We are delighted to welcome Dr. Jemima Pierre as the next Director of the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ).
Dr. Pierre’s appointment began on July 1, 2025 and is for a three-year term with the possibility of a two-year extension. To support Dr. Pierre as she transitions into her new role, the Institute has also appointed Dr. Pilar Riaño-Alcalá as Co-Director for a six month period (July 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025).
photo by Joe Howell
Dr. Jemima Pierre is Distinguished Faculty of Arts Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies in the Social Justice Institute (GRSJ). She is also a Research Associate at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS). Her research and teaching engages with Africa and the African diaspora across three broad areas of inquiry.
- The relationship of political economy to race, as articulated through capitalism, white supremacy, and imperialism
- Migration, transnationalism, and diaspora
- The ethics and politics of western knowledge production and disciplinary formation.
Pilar Riaño-Alcalá is a professor at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia and co-lead of the Transformative Memory International Network. Pilar is an anthropologist and interdisciplinary scholar and an ethnographer/labourer of memory work. Her research focuses on three broad themes.
- Witnessing and the lived experiences of violence in the afterlives of political violence, war and genocide
- Landscapes and practices of memory and social repairing
- Ecologies of absence and presence in memory work. She is particularly interested in the politics of knowledge and epistemic justice, using relational methodologies that integrate different forms of emplaced and creative knowing, oral history, sound memory, and social practice art.
The Institute wishes to extend a heartfelt and huge thank you to Dr. Nora Angeles for her outstanding leadership and tireless contributions to GRSJ during her term as Director these past three years.
