From January 26-28, 2023, we will be holding a hybrid conference on “Child Protection and the Rights of the Child.” In collaboration with McMaster University’s Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ), this conference brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of senior academics, emerging scholars, and students to explore patterns and changes in discourses, policies, and practices in child saving, child protection, and the rights of the child.

The conference will include six academic sessions, one curriculum workshop, and several public events. The academic sessions will include senior and emerging scholars and will address topics such as the experiences of children in conflict zones; child labour in the past and today in places such as Iran and Ghana; the emergence and evolution of international children’s rights discourse; adoption and child migration; and children’s experiences in state institutions in Kenya, Poland, Jamaica, and Guyana; forced child removal (including to Indian Residential Schools); international children’s rights discourse.

By addressing these topics, the conference promises to advance our understanding of changes and continuities in the treatment of children over time and the impact of international agreements and local policies focusing on children’s rights and the ways in which they interacted.

The conference will also have several events that will be open to the public. This includes a keynote talk by the Indigenous historian Crystal Fraser (Gwichyà Gwich'in/originally from Inuvik and Dachan Choo Gę̀hnjik, Northwest Territories). The conference will also include a community panel featuring Hamilton-based youth activists who are fighting for justice and equality. It will include a session led by McMaster Children and Youth University (MCYU) in which children will interact with the conference attendees and discuss their views about children’s rights. This event will be followed by a workshop sharing the MCYU community-campus model for co-creating knowledge. With the assistance of the Participedia project at CHRRJ (and permission of the participants), these events will be professionally recorded, and the recordings made available to academics and members of the public. Along with CHRRJ, the conference is also being supported by the Office for Community Engagement, the History Department, the Provost’s Office, and the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University.

For Registration: CHRRJ Conference on childrights2023.com

On June 9-10, 2022, over sixty Participedia community members gathered at McMaster University for the first hybrid Partners Conference of Participedia Phase 2. Student Research Assistants worked alongside experienced academics and practitioners to present and workshop the outcomes of one year of international, multidisciplinary co-design.

As a hybrid event, supported in collaboration with CHRRJ, participants were able to meet in-person – many for the first time – and connect online from Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia, and Europe.

This year’s meeting theme was ‘Democracy in Times of Crises’. We wanted to reflect as a community on the tensions and challenges democracy is facing, as well as the innovations and responding strategies of democratic resurgence.

In our individual cluster meetings and plenary sessions, generative conversations and research-knowledge mobilization agendas were being shared, developed, and refined. We heard from the Teaching, Training and Mentoring Committee on the early success of the Teaching Café’s, Global Classroom, and upcoming Summer School initiatives. Led by the Research Committee, we also reflected as a group on the importance of pursuing an update of the existing data model to reflect new research domains and innovations on the ground.

Our keynote public event with Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware on Day 1 and a public panel on Day 2, brought together activist-artist scholars, students, researchers and interested community members from the Hamilton community and surrounding areas, to reflect on potential democratic futures and the state of democracy today.

We further heard from student researchers and leads from research clusters who presented early findings, signature projects, challenges, and successes, as well as upcoming plans to operationalize these objectives.

We also had the opportunity to engage with the student-led Communications, Editing and Podcast Teams throughout the two-day event.

As Participedia Phase 2 enters its second year of co-designing collaborative research projects, our participating members are actively disseminating knowledge about their work. Conferences and events are just one way that the Participedia community is mobilizing knowledge on democratic innovations.

 Juanita De Barros                                         

 Melike Yilmaz                                     

 Alpha Abebe                                   

 Ameil Joseph                                             

 Ateeka Khan                                           

 Benson Honig                                           

 Bonny Ibhawoh                                            

 Carly Ciufo                                               

 Chandrima Chakraborty                               

 Eugène Nshimiyimana                               

 Faiza Hirji                                                        

 Ingrid Waldron                                               

 Jennifer Wallace

 Karen Balcom

 Mesut Yilmaz

 Michael Egan

 Nancy Doubleday

 Nibaldo Galleguillos

 Oyinade Adekunle

 Paul Emiljanowicz

 Paula Gardner

 Ross Ryan

 Ruth Frager

 Sara Abdella

 Stefan Sciaraffa

 Adebisi Alade

 Baba Jallow

 Jasper Ayelazuno

 Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora

 Oleska Drachewych

 Paul Ugor