Room 1420-1430, Harbour Centre

Panel Chair: Dr. Cait McKinney

Amplifying Marginalized Voices: Alternative Arab Feminist and Queer Media Spaces

Paola Sawaya (she/her), Simon Fraser University

Within mainstream Arab ethnic media, voices from feminist and queer migrants have often been undermined and underrepresented. Moreover, the latter have been subjected to hegemonic Western representations that render them passive victims instead of amplifying their efforts to represent themselves and the needs of their communities. As a response, Arab women, queer, and gender-non-conforming individuals have developed their own alternative media spaces that operate offline and online, allowing them to reclaim their agency and control over their image. They have created visual and literary journals, community-based Internet radios, participatory podcasts, and other alternative media spaces to contest these reductive representations in mainstream media and reclaim their agency. 

This study will examine how women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community represent themselves and their needs, exchange stories, and connect by exploring three media projects: Hamam Radio, Jins Podcast, and Al-Hayya’s magazine and podcast series Lisan al-Hal. After conducting feminist critical discourse analysis for each project, some of the founders and contributors of each media initiative will be interviewed. They will be asked about their involvement and contribution to the initiative and the significance of such initiatives to amplify marginalized voices to reclaim their subjectivities and complicate the politics of visibility beyond a liberal framework and techno-utopian understanding of platforms and digital spaces. This research is part of a plethora of scholarship on migrant-run media spaces that challenge dominant representations and highlight moments of resistance.  

PRESENTER BIO

Paola Sawaya, as a second-year MA Student in the School of Communication, is interested in exploring the hegemonic representation of marginalized groups, notably Arab women and queer folks, and recognizing bottom-up contestations of these dominant narratives. Her current research examines the work of Arab women, queer, and gender non-conforming folks who have developed their own alternative media spaces that operate offline and online, allowing them to reclaim their agency and control over their image while simultaneously contesting the socio-political issues they face within their communities.

Discourse Circulation and Affective Economies of Feminist Social Media Activism in Pakistan (Case Studies of Two Incidents of Violence Against Women)

Amna Saadat Ali (she/her), Simon Fraser University

When an event evokes public sentiment, the resulting intense emotion needs “to do something”. An “affective public” is formed when the intense emotion of grief, fear, anger or pride circulates through messages online. (Ahmed, 2004, Papacharissi, 2016). 

In 2021, such affective publics were created when two separate but similar incidents of violence against women took place a year apart in Pakistan´s capital city, Islamabad. The brutal murders of Noor Mukadam and Sarah Inam sent shock, grief and anger throughout the nation and affective publics came into form through the hashtags #JusticeforNoor and #JusticeForSarah. 

This paper analyzes these two cases of feminist activism on social media in the wake of these incidents. Following Ahmed (2004), the analysis of the two hashtags reveals that the affective economies of the emotions of grief, shock, pain, trauma and anger at the horror of the murders brought together and aligned feminist activists, and the online communities and publics. Just as these emotions were capable of sliding between these two figures sideways, they could also move backwards and stick to other figures who met a similar fate in the past. Thus the emotions did the work of binding together figures and gathering together people online and offline as they called for action and justice. Their affective force pushed online feminist activism to consolidate the larger feminist movement which then rallied behind the social media activism. This made the feminist counterpublic stronger. 

The online calls for justice in each case coincided with the unprecedentedly speedy trials and convictions of the murderers.

PRESENTER BIO

Amna Saadat Ali is an MA student at SFU´s School of Communication. she has worked as a newspaper journalist, content writer and teacher in Pakistan. Her earlier research was related to the media representation of Islam and Muslims in the post-9/11 period. As a journalist, her work has included women's issues. Her current research interest is gender-based violence, grounded in nearly two decades of observation and lived experience of patriarchal tendencies in Pakistani society. Specifically, her research is concerned with ways in which women are organizing and resisting online to combat gender-based violence.

Manufacturing Loneliness

Noah Sim (he/him), Simon Fraser University

In my presentation Manufacturing Loneliness I want to explore theoretically on how people, through an affective lens, become socialized into various states of loneliness. Taking inspiration from Sara Ahmed’s ‘happiness scripts’, this presentation argues that loneliness is a socially produced affective orientation with particular rules on how to recognize and tackle it, and does not only come about from physical isolation. ‘Loneliness scripts’ orient us to pre-empt avoid the issue, yet it severely limits our perceptions and solutions around it. Both Ann Cvetkovich and Hil Malatino’s work around negative affects and their importance are also highlighted. In the rush to eliminate certain narrow conceptions of loneliness there is a failure to consider the common and vital state of aloneness. Aloneness can be an important site of awareness and creativity that stretches beyond wellness methods like meditation or ventures like writing, and is a mainstay practice of being in the world. The presentation also considers the de-politicizing effects around mainstream loneliness discourse. As Eleanor Wilkinson discusses in their essay within Feminist Loneliness Studies, the common framing of loneliness divorces its connections to neoliberal capitalistic practices – like state policies around immigration and housing insecurity – and individualizes the problem. She argues for the re-politization of loneliness as a way to hone in on the social conditions, and in that vein the presentation considers how might we re-write ‘loneliness scripts’ to better serve all people, not just those in power or privilege.

PRESENTER BIO

Noah entered the Simon Fraser University MA program in Sociology in the Fall of 2023. He completed his BA with a joint major in Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University. His graduate research centers on how people navigate loneliness through digitally-mediated means. He is interested in exploring how neoliberal capitalistic structures both inform and produce conditions of loneliness, and the limited successes around manufactured, individualized digital solutions. 

Room 1505, CIBC Lecture Room at Harbour Centre

Panel Chair: Rowan Melling

Opportunities for resistance among virtual assistant workers in the Philippines

Diana Limbaga (she/her), Simon Fraser University

Globalization and the development of information and communications technologies have resulted in the rise of outsourced, communication-based labour in the Global South – like the growing virtual assistant (VA) industry in the Philippines. VAs complete various administrative and service-based tasks for their clients at a distance, who are often located in countries in the Global North. While Filipino VAs earn relatively higher wages than those in domestic occupations, they experience increased precarity as they are not entitled to health benefits or pensions, and their work is less secure as employer-worker relationships are mediated by job-seeking platforms. While there is a lack of scholarship in the VA industry due to its recent emergence, researchers have studied the analogous business process outsourcing industry in the Global South to consider its difficult working conditions and opportunities for collective action. This study will expand scholarship in the VA industry and ask the following questions: What are the lived experiences of virtual assistants in the Philippines? How are resistance and collective action fostered and hindered within this industry? To explore these questions, existing research surrounding platform labour and labour in the Philippines will be examined. Workshops will be hosted with VAs in attendance explore their current labour conditions, as well as any changes they would like to see in the industry. This industry is important to consider as there are noticeable gaps in existing Philippine legislation that do not protect virtual and platform workers. However, these workers play an integral role in developing the nation's economy.

PRESENTER BIO

Having grown up in the Philippines, Diana's research is focused on the nexus of communication and labour and development economics in the Global South. Her thesis is currently focused on looking at the working conditions of virtual assistants in the Philippines, and understanding possibilities for collective action in this industry. Diana received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Simon Fraser University in 2023. 

Inside the Influence

Hannah Block, Simon Fraser University

Social media and, more specifically, social media influencing, reinforce existing societal structures. 

As a virtual extension of society, social media and social media influencing have undoubtedly created, reinforced, and intensified structuration – i.e., social relations, mainly organized around social class, gender, and race. 

Although one can certainly argue for the liberal and progressive affordances of social media, a case of equal strength can be made for its reinforcing qualities and intensification of structuration. 

By engaging with the practice of social media influencing and the dialectical tension fundamentally embedded within the industry – arising from the value of social media influencing and the societal implications – through survey and synthesis of various streams of Communication theory literature and mainstream texts, an argument for the paradoxical nature of social media influencing is made. By closely attending to cases of social media influencing where scandal and failure are present, I demonstrate the ways in which social media influencing is both an inescapable part of contemporary market society and a fundamentally paradoxical communicational practice – reinforcing and advancing structuration.

In today's hypermediated society, social media and social media influencing are a digital representation and extension of the mutually constitutive entanglements of human agency and the social structures that construct our world. At the same time, however, like sociologist Anthony Giddens’ work (1984), social media and social media influencing transcend the orthodox dichotomy between systems and subjects – creating and reproducing virtual versions of our “social systems as the result of structured and habituated human action”. 

As the late communication scholar Vincent Mosco (2009) argues, “structuration calls on us to broaden the conception of class [...] to incorporate both a relational and a formational sense of the term”. Social media and social media influencing are opportune for this – facilitating and accelerating such a broadening (beyond the conception of class and traditional social organizing structures).  

Mosco's advancement of structuration to encompass all “social relations, particularly the power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources, including communication resources” (2009) is evident in social media and social media influencing, while his ambitious “study of control and survival in social life” is both fitting and directly applicable to examining social media influencing insofar as the phenomenon is both an enabler and inhibitor of control and survival in modern social life.

PRESENTER BIO

Motivated by communications, Hannah holds an MA in Communication from the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU); a Post-Graduate Diploma in Public Relations (PR) from the University of Victoria; and a BA (distinction) in Communication with a Double Minor and Print and Digital Publishing, and Curriculum and Instruction from SFU.   Professionally, Hannah’s resume is equally comprehensive – with agency, in-house, non-profit, and government/public sector work experience – representing such well-known brands as Nespresso coffee, Earls restaurant, H&M clothing, Arterra Wines, and Ballet BC, among others, and currently works as Senior Communications Officer for the BC Liquor Distribution Branch.

Silicon Valley's computational metaphysics

Anthony Burton (he/him), Simon Fraser University

Contemporary techno-libertarian thought seems no deeper than the motto to “move fast and break things”. Yet one strain that runs through the business philosophy of Silicon Valley is the search for "first principles"; i.e., axioms from which any decision can be made. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel have all spoken about seeking axioms from which all decisions can be made; empiricism is replaced by a form of algorithmic, logocentric thought or action-praxis. Musk speaks of his business philosophy as "a kind of physics way of looking at the world", where the best decisions are made when one "boil[s] things down to the most fundamental truths and say, 'what are we sure is true?' or 'sure as possible is true' and then reason up from there..." (Innomind, 2013). Thiel, too, writes in the introduction of “Zero to One” that success emerges when “thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas” (Thiel 2014, 2).

This paper explores the relationship between “first principles” thinking, computational thought, and Silicon Valley political libertarianism. I read the work of French anthropologist and noted Thiel collaborator  René Girard, specifically the implications of his theory of all desire as mimetic. Exploring the material and intellectual links between Girard and Thiel, I propose that specific elements of Girard’s theory of human culture—namely, that Western culture arises from a fundamental conflict of “mimetic violence” (Girard 2000, 2005), fuelled by envy as a metaphysical truth or “first principle” of social relations. I then trace the implications of this metaphysics of envy and its link to techno-libertarian epistemologies, specifically how Girard’s theory presupposes violence as a form of Boolean operation amongst bodies and being.

PRESENTER BIO

Anthony Glyn Burton is a Mellon SFU and SSHRC Joseph Bombardier Fellow in the Department of Communications at Simon Fraser University. Anthony’s doctoral research focuses on the history of optimization. His research interests broadly include the networked development of epistemologies and ideology in technological and datafied environments and internet political subcultures. He graduated from Toronto Metropolitan and York University’s Master of Arts in Communication & Culture, where he researched involuntary celibacy. 

Room 1420-1430, Harbour Centre

Panel Chair: Dr. Siyuan Yin

How do educated migrants job-seeking practices structure the Afghanistan development process? 

Sayed Baqir Hussaini (he/him) and Dr. Amena Akhalqi (she/her), Simon Fraser University

Dominant discourses of development and migration argues that educated migrants returning to their home country facilitates development processes. However, our migration literature review found that repatriation cannot help unless we simultaneously consider return motivation, the returnees’ social networks, education level, and socio-political contexts of society, employment conditions, and the good and functional embeddedness of job-seekers in the economic structures. Using the qualitative research method, our aim is to find out how the theoretical reflections and empirical findings mentioned are applied in the Afghanistan job market. How much do educated migrants affect development processes? How their own job-seeking rules and practices are sturactured by existing job market structures and development. The data is derived from semi-structured interviews with 18 educated Afghan migrants returning from Iran. Results show that the returnees initially experience shock when they compare their imagined realities of the job in Afghanistan with their own lived experiences as job seekers. Besides, they find it hard to compete with well-embedded and corrupt employees in the economic structure, and hence they experience social exclusion. To navigate the system, the returnees, ironically, abide by existing job market rules and practices and utilize network-based job-seeking strategies. In this way, the potential change agents unintentionally reproduce corrupt job markets and perpetuate anti-development practices, rules, and systems.  

PRESENTER BIO

Sayed Baqir Hussaini is a PhD student in Communication School. His research interests: migration (especially global south), transnational networks, narration and identity . 

Crisis to Contribution: Labour Migration and Refugee Integration in Germany 

Monica Yousofi (she/her), Simon Fraser University

This paper examines the complexities between labour migration, refugee integration and neoliberal economic policies in Germany that are contextualised within historical legacies and contemporary challenges including the COVID-19 pandemics impact. Drawing from Marxist political economy and theory of flexible citizenship, this paper explores the shifting logics behind labour migration, asylum policies and attitudes towards migrants in the German context. This paper also critically examines neoliberal reforms aimed at addressing labour shortages with an emphasis on how refugees and asylum seekers can be integrated into the workforce. On a broader level, this paper highlights some difficulties faced by migrants such as uncertain legal status, mental health concerns, and societal discriminations in their host countries. Moreover, it analyzes the gendered dynamics of the German labour market revealing unequal opportunities for migrant women. I hope to highlight the contradictions inherent in Germany’s neoliberal approach to labour migration, which includes depending on refugees for sustenance, yet having policies that reproduce more precariousness. Neoliberal framework calls upon individual responsibility without providing the proper means of support or sufficient access for effective integration of refugees into society. Prioritizing economic gains over well-being and rights, further perpetuating systems of exclusion and inequality. 

PRESENTER BIO

Monica is a first year MA student in the School of Communication. She completed her BA in communication at Simon Fraser University. Her research interests lie between migration, labour, refugee integration, and trauma. Her thesis will explore the impact of imperialism on Afghan women refugees’ integration into Canadian society, and how they cope with the effects of decades of war in their host nations. 

Navigating Affective Landscapes: Understanding Migration Through Emotion and Power

Ekaterina Letunovskaya (she/her), Simon Fraser University

In contemporary discussions of labour migration, exploitation has emerged as a defining feature of the lived migrant experience, shaped by the social, political, and cultural framing of the ‘migrant’. This paper discuses the role of affect in shaping the discourse and realities of migration, specifically, its intersection with power, biopolitics, and narratives of inclusion and exclusion. Discursive affective elements play a crucial role in constructing the image of migrants within public discourse, shipping migrant experiences in host countries. Migrants may be portrayed as either threats or assets, depending on the framing of their narratives. Language, in this context, is significant in creating associations between migrant labor and affect, emphasizing the distinction between citizen and non-citizen. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from scholars such as Sara Ahmed and Lauren Berlant, the paper investigates how emotions circulate within society, influencing individual and collective responses to labor migration. Through the conceptualization of affective economies, the paper examines the ways in which emotions shape perceptions, narratives, and policies related to migration, highlighting the emotional dimensions of migrant experiences. Additionally, the paper discusses the contradictions inherent in migration narratives, using Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism to understand the relationship between hope and disillusionment that characterize many migrant experiences. Lastly, the paper discusses the Foucauldian concept of biopolitics to analyze how migration is governed and regulated by state authorities, often at the expense of migrant lives.

PRESENTER BIO

Katya's research interest lies at the intersection of migration and labour, specifically migrant labour and the engagement between the legislative regulations surrounding migrant workers and their deteriorating working conditions. Her thesis will explore the impact of the ongoing political and economic crisis in Lebanon on the working conditions of female domestic migrant workers within the kafala system.She will also research how migrant workers navigate their experiences within the kafala system and the ways in which they exhibit individual level resistance. 

Room 1505, CIBC Lecture Room at Harbour Centre

Panel Chair: Dr. Kirsten McAllister

Ethical Frameworks for Working with Ethnic Minority Populations: Affective Care-Relational Approach

An Binh Tran (she/her), Simon Fraser University

Vietnam is a multi-ethnic country with 54 ethnic groups recognized by the Vietnamese government, with the Kinh or Viet being the majority. From the past to the present day, ethnic minority people have been marginalized in social and political participation, culturally appropriated, had ancestral lands taken away for national infrastructure projects, and stigmatized for their cultural practices and unique ways of living. Despite the absence of a formal reconciliation process, many efforts have been made to celebrate “diversity in unity” or “multiculturalism”, such as national dialogues, multi-ethnic schooling and the inclusion of ethnic minority features in the media. Setting aside the adverse effects resulting from good intentions but wrong implementation, it is evident that most of interventions established by the ethnic majority align with their convenience, their set of principles, and their ways of interpretation. Having said that, beyond mere critiques of what has been happening, it is equally crucial is the imagination the otherwise. This paper examines affective care-relational ethics as such an 'otherwise' counterbalancing the Vietnamese dominant morality shaped by Confucianism and socialist ideologies. The paper synthesizes the feminist approach in ethics of care and affect theories to furnish an ample space to develop care ethics to work with ethnic minority people in Vietnam.

PRESENTER BIO

An Binh Tran completed her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communications in Vietnam. Having identified herself as a member of the Kinh majority and working with and for the rights of ethnic minority communities through non-profit developmental projects, her research interest lies in the relationship between ethnic minorities and majorities in Vietnam.

Igniting the Eighth Fire, Supporting Cultural Resurgence in the Arts; Indigenous Performance as Communication for Social Change 

Jody Bauche (she/her), Simon Fraser University

There are three questions that I am choosing to explore in my research for the social change project that I hope will inspire the public to understand the power of performance as a form of communication for Indigenous communities. My research project will explore themes of cultural resurgence, in the arts, by interviewing Indigenous artists in the greater Victoria area, who are currently engaged with live performances as a means of cultural expression. This research project was initially inspired by the collaborative idea of creating an Indigenous-led and owned performing arts space in downtown Victoria. The idea of Indigenous sovereign cultural production, within the arts, has been well documented by Indigenous scholars. The unique opportunity that we have with this project is to hear from the local Indigenous community, who are doing the work of cultural resurgence through performance-based art. This presentation will highlight the journey of how this research project was generated, and how it will be communicated as social change. 

PRESENTER BIO

Jody Bauche (she/her)  Jody identifies as Métis on her mother’s side and Belgian on her father’s side. She is currently completing her second year of graduate school in Communication at SFU, a Master of Arts in Social Change. Jody is a co-founder and lead administrator for the Culture Den Society, an Indigenous-led non-profit that was created to produce multicultural, multigenerational, and transformative performance art. The goal of her project thesis will be to demonstrate the importance of Indigenous sovereignty in the arts and how performance is a form of communication for Indigenous communities. Prior to beginning her graduate studies at SFU, Jody was a social worker with the BC government. She held various jobs that were related to advancing social change for Indigenous communities. This included leading investigations related to the critical injury and death of children and youth in care of the government. Jody’s artistic interests include dance and dramaturgy. Jody recently spent a weeklong intensive with the National Art Centre of Canada, learning about their administrative functioning.

Official Bilingualism and Linguistic Hegemony: The Development of the Translation and Interpreting Sector in Canada

Monika Pitonak (she/her), University of Alberta

Translation and interpreting, as well as translator and interpreter training and education, make up an important segment of the Canadian “knowledge work” sector, and play a key role in a variety of different communications, including those between the government and its constituents. In my presentation, I will trace the factors that have contributed to the structuration of Canada’s translation and interpreting industry, focusing especially on matters of class, race, social movement, and hegemony. This analysis will begin by developing a historical understanding of the basis of the translation and interpreting industry through a discussion of the establishment of official bilingual policy and language legislation, which took place primarily in the 1960s and 1970s as a response to Québecois social movements. Issues of class development in Québec, social movement based on linguistic identity, and hegemonic views of nationhood and national foundations will be considered. The second part of this analysis will consider contemporary realities that have caused shifts in both the production and training/education aspects of the translation and interpreting sector, with a particular focus on globalization and immigration. Most notable among the factors contributing to contemporary shifts are the class identity of immigrants and hegemonic beliefs surrounding the roles of certain races/ethnicities/nationalities. Overall, this analysis will conclude that non-official languages have historically and still currently occupy an underprivileged position in the Canadian translation and interpreting sector and avow the contemporary need to acknowledge and elevate the roles and status of non-official languages, including immigrant and indigenous languages.

PRESENTER BIO

Monika Pitonak (she/her) is an M.A. student at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, where she previously obtained a B.A. (Honours) in Language Studies. Her current thesis research involves an exploration of the training activities being carried out at provincial professional translator and interpreter associations, and relates to issues surrounding the translation and interpreting of non-official immigrant languages and relationships between postsecondary education and members of the translation and interpreting sector in Canada.  

Room 1420-1430, Harbour Centre

Panel Chair: Nastaran Saremy

The Impact of Political, Economic, and Cultural Agendas on Egyptian-Foreign Film Co-Productions

Joseph Methuselah (he/him), Simon Fraser University

This research explores the social, political, and economic factors that affect foreign co-production of Egyptian films particularly focusing on the film festival circuits that serve as primary sources of funding for Egyptian-foreign co-productions. My objective is to create a broader horizon for discussion and establish a more balanced horizontal relationship, as opposed to a hierarchical vertcial one. The current environment of cultural production is one which has been exposed to stereotypes and distorted views of the “Other” and “Self” and Western hegemony over the East has been exposed. In doing this research-based project, I seek to move beyond this point of conflict and misunderstanding and open a space for discussion in order to achieve mutual benefits and coexistence, rather than maintain the Orientalist view that Edward Said identified and that many others have since recognized. Egyptian filmmakers, many of whom are immensely talented and capable of making deeply engaging films, are the subject of this research-based project. As a professional filmmaker myself, I hope to combine my role, experience, knowledge, and contacts in the industry to produce a research-driven project.  I am keen to critically examine the political economy and institutional dynamics inherent in the film festival circuits that serve as primary sources of funding for Egyptian-foreign co-productions.  In a manner that responds to the current media environment and showcases the findings in a fashion that allows for greater public engagement with the subject matter. By engaging with the substantial contributions of Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Roy Ames, Viola Shafik, and Rasha Allam about Egyptian, Arab, and North African cinema against the backdrops of colonial connections, state nationalism, and transnationalism, I hope to contribute to the discussion by offering insight from industry insiders about these phenomena and their impact on film production. In this respect, true decolonization can perhaps take place in the surprising domain of the film festival circuit as it intersects with a political-economic critique of the industry through the fusion of artistic expression and activist engagement. My objective is to think about different ways that local talent can be supported outside of the parameters of a colonial system of patronage, hegemonic structures, and global film production and their impact on the Egyptian cinematic landscape.  

PRESENTER BIO

Joseph Methuselah, an Egyptian filmmaker born in Minia, Egypt, holds a degree in Zoology but pursued his passion for film through studies in Film Editing at the Higher Cinema Institute in Cairo. His acclaimed short film ""Feathers 2021," received recognition at prestigious festivals. As a graduate student at SFU in the communication program, his research focuses on the social, political, and economic factors affecting foreign co-productions of Egyptian films, particularly within film festival circuits. Joseph aims to challenge stereotypes, foster mutual understanding, and contribute to the decolonization of the Egyptian cinematic landscape by By exploring alternative means of supporting local talent outside colonial systems of patronage and hegemonic structures, Joseph aims to contribute to the decolonization of the Egyptian cinematic landscape. Through the fusion of artistic expression

Chinese Malaysians, State Violence and Silencing: Questions of Redress and Healing in Eddie Wong’s AI Film, “Portrait of the Jungle People”

Loh Ann Yie Andrea (she/her), Simon Fraser University

This presentation explores the AI-generated short film "Portrait of the Jungle People" (2022) by Malaysian artist Eddie Wong, which delves into the Malayan Emergency's memories—a conflict that saw thousands dead, half a million forcibly resettled, and spawned authoritarian practices still evident in today's postcolonial capitalist state. The film in this presentation is about focusing on Wong's quest to uncover his grandfather's story—a communist guerrilla known as a 'jungle person' or sanba-lou in Cantonese, who presumably perished fighting British colonial forces. In the midst of this silence and the community’s inability to properly mourn their losses, this film explores Wong’s family history, and aims to honour what could not be traced or mapped by his family through a series of fragmented narratives and AI-generated visuals made with language processing models to generate images from text.  This research maps out Chinese Malaysians’ expressions of unspeakable grief, efforts from survivor generations to carry out the act of bearing witness for their community, and identifies their contributions to community efforts to heal through developing their own cinematic genre. It highlights the significance of independent films by the Chinese Malaysian community in offering insights into the processes of healing, mourning, and achieving intergenerational closure through artistic expression.

PRESENTER BIO

Loh Ann Yie Andrea is a MA in Communications student at Simon Fraser University, where she delves into the nuanced realms of film, memory, and trauma within the Chinese Malaysian community. Of Chinese Malaysian descent herself, Andrea's research is not just academic; it's a personal exploration of her heritage and the broader sociopolitical landscape of Malaysia. Andrea's work aims to reveal and articulate the experiences of grief, resilience, and identity among Chinese Malaysians, merging scholarly inquiry with the broader goals of community healing and remembrance.

Room 1505, CIBC Lecture Room at Harbour Centre

Panel Chair: Kayla Hillstob

All Politics is Local: How the Far-Right Media Leveraged Populist Sentiments to Antagonize Local Public Health Officials Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic

Morgran Krakow (she/her), Simon Fraser University

The following research analyzes far-right harassment of American local public health officials during the COVID-19 pandemic. By looking specifically at the nexus of disinformation, populism, and the pandemic, this research demonstrates the proliferation of right-wing populist language and tropes leveraged to antagonize these local health officials. This research takes up a micro, local angle, investigating how a national figure in the right-wing populist movement — former United States president Donald Trump — is connected to the rest of the movement through a network of right-wing media and groups. Using discourse and content analyses to scrutinize coverage of a local public health official in Alaska on a far-right blog, this paper argues that disinformation repeated by Trump can manifest locally and have real-world consequences for the people in these important governmental positions. This research uses a combined analytical framework from the scholarship in Howard Tumber and Silvio Waisbord’s extensive volume on Media, Disinformation, and Populism (2021). The scholars posit that research on the three phenomena is lacking in the current scholarship and that more is needed. The research and analysis presented in this paper take up that task, adding one more crucial element: science, and specifically, scientific experts. In turn, this paper argues that far-right alternative media and movements in the United States played on populist tropes and sentiments to harass and antagonize American public health officials during the COVID-19 pandemic via disinformation. 

PRESENTER BIO

Morgan Krakow is a  journalist and researcher. She is currently a Fulbright grantee pursuing a Master’s degree at the Simon Fraser University School of Communications, where she researches intersections of local news, alternative futures, climate change, and community resilience.  Before her graduate studies, Krakow worked as a local journalist in Anchorage, Alaska, and as an intern at The Washington Post. Her work, alongside her teammates at The Post, was recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Manufacturing Consent to a Pandemic’s 'End': The Biopolitics of 'Immunity' and Long COVID

Kayli Jamieson (she/her), Simon Fraser University

It has been more than four years of SARS-CoV-2’s circulation throughout the globe, with the virus at its second-highest transmission levels ever in January 2024, yet there is a lack of urgency from public health institutions and the public at-large to address the risk. Although deaths and disability continue to rise amid warnings from the World Health Organization of the ongoing pandemic, there remains extremely limited public health guidance and societal protections. Using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, this work analyzes the socio-political relations present in British Columbia’s public health and Canadian media outlets in their construction of a hegemonic normalization of a ‘back to normal’ that ‘others’ populations deemed as vulnerable. Drawing on Foucault’s work on biopolitics, Butler’s precarity, and Thrasher’s ‘viral underclass’, this work will also outline the intersections of ableism, social disparities, and stigma being faced by Long COVID patients and disability communities, as well as parallels to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Why are some groups deserving of access to life and others not? Why does Long COVID’s prevalence threaten the acceptance of a ‘post-pandemic’ narrative sustaining the neoliberal agenda? The troubling resilience of eugenic ideology that categorizes specific populations into ‘acceptable losses’ or ‘disposables’ must be confronted by labour, anti-racist, feminist, and queer movements alike. This proposal forms the groundwork for a developing Master’s Thesis and will also draw upon recent study findings by the author for their affiliated institution.

PRESENTER BIO

Kayli Jamieson is a Master’s student in SFU’s School of Communication with research interests in public health policy, news media analysis, and Long COVID. Her Honours BA was also in Communication at SFU. Since 2023 she has been a research assistant at the Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics, & Society (PIPPS) on the Long COVID in BC project, and is a member of Long COVID Web’s Canadian network of researchers. She is a longhauler herself since December 2021 and works on Long COVID recognition, advocacy, and science communication. 

The Glorious AgriSolar Future of our Suburbs

Omri Haven (he/him), Simon Fraser University

My paper concerns the emerging technology of agrivoltaics which describes solar panel systems that are integrated with agricultural production to create mutually beneficial efficiencies. I will convey the potential for monumental cultural shifts that will take place through the installation of agrivoltaic systems in peri-urban areas. 

The suburbs have long been seen by ecologists as the bane of our goal to create a post-carbon future. However their proximity to large populations coupled with their lack of relative density creates huge potentials for low-impact industrial-agricultural installations such as Agrivoltaics. How might the culture of the suburbs and thus the socio-political climate of North America be affected by a transition to peri-urban agrivoltaic installations?

I will be employing a literature review from other jurisdictions in which agrivoltaics has been practised as well as research interviews with developers of this technology, farmers and community members who have been exposed to agrivoltaic systems in other jurisdictions. I will also be analysing implementation data from other jurisdictions in order to compare and contrast with BC. Finally, I will be directing questions to government officials, academics, community leaders and policy experts to better understand the potential for this social technology within our current context here in BC.

I expect this research to yield practical and relevant information regarding the potential for agrivoltaics to recreate our notion of the suburbs and help move scholars towards a better understanding of how we can use this technology to contribute to a more socially integrative, economically distributive and ecologically just transition.

PRESENTER BIO

Omri has been working in the fields of Food Security, Food Sovereignty and community building for over a decade and he is excited to be pursuing an M.A project concerning the emerging field of Agrivoltaics, where solar panels are integrated into farming systems to create holistic and complex opportunities for ecological and economic healing. He enjoys being in nature and connecting with people who like to make jokes.