Dear friends, colleagues and associates of the Centre for feminist Research at York University,

Welcome to the Centre for Feminist Research. CFR was founded in 1991, as a part of the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies. Currently, CFR hosts more than 300 faculty and graduate Associates. CFR Associates are world-renowned scholars who continue to advance feminist research in a wide range of feminist scholarship. CFR also hosts visiting scholars, visiting post-doctoral students and visiting graduate students.

We live in challenging time to be working on feminist issues. Racism in the post 9/11 period, the crisis within financial institutions, repeated recessions, changes in economic, immigration and refugee policies, and global conflicts continue to create significant challenge in people's lives. In this context, intersectional feminist research is even more vital as it's insights point to the impossibility of investigating such conditions without an analysis of gender, race, sexuality, ability and class. Through its interdisciplinary strengths and diverse perspectives, CFR is well positioned to advance feminist perspectives on these and many other topics. Indeed some of the recent projects, as profiled in this site, address the myriad of ways in which government policies, global recessions, racism, the changes in the post 9/11 period, immigration and refugee polices and militarisation and violence shape race, gender, sexuality, class and ableism. Below is a summary of the activities at CFR in the past two years.

Lectures and Talks:

In 2010/11, CFR hosted a number of talks by international and national feminists. These included talks by Aida Bahr (University of Havana), Olive Senior (Toronto), Roshini Kempadoo (University of East London), Shohini Ghosh (AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia), Brinton Lykes (Boston College), Samina Mishra (Independent Documentary Film Producer, New Delhi), Ambarien Qadar (AJK, Jamia Millia Islamia), Padmini Swaminathan (Madras Institute of Development Studies), Sorayya Khan (Ithaca College), Naeem Inayatullah (Ithaca College), Rutvica Andrijasevic (University of Leicester), and Jackie Orr (Syracuse University).

Workshops, Symposia, Conferences:

In 2010/11, we also organized several symposiums and conferences. These included Rethinking Feminist Interventions into Urban Geography; Transnational Mapping of the Institutionalization of Women’s Studies; Migration, Sex Work, Trafficking: Master Narratives and Critical Perspectives, An International Symposium; and Our Legacy: Indigenous-African Relations across the Americas. Each of these symposiums included papers by international and national scholars, as well as scholars and graduate students located at York University.

Book Launchs:

Particularly rewarding in the past year was our work with a number of CFR Associates to organize launches for their books. The Centre assisted with the launches of Three Jamaican Plays (Honor Ford-Smith), I Won’t Be A Slave (Varpu Lindström), Queering Bathrooms (Sheila Cavanagh), and Demography and Democracy (Himani Bannerji). Indeed, it was very rewarding to participate in the celebration of the significant accomplishments of feminist faculty at York University.

Research Clusters:

CFR also hosts a number of research clusters. These clusters include; Discourses of Trafficking; Feminist Anti-Racist Interventions in the Academy; Feminist Cultural Production; Gender and Public Policy; Memory & Memorialization; Sexuality Studies and LGBT Activism. Information on all of these clusters – as well as a contact person – is  posted on the website. Members of each of these clusters have organised exciting events. Members of the Gender and Public Policy Group, organised a workshop entitled "Sharing Feminist Research on Social Policy and Collective Action/ Partager la recherché feministe sur les politiques sociales et l’action collective' on April 29/30th  2010 which brought feminist groups and researchers from English and French Canada into a dialogue on gendering public policy. Members of the memory and memorialisation cluster organized a one day symposium entitled "Excavations, Collusions, and Contestations: A Symposium on Violence, Memory, and Memorialization” on 15 April 2010. The speakers included Urvashi Butalia (Zubaan Books), Malathi de Alwis (University of Colombo), Alison Crosby (York University), Alissa Trotz (University of Toronto), Honor Ford-Smith (York University). In 2009-10,members of the Asian-Canadian Studies Cluster launched a monthly public series to discuss the linkages between ACS and other fields, such as Canadian, Asian, and Women’s Studies, as well as professional and community services. The series drew over 80 academics, students, and community members. In March 2011, a member of the Discourses of Trafficking Cluster organised an international symposium entitled; Migration, Sex Work, Trafficking: Master Narratives and Critical Perspectives.

Annual Events Honoring the Work of Feminist Faculty:

CFR hosts an annual event that honors the work of feminist faculty at York who are close to retirement. On Dec 11th 2009, CFR hosted a symposium entitled "Doing Theory: Marxism, Feminism, Critical Race Theory" in honor of Himani Bannerji. The speakers included Himani Bannerji, Nahla Abdo, Jasodhara Bagchi, Davina Bhandar, Barbara Godard, Dorothy Smith, David McNally, Shahrzad Mojab, Radhika Mongia, Ananya Mukherjee, Sherene Razack, Sunera Thobani, and Judith Whitehead. On June 15, 2010, CFR in collaboration with the School of Women Studies hosted an afternoon event entitled "A Celebration of Varpu Lindstrom". Both events were immensely successful – and provided us with opportunities to reflect of the richness of Bannerji's and Lindstrom's contributions to feminist scholarship

Research Grants:

During the past two years, a number of our Associates, in collaboration with CFR, were successful in receiving research grants. Congratulations to Professor Barbara Cameron, Professor Alison Crosby, Professor Frances Henry, Professor Linda Peake, Professor Bonita Lawrence and Professor Nancy Nicol and their research teams for their SSHRC and IDRC grants. The topics for research encompass an impressive range of feminist issues such as Memory and Memorialization; Racialization, Racism and the University; Women’s Human Rights and Public Policy Choice; Transnational Migration Trajectories of Immigrant Women Professionals; Gendered and Racialized Dimensions of Economic Security for Later Life Canadians; Sexualities among Youth in Guyana; Sexual Rights Movements in the Global South. In addition, our Associates, in collaboration with CFR, have been successful in receiving two workshop and conference grants. As a result, 2010/11 CFR hosted an international workshop on entitled "Rethinking Feminist Interventions in Urban Studies", and an international conference entitled "Sharing Our Legacy: Indigenous-African Relations Across the Americas".

The past years have indeed been extremely productive. The work of the Centre is supported by committed staff and Associate members. It is through the involvement and commitment of these feminists that the Centre has been so vibrant. I would particularly like to thank our coordinator, Jessica Balmer, as well as our graduate student assistants for making all of the activities of CFR possible. 

Sincerely,

Enakshi Dua

Director of the Centre for Feminist Research