ACAM Dialogues Symposium: Subverting Silence

ACAM Dialogues Symposium :: Subverting Silence: How can we change the dialogue on sexual violence?


AMS Nest (Performance Theatre), University of British Columbia
April 8, 2017, 11am-5pm
Registration: FREE
RSVP @ https://acamsymposium.eventbrite.ca

“Subverting Silence: How can we change the dialogue on sexual violence?” is the organizing theme for the 2017 ACAM Dialogues Symposium. This public event culminates a year of organizing monthly dialogues on sexual violence as it impacts Asian Canadian communities. We invite you to explore what “subversion” and “silence” mean through Asian Canadian contexts, and how we can take collective action as students, staff, and faculty to change the conversation on sexual violence at UBC and beyond.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:

11:00am-11:30am Registration and Opening Remarks

11:30am – 1:00pm A Community Panel on strategies to shift the dialogue on sexual violence at UBC.
Panelists: Fred Chou, Leah Horlick, Kimberley Wong, Dr. JP Catungal

Fred Chou is a PhD Candidate in Counselling Psychology at the University of British Columbia. He is a Registered Clinical Counsellor and runs a private counselling practice in Vancouver. He has worked extensively with psychological trauma through clinical work with organizations such as the Veterans Transition Network and Complex Trauma Resources. He also has a vested interest in collaborative and critical research approaches in social sciences and has conducted participatory research with youth in alternative education. His dissertation examines intergenerational trauma within Chinese Canadian families using a narrative methodology.

Leah Horlick is a writer who grew up as a settler on Treaty Six Cree Territory in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her first collection of poetry, Riot Lung (Thistledown Press, 2012), was shortlisted for a 2013 ReLit Award and a Saskatchewan Book Award. Her second collection, For Your Own Good (Caitlin Press, 2015), was named a 2016 Stonewall Honour Book by the American Library Association. Along with Esther McPhee, Leah co-curates REVERB, Vancouver’s only queer and anti-oppressive reading series. She was recently awarded the 2016 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Emerging Writers.

Kimberley Wong is a climate action and social justice activist, majoring in Geography (Environment and Sustainability) and doing an interdisciplinary minor in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, Anthropology, and Political Science at the University of British Columbia.She prides herself on being a go-getter full of optimism, and compliments her academic and extracurricular activities with running, cycling, hiking, skiing, and rock climbing.
She currently enjoys working as a community organizer with Love Intersections, a group of queer and trans people of colour who form solidarity through a language of love and a lens of intersectional feminism using a multimedia approach, and as a very proud Co-Founder of City Hub Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping youth succeed in their sustainability and social justice projects by providing basic infrastructure and guidance to them. City Hub Initiative is a co-working space for young change makers, by young change makers.
Kimberley has worked as the Co-Director of Kids for Climate Action, a group of youth advocating for stronger political action on climate change, and as an organizer for the Vancouver School Board Sustainability Conference.
Kimberley’s most recent accolade includes winning the 2016 City Of Vancouver Greenest City Leadership Award of Excellence.

Dr. JP Catungal is a queer, first-generation Filipino-Canadian settler living in unceded Coast Salish territories. He joined the Social Justice Institute (GRSJ) as Instructor I (Tenure-Track) after two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow with concurrent Killam and SSHRC research fellowships. JP also holds faculty associate status in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies and in Geography. He acquired his PhD in Geography from the University of Toronto in 2014.
As a faculty member in the Educational Leadership stream, JP seeks to develop and enact queer-of-colour and anti-racist feminist approaches to the scholarship on teaching and learning. He is particularly invested in analyzing and remaking classroom and campus climate from the perspectives of queer and trans* students, TAs and instructors of colour, with a view towards examining the politics of emotions, positionalities and embodiment in educational spaces and their implications for pedagogy, curriculum and mentorship. His undergraduate courses emphasize the application of intersectional feminist and queer approaches to reflexive analysis of subject formation and to local examples of social inequalities.
JP’s research interests include queer-of-colour geographies, the politics of knowledge production, and migration and diaspora studies. He has published articles and book chapters on ethno-specific social service provision and community organizing, race and HIV/AIDS, and Filipinx-Canadian studies. He co-edited Filipinos in Canada: Disturbing Invisibility (University of Toronto Press, 2012) and a 2013 special issue of the journal ACME on sexual landscapes, lives and livelihoods in Canada.

1:00pm – 1:30pm Free Lunch + A Fair featuring local Asian Canadian artists selling their art, Asian Canadian student groups on campus, culturally appropriate support services, and anti-violence/feminist organizations.

1:30pm – 4:00pm A Screening of the critically acclaimed feature documentary, The Apology (2016), with a Q+A interview and discussion with Director Tiffany Hsiung

The Apology follows the personal journeys of three former “comfort women” who were among the 200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into military sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Some 70 years after their imprisonment in so-called “comfort stations,” the three “grandmothers”– Grandma Gil in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China, and Grandma Adela in the Philippines – face their twilight years in fading health. After decades of living in silence and shame about their past, they know that time is running out to give a first-hand account of the truth and ensure that this horrific chapter of history is not forgotten. Whether they are seeking a formal apology from the Japanese government or summoning the courage to finally share their secret with loved ones, their resolve moves them forward as they seize this last chance to set future generations on a course for reconciliation, healing, and justice.

4:00pm – 5:00pm Word Cloud and Zine Launch Party to celebrate the print publication of the ACAM Dialogues zine. Check out the Call for Submissions here!

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The ACAM Dialogues Symposium is generously sponsored by the UBC Equity Enhancement Fund, St. John’s College, AMS Sexual Assault Support Centre, CiTR 101.9 FM and Discorder Magazine, and UBC Student Development and Services.

This event will be taking place on the traditional, unceded, ancestral homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) First Nation. We recognize that sexual violence plays a key role in colonial and gendered violence, and continues to affect Indigenous communities. As the land which UBC is situated on was taken without consent, we ask settlers to consider what it means to be good guests in the spaces they navigate.

Along the same line of thinking through space, we are prioritizing the ACAM Dialogue as a student and survivor-centric event that centers Indigenous and POC students (particularly Asian Canadian student communities). Please be mindful of this if you plan on attending. If you have any questions or concerns about what it means to be an ally, feel free to contact acam.events@ubc.ca.

ACCESSIBILITY INFO:

*Vegetarian and gluten-free food options will be available.

If you have questions or other accessibility needs, please email acam.events@ubc.ca

ACAM Dialogues: Extending the Conversation on Sexual Violence in Asian Communities on Campus and Beyond examines the intersections of race, gender, and violence, especially as they impact Asian student communities and open up spaces for students to share experiences and resources, build analyses, and discuss strategies of organizing against sexual and other forms of violence. For more information, please visit https://acamdialogues.arts.ubc.ca/

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