Global Friday Presents
Co-hosted by Inspiring Women Among Us (IWAU) & UNBC Research Week for International Women's Day
Dr. Ethel Tungohan
Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activisim
Associate Professor, Department of Politics
York University

ABSTRACT:  That the academy is not a meritocracy is a reality that women, BIPOC students, staff, and professors, and other members of equity-deserving groups have known for a long time. From facing double-standards that put heightened expectations on members of under-represented communities to salary discrepancies to everyday forms of microaggression that signal that one does not belong; the academy is a fraught space. In this presentation, I will discuss the generative possibilities of structural transformation in the academy through the formation of affective networks  and through the establishment of dissident friendships. These friendships, in fact, form a crucial part of feminist politics. To show the cathartic effects of dissident friendships, I discuss why and how I started my podcast, “Academic Aunties,” which has, since its inception in March 2021, been downloaded 13,000 times globally, with each episode getting between 500 to 1000+ unique listeners. Through references to the lessons imparted by academic ‘aunties’ who’ve appeared on the podcast, I address why our goal to transform the academy should not only centre liberal modes of inclusion and why our goal should always be not to accept what is, but to think of what could be.

SPEAKER'S BIO:  Ethel Tungohan is the Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activism, and Associate Professor of Politics and Social Science at York University. She has also been appointed as a Broadbent Institute Fellow. Previously, she was the Grant Notley Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta’s Department of Political Science. She received her doctoral degree in Political Science and Women and Gender Studies from the University of Toronto.

Her research looks at migrant labor, specifically assessing migrant activism. Her forthcoming book, “From the Politics of Everyday Resistance to the Politics from Below,” which will be published by the University of Illinois Press, won the 2014 National Women’s Studies Association First Book Prize. Her work has been published in academic journals such as the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Politics, Groups, and Identities, and Canadian Ethnic Studies. She is also one of the editors of “Filipinos in Canada: Disturbing Invisibility,” which was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2012.

Dr. Tungohan specializes in socially engaged research and is actively involved in grassroots migrant organizations such as Gabriela-Ontario and Migrante-Canada.

Online via Zoom Webinar:  : https://unbc.zoom.us/j/63735901167?pwd=dUNRcC9ibm9pd0IrYllWbDEyM2FJZz09
Webinar ID:  637 3590 1167 Passcode:  251714

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