MA Students

Emmanuelle Andrews is a Master’s student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, from England (though prides herself less on being British and more on her Grenadan and Seychelloise roots). She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is currently researching the way black bodies in the UK are utilised by the state, reading particularly the moment after the so-called London Riots in 2011 when Notting Hill Carnival was threatened to be cancelled as a racialised threat that continues to the present in rhetoric that sees carnival reported for its crimes and in actions that contribute to the global, violent othering of blackness. As such, she is interested in black ontology, notions of security, cultural difference and British (white) self-preservation. Recently dipping her toes into the arena of film-making, Emmanuelle has been embracing her creative side, and she also enjoys embroidery, writing poetry and dance.

Iman is an MA student and artist from Yemen. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Law and Society from UBC. Her research examines the intertwining of legal history and gender relations in southern Yemen through an investigation of shifts in Family Law. Complementing her research, Iman’s art touches upon topics of social justice and gender within Yemeni society and the Middle East.

Jenn Clark is a first year MA student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. Her primary research interests include: the distinct differences between sexual orientation and gender; homophobic humor and its implications; and patriarchal sex practices. Other research interests include: gender, sexual orientation, and stereotyping. In her spare time, Jenn is working hard to provide quantitative evidence toward the female seduction myth.

Pedro Daher is a Master’s student in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a Postgraduate degree in Literature, Art, and Contemporary Thought, both from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil. His work seeks to rethink and redeploy difference, releasing it from the shackles of the projects of cultural and racial difference from the 19th and 20th-centuries and also 20th-century reworkings of the concept, as the famous Deleuzian solution of difference in itself. To do so, he is interested in performing a sort of genealogical work of reading the texts that wrote the Modern text itself to understand how subaltern populations were written as subaltern and forever placed outside of Universality, allowing them to suffer violence without any sort of ethical crisis ensuing from it. Since he is Brazilian, he is interested in understanding how Western metaphysics deployed itself in Brazil. This brings us back to difference and why it is important to rethink it: in order to change how we write, that is, to arrive at a moment wherein writing does not require the original violence explained by Derrida, he is convinced that a complete new sociality must be created, a sociality that writes itself from without the Modern text while inhabiting it simply to fully escape it.

Aidan Davis is a Master’s student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, from Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. She is a poet, advocate, and aspiring fantasy writer. Her interests include how those marked other are broken but not fragile, how to love, the meaning of loving, and the joy of the oppressed. Using a black feminist/womanist lens, her honors thesis focused on her personal negotiations of self-love, black love, and their political intersections with colourism and black joy in the U.S. Her current research scope is the policing of black women and the ways in which their humanity is marked “debatable.” She is driven by what makes her feel lost. Additionally, she claims to love coffee but secretly just likes cream and sugar and she loves/hates young adult fiction.

Serah Gazali joined the GRSJ institute M.A. program in the fall of 2013. Her studies are focused on issues affecting the process of gender mobility and migration. She has been involved with refugees cases since 2008, both in the Mexican Aid Committee for Refugees and the Immigrant Services Society of British Columbia where she works now as the assigned resettlement counselor for the Arabic and Spanish speaking communities. Her current research scope is concerned with gender roles’ reconstruction and negotiation strategies among Iraqi women who are resettled to Metro Vancouver.

Leah Grantham is an activist and academic interested in medicalization, biopower, nationalism, gender, sexuality, and colonialism.

I hold a BA in Modern Languages (Spanish and Italian) from the University of Birmingham in the UK and have been living in Japan for the past few years. The gender inequality I explored during undergrad and experienced first hand in the Uk, Spain, Italy and Japan is what motivates me to continue my academic career. My interests are gender and law, sexualisation and sexual violence, transnational feminist networks and cultural difference.

As a Desi-American from Cleveland, One of the most frequent reactions to my story I hear is that people “like me” could not possibly come to exist. That is, they mean, someone “like me” must be Coastal, and White. I seek to challenge the narratives of people “like me” in showing that places and peoples considered “fly-over territory” do indeed have their own narratives.

Hayley Leveque is a first year Master’s student at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology (with distinction) from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Her current research project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), intends to move away from essentialist and negative psychological understandings of young adult sexual behaviour through troubling discourses connecting casual sex behaviour to risk-taking behaviour.

Xianghui Li is an MA student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. She holds a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in English Language and Literature. She was an ESL teacher and did research on pedagogy and stylistics. Her current research interest is feminism, migration and violence.

Tessa MacIntyre is a Masters Students in the Gender, Race, and Social Justice Institute. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production and Studies from the University of Regina. While completing her undergraduate program, Tessa developed a strong interest in documentary filmmaking, and looks to filmmakers such as Sarah Polley, Errol Morris, and Bonni Cohen as influences.

Lyra McKee is a second year Master’s student who grew up in Texas. She is a white settler whose research interests include transgender studies, critical race theory, political philosophy, queer theory, and qualitative geography. She also adores the performing arts and enjoys singing, dancing, and acting. While she is considering applying for law school and/or PhD programs in the future, Lyra eagerly looks forward to taking some time away from academia after graduating from GRSJ.

Travelling since the tender age of 6 months, I have always had an interest in the world and the people in it. My love of language led me to ESL, but my interest in social issues, media and activism led me to The Social Justice Institute. It is my hope to ‘put my money where my mouth is’ and learn what needs to be done, and the best way to do it.

Jade Pollard-Crowe has travelled here from the UK to start her Masters at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. She was born in Cambridge although has strong cultural ties to her Jamaican ancestry.

Her art practice challenges societies expectations of her sex and racial minority and questions unbroken stereotypes. Jade examines the portrayal of Black bodies in popular culture and critiques these representations through a queer lens, moving between masculine and feminine energies on stage she aims to offer audiences the opportunity to consider the celebration of gender fluidity. Jade has been influenced by critical race theory, queer theory and black feminist theory and is extremely excited to be furthering her knowledge, gaining new understanding and exploring new avenues whilst studying in this institute.

Khaldah Salih is a Master’s student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. She is from Sudan and grew up largely in the Diaspora. She is interested in humanitarian work, specifically in Sudan and in Africa generally, while also emphasizing and debating its ethics and boundaries. Khaldah to contribute to studies and literature on oppression in Sudan, noting the lack of diversity in knowledge that is available and accessible. Her research is focused on NGOs and political activism in Sudan, exploring the ways in which government policy and international donor funding have impacted the political landscape through NGOs. Broadly, Khaldah is interested in all issues related to Africa and the Middle East and specifically the role of changing global economies and politics on individuals and communities.

Romina Tantalean is a Master’s student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice from Peru. Her academic background includes a degree in Law with specialization studies in Public Management. She has professional experience of more than five years in Human Rights, Gender and Development fields in a wide range of institutions.

Sejin Um is an MA student at the Social Justice Institute who is interested in social inequality based on gender, race and class; work and family; and migration. She holds a BA in International Studies and Law and Public Administration from Korea University.

As a first year MA student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, I would like to further investigate what it means to be of mixed race in Canada and how to navigate the space in-between cultures. I feel it would be of benefit to develop research on this theme in relation to the theory of the Third Space. As I have previously completed a BFA, I would also like to explore how I can use my art practice as a means of communication and “a way of knowing” in relation to these themes.

Sophie Zimmer is a first year Master’s student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Sophie recently graduated from The Boston Conservatory at Berklee in Boston, MA where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance Performance. While completing her BFA, Sophie discovered an interest in the intersections of the performing body, gender-politics, and accessibility in regards to the discrepancies of funding and grant dispersal in the field of performance. Since becoming a student at the Social Justice Institute, Sophie has been exposed to new areas of research interest and hopes to further explore the influences of globalization, transnational corporations, and the flow of capital on the notions of human rights and international law.