom and for successfully mentoring numerous graduate students. Professor Johnson previously served as a coordinator of the Latin A merican and Caribbean Studies Program and director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas. Dr. Annie Bunting Annie Bunting is a professor in the Law & Society programme at York University and York Research Chair in International Gender Justice & Peacebuilding. Her research expertise includes socio-legal studies of marriage and childhoods; feminist international law; contemporary slavery; and sexual and gender-based violence in war. She previously directed an international research collaboration on conjugal slavery in conflict situations with historians of slavery and women’s human rights activist scholars. Annie Bunting is the co-editor of Marriage by Force? Contestation over Consent and Coercion in Africa (Ohio 2016) with Benjamin Lawrance and Richard Roberts; Contemporary Slavery: Popular Rhetoric and Political Practice (UBC 2017) with Joel Quirk; and Research as More Than Extraction? Knowledge Production and Gender-based Violence in African Societies (Ohio 2023) with Allen Kiconco and Joel Quirk.
Dr. Antonio Paez
Thursday, March 6, 2:30 pm EST
Location: CNH 607B
Registration link for virtual attendance: Zoom (https://mcmaster.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYkceuuqj4jHda275_lSTsD3kAK4D_gYD...)
In this talk, Dr. Paez will discuss his search for standards of equity as one of Mobilizing Justice project's goals towards moving transportation planning and practice in the direction of greater justice. Antonio Paez is a full professor in the School of Earth, Environment and Society at McMaster University, where he divides his time between teaching and researching, focusing on transportation and spatial analysis. A civil engineer by training, he was adopted into geography and has become an acclaimed social scientist. Among his accolades are the 2010 Meredith F. Burrill Award of the Association of American Geographers for policy-oriented research, and most recently the 2024 Edward L. Ullman Award of the Association of American Geographers, for his lifelong contributions to transportation geography. Antonio has a longstanding interest in the societal impacts of transportation, and is currently part of the leadership team of the SSHRC-funded project Mobilizing Justice. He lives in Hamilton, where winters are long but growing shorter every year.
Workshop on Democratizing Human Rights:
Towards an Inclusive and Participatory Human Rights Agenda
A Project of the Participedia Human Rights Cluster
Date: October 23-24, 2025 | Format: In-Person & Virtual
The Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ), in collaboration with the Human Rights Research Cluster of the Participedia Project, is organizing a workshop on October 23-24, 2025, at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON.
We invite scholars, policymakers and practitioners in the fields of human rights, democracy and related disciplines to the workshop. This workshop will explore how participatory processes can address the tensions between majority rule and minority rights, and between the universality of human rights and the particularities of local contexts. We will explore the following themes:
1. Democracy and the Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights
2. Universal Human Rights and Democracy in the International Political Order
3. The Sociopolitical Implications of Deliberative Democracy for Human Rights
4. Democratic Innovations, Deliberative Technologies and Human Rights
5. Majority Rule, Minority Rights and Democracy in the Information Age
6. Human Rights, Democracy, and Environmental Sustainability
As the cluster secures sponsorships, possible funding opportunities will be made known, with Global South and early-career scholars being prioritized.
For inquiries, please contact via email at participediahumanrightscluster@gmail.com (mailto:participediahumanrightscluster@gmail.com)
Remembering Air India Flight 182:
A 40th Anniversary Conference
May 24-25, 2025 McMaster University Hamilton
Here is the conference registration link (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/remembering-air-india-flight-182-a-40th-anniver...) .
The date June 23, 2025, marks the 40th anniversary of the Air India Flight 182 bombing. Although this event was the largest mass killing of Canadian citizens in Canadian history, it is little known and seldom remembered in our national consciousness. A 2023 Angus Reid survey notes that nine-in-ten Canadians have little or no knowledge of this event. In memory of those lost and to honour the ongoing grief and activism of those left to mourn and seek wider recognition of this loss, we are planning a community-engaged scholarly conference.
Our objectives are:
1) To educate the wider public on the Air India tragedy and its aftermath;
2) To center the voices and knowledge of Air India family members and advocacy organizations in public discourse and scholarly conversations; and
3) To foster knowledge exchange between scholars, creative artists and family members researching, writing about, or creating artistic responses to the bombing of AI Flight 182.
Through this conference, we hope to reach a diverse range of stakeholders, including researchers, students, press, artists, the general public, and policymakers.
Some events from the conference include the launch of the first-ever Air India memorial archive, an original dance performance by Sampradaya Dance Creations, panels featuring Air India Flight 182 family members and scholars, artist readings, and curatorial exhibits.
Remembering Air India Flight 182: A 40th Anniversary Conference is co-sponsored by McMaster University’s Office of the President, Office of International Affairs, University Library and Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship, Centre for Community-Engaged Narrative Arts, Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ), Centre for Global Peace, Justice & Health, Humanities Media and Computing, Department of English & Cultural Studies, Department of Communication Studies & Media Arts, Department of History, Global Peace & Social Justice Program, Faculty of Arts & Science, and School of the Arts; the Canada Research Chair in Cultural Memory, U Winnipeg; and; the South Asian Heritage Association of Hamilton and Region. Participedia Summer Schools for 2025 The Participedia Project, housed within the Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ), is organizing the Participedia Summer School in both South America and Asia during July and August 2025.
Join us in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for Democratic Innovations in Latin America: Social Movements, Indigenous Peoples & Traditional Communities, and in both Beijing, China and Niigata, Japan for Digital Democracy: Exploring New Forms of Democratic Representation, Participation & Governance!
July 27-31, 2025 Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
August 11-15, 2025 Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and the International University of Japan in Minami Uonuma, Niigata, Japan
To learn more about Participedia School on Democratic Innovations in Latin America and about Participedia School on Digital Democracy, including objectives and the week overview click here (https://participedia.net/participediaschool) . https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe71EcdXZJmHgU7qcVI5sG2XrNoLElOpI2J...
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/participedia-school-2025-on-digital-democracy-ti...
Dr. Ingrid Waldron Invites You to the Launch of Her New Book
The Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ) is co-sponsoring Dr. Ingrid Waldron, (Professor and HOPE Chair in Peace and Health, Global Peace and Social Justice Program, Faculty of Humanities, McMaster University) for the launch of her new book, From the Enlightenment to Black Lives Matter: Tracing the Impacts of Racial Trauma in Black Communities from the Colonial Era to the Present, which was published on November 25, 2024. She will deliver a presentation on the book's main themes and findings and then sit down with Dr. Alpha Abebe (Associate Professor, Communications Studies and Media Arts, Faculty of Humanities, McMaster University) for a more in-depth conversation about the book’s main arguments.
Come join us for an evening of conversation, music and food as we celebrate the launch of Dr. Waldron’s new book.
The event has been canceled due to the impending snowstorm in Hamilton, ON. A new date will be announced soon - please check the website and social media for updates.
You can pre-order the book from Emerald Publishing HERE (https://bookstore.emerald.com/from-the-enlightenment-to-black-lives-matter-h...) . Pulse Talk Series Presents
The Politics of Credibility: Medical Advocacy and the Fight for Migrant Health Justice
with Dr. Smita Misra-Latty
The Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ) is co-sponsoring the Pulse Talk event on Friday, February 28, at 2 PM at Pulse Lab (TSH 719). Here is the registration link. (https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=B2M3RCm0rUKMJSjNSW9HcmPw...) https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=B2M3RCm0rUKMJSjNSW9HcmPw...
Talk Description:
"Medical professionals have long played a critical role in advocating for health justice, yet their activism is often met with institutional resistance. In an era where health justice is increasingly politicized, medical professionals who advocate for migrant health often find themselves at odds with institutional policies, public discourse, and professional norms. This talk examines the complex relationship between medical advocacy and credibility. It explores how physicians and healthcare workers negotiate their roles as both trusted medical experts and political actors. Using case studies of physician-advocates who have spoken out on issues such as migrant detention, asylum seekers' access to care, and pandemic-era border restrictions, this talk considers the barriers that discourage political engagement among medical professionals. These include the risk of professional censure to catering to politicized expectations of "neutrality." The talk will also cover some of the strategies that physician-advocates use to demonstrate credibility, mobilize support, and push for systemic change. Rather than framing advocacy as either a professional risk or an ethical responsibility for medical professionals, this talk asks what is at stake when those in positions of medical authority choose to speak (and how)—or remain silent (and how)—on issues of political and structural harm."
About the Speaker:
"Dr. Smita Misra-Latty is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Waterloo. An interdisciplinary scholar, her research explores topics like physician-advocacy, migrant resistance, the social construction of health, and medical authority. Her book project, titled Curating Believability, examines how physician-advocates and activists navigate a culture of suspicion due to their support of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants. She teaches courses in science communication, race and gender studies, as well as seminars on critical health communication." Afterlives of Feminist Revolutions Conference The Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ) recently co-sponsored the Afterlives of Feminist Revolutions Conference. This event, which was held on December 14, 2024, included panels that examined multiple intersections of gender and social justice, including digital feminist activism and the politics of resistance; connected struggles and transnational activism; as well as art and activism in the face of oppression. The conference also included an art exhibition. The event drew participants from all across the globe, including academics, emerging scholars, and human rights practitioners.
Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh Advocates for Climate Justice at COP29 in Azerbaijan
At the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29), held in Azerbaijan from November 11-22, 2024, Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh, a member of the McMaster Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ), presented the preliminary findings of his climate justice study mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Supported by a team of researchers at the Centre, Dr. Ibhawoh’s work shed new light on the ethical dimensions of global climate action.
In addition to his presentation, Dr. Ibhawoh engaged in bilateral consultations with key stakeholders, emphasizing the urgent need to address climate change through the lens of justice and equity. His contributions underscored the importance of incorporating the perspectives of the Global South into climate negotiations, which have historically been dominated by the interests of the Global North.
Dr. Ibhawoh’s study focused on the concept of climate justice, which highlights the uneven distribution of climate change’s impacts across the world. Describing it as a “cruel case of injustice upon injustice,” he stated, “The people who stand to suffer the most from climate change have the least responsibility for causing it and the fewest resources to avoid its ravages.” He argued that those who have benefited most from carbon-intensive development bear an ethical responsibility to reduce emissions and support the communities most affected by climate change.
Dr. Ibhawoh called for a more inclusive and equitable process, pointing out that the current system lacks legitimacy due to its failure to adequately address the needs of vulnerable nations. His advocacy for a more ethical and inclusive approach resonated strongly with participants and demonstrated the essential role of climate justice in achieving sustainable solutions. Dr. Ibhaowh's Study will be published by the UN Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development in April 2025.
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