SJE at the 2026 CIARS Decolonizing Conference

From March 12–14, the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies (CIARS) hosted the 13th Annual Decolonizing Conference, under the theme Colonial Ruptures: Unmasking Ongoing Coloniality and Fostering Counter-Insurgency Resistance, and Liberatory Possibilities. Bringing together scholars, activists, educators, artists, Elders, and community leaders to OISE, the conference created a powerful space for critical reflection, organizing, and collective imagining toward decolonial futures. 

CIARS is an integral part of the Department of Social Justice Education. Under the leadership of Dr. Nana George Sefa Dei, Director of CIARS and Professor of Social Justice Education, the Centre enhances research and teaching in the areas of equity, anti-racism praxis and alternative knowledge(s) in education. 

SJE students, alumni, faculty, and friends were deeply engaged throughout the conference. Not only was the conference leadership Committee made up entirely of SJE students, but dozens of SJE members participated as presenters and volunteers. Read on for celebration of our community's success this month. 

SJE Student & Alumni Presentations 

SJE students and alumni contributed a wide range of research: 

• Dr. Amanda Buffalo (EdD graduate) – Plenary 3: Cross-Racial Dialogue, highlighting how coalitions can resist punitive systems and advance humanizing alternatives.

• Christine Apiot Okudi (PhD student) – Perspectives on Agency from Adolescent Girls in the Karamoja Cluster in Kenya and Uganda  

• Cristina Jaimungal (PhD candidate) – Plenary 4: Global Indigeneities, centering Indigenous knowledge as a framework for disrupting racialized violence and building collective futures  

• Ernest Akrofi Obeng (PhD candidate) – Fugitive Pedagogies and Anti-Colonial Resistance: Reclaiming Teacher Preparation in Ghana’s Higher Education Spaces 

• Haohao Chen (MA student) – The Role of Nationalism in Revolutionary Movements and Decolonization

• Hardeep Shergill (PhD candidate) – The Story About the Komagata Maru: Affirming Sikh Identities Within

• Dr. Isaac Nortey Darko (PhD graduate) – Indigenous North and Indigenous South Solidarity: The Path to Unmasking Coloniality 

• Juliana Rodriguez-Barrera (MA student) – Plenary 4: Global Indigeneities, centering dance and Indigenous knowledge as frameworks for disrupting racialized violence, resisting assimilationist policies, and building collective futures.

• Kathy C. Lewis (MEd graduate, PhD student) – Intra- and Ultra-Black/African Community Solidarity: Our Ancestral Voice of Truth

• Kruti Patel (PhD student) – The ‘Hindoo Invasion’: Rising Anti-Indian Sentiment, Horizontal Hostility, and the Fallacy of Canadian Multiculturalism

• Meral Choudhry (PhD student) – Decolonizing Islamophobia: Reclaiming Decolonial Identity through Resistance, Agency, and Transformative Pedagogy in Ontario Public Education (also served as Chair and Volunteer)  

• Randeep Nota (PhD candidate) – Stories of Anti-racism Training and Allyship

• Sadia Anjum (PhD student) – Global South Women: Coloniality of Leadership in Higher Education in Canada and Rebuilding Solidarity: Lateral Violence, Root Causes, and Recommitting to Anti-Racism

• Shizza Fatima (PhD student) – Decolonization and Islamic Thought: An Intellectual History of Islamic Anti-colonial Thought in the Middle East and South Asia

• Sunandha Shanmugaraj (MEd graduate) – From Ananthi to Anna: Teacher Colonization of Student Names Among Tamil Canadians and co-presenter of Examining Ontario Pre-Service Teachers’ Knowledge and Preparedness for Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive, and Social Justice Education 

• Wanyi Yin (EdD student) – Listening as Decolonial Praxis: Witnessing and Arts-Based Pedagogy in Diagnostic Schooling Contexts

• Dr. Yetunde Banjo (PhD graduate) – The Devaluation of Foreign Credentials and Its Impact on Career Trajectories of Professional African Immigrant Women in the Canadian Labour Market

• Yongzhi (Jim) Huang (PhD student) – Education as Liberation: Reading Ongoing Coloniality through Fiscal Visibility

Faculty Contributions 

Three SJE faculty participated across multiple plenaries and conversations:

• Dr. Nana George Sefa Dei – Director of the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies and Professor of Social Justice Education. Contributed to multiple plenaries, including:  

  • Plenary 1: African Elders, offering frameworks to challenge Western, carceral, and individualistic models of schooling, governance, and justice while advancing relational, restorative, and humanizing approaches.

  • “The Door of ‘No’ Returns”: African Elders Critical Teachings (ElderCrits) (with Paul Banahene Adjei), theorizing ElderCrits as a conduit for re-uniting global diasporic Africans.

  • Plenary 5: CIARS Summer (Ghana) Institute, positioning African ElderCrit as a generative intervention for epistemic liberation grounded in Indigenous philosophies, oral traditions, spirituality, and communal governance.  

• Dr. Amal Madibbo – Professor of Social Justice Education. Participated in Plenary 2: Transnational and Local Struggles and Strategies, where panelists examined how Black communities across the world build solidarity, mutual aid, and protective networks—imagining liberation as collectively held, locally rooted, and globally connected.  

• Dr. Njoki Wane – Professor of Social Justice Education. Participated in Plenary 4: Global Indigeneities, centering Indigenous knowledge as a critical framework for disrupting racialized violence, resisting assimilationist policies, and building collective futures.

Conference Committee Leadership & Support 

SJE community members played key roles in organizing, facilitating, and supporting the conference: 

• Kathy C. Lewis (M.Ed graduate, PhD student) – Committee member 

• Verne (Akosua Dorowaa) Hippolyte-Smith (PhD student) – Committee member 

• Kruti Patel (PhD student) – Committee member

• Denise (Akosua) P. Edwards (MEd graduate) – Committee member 

• Annalissa Crisostomo (PhD student) – Session Chair  

• Ernest Akrofi Obeng (PhD candidate) – Session Chair  

• Dr. Isaac Nortey Darko (PhD graduate) – Session Chair & Volunteer

• Mayson Broccoli-Romanowska (MA student) – Volunteer  

• Meral Choudhry (PhD student) – Session Chair & Volunteer

• Shay Colley (PhD student) – Session Chair  

• Zheng Ma (PhD candidate) – Volunteer 

Congratulations to our community on a series of outstanding presentations at a highly successful conference. If you see any of these presenters in the halls or in class, be sure to give them a well-deserved high five! A special shoutout to Kathy, Verne, Kruti, and Denise, as well as Professor Dei and the entire CIARS team, for their tireless work over many months to organize and host an outstanding event.