Outstanding Contribution Award Lecture: Dr. Alejandro Hernández

Outstanding Contribution Award Lecture: Dr. Alejandro Hernández
Event Details: Wednesday Jun 02, 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm (EDT/Montreal time), Virtual through Congress 2021, Language: English, Code: OCL1
https://www.csa-scs.ca/conference/conference-events/event/outstanding-contribution-award-lecture-dr-alejandro-hernandez/

The resurgence of authoritarian and fascist trends in many countries is part and parcel of our current social landscape. Honouring Dr. Agnes Calliste’s work, and making use of an interdisciplinary and intersectional analysis,  Dr. Hernández will address some of the ways in which settler-colonialism, racialization, and notions of (non-)belonging interrelate, (re)producing discourses on—and an allegiance to—authoritarianism and fascism among some youth in Canada and the United States who make use of Instagram.

Dr. Hernández will be honouring the work of Dr. Agnes Calliste who received the 2019 Outstanding Contribution Award. Dr. Calliste passed away in 2018 at the age of 74, after a long and rich career at St. Francis Xavier University. She was a faculty member there for 26 years, having retired in 2010.

Over those years, Dr. Calliste’s work was foundational to establishing a tradition of critical, intersectional analyses of race in Canada. Focusing especially on Caribbean immigration, Agnes Calliste foregrounded the experiences of Black/Caribbean workers in Canada. Working from the political economy tradition, Dr. Calliste illuminated complex hierarchies of race, class and gender in structures of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy, and captured the agency and resistance of Black Caribbean and African Canadians. Her work on immigration policy revealed gendered and racist assumptions embedded within the immigration system, channeling Caribbean women to physically dangerous and servile work, and Black porters into structurally disadvantaged markets. Her research is an important counter to the narrative of Canada’s self-awareness as a colour-blind, multicultural society.