This two-day conference will bring together Indigenous scholars and non-Indigenous scholars from across Canada, the USA, the UK, Uganda, Finland, and Australia to engage in presentations and discussions of cutting-edge research related to the themes of Indigenous resurgence and resistance; decolonization; reconciliation; and transformation of settler colonialism, as well as other closely related topics. The conference is funded by the McGill Indigenous Studies and Community Engagement Initiative, the Yan P. Lin Centre for the Study of Freedom and Global Orders in the Ancient and Modern Worlds (Research Group on Global Justice and Research Group on Constitutional Studies), and the Centre de Recherche en Éthique.
The conference will also involve scholars in the McGill and Montréal communities, including post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduate students, as well as the broader public. We are committed to advertising this event to relevant interested parties and community partners, and to involve local experts in some roles during the conference.
The keynote lecture will take place 4:00-5:30 pm, May 26, 2022, in Leacock 232, by Mahmood Mamdani, ‘Reflections on Settler Colonialism in North America and Africa.’
For more information, and to register (free, for planning purposes), please see the attached poster, or this website:
The conference is generously funded by the McGill Indigenous Studies and Community Engagement Initiative, the Yan P. Lin Centre’s Research Groups on Global Justice (RGGJ), and on Constitutional Studies (RGCS), as well as the Centre de Recherche en Éthique ( CRÉ), and the Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire en Philosophie Politique (GRIPP).
Schedule for May 26 and 27, 2022
Day 1 |
8:30-9:00 Welcome by organizers |
9:00-10:30 Panel 1 Chair: Yann Allard-Tremblay Kelly Aguirre, Decolonization is Also Metaphorical: Indigenous Feminist and Queer Storywork Matters Rauna Kuokkanen, Transcending Settler Colonialism through Decolonizing and Gendering Climate Governance |
10:30-11:00 Coffee/tea break |
11:00-12:30 Panel 2 Chair: Kelly Gordon Adam J Baker & Emma Battell Lowman, Corduroy Roads: Material Landscapes of Social Transformation Tyler Caux-Loohuizen, Walking is Not (Just) a Metaphor: Relational Diplomacy Through Connection in Motion |
12:30-1:30 Lunch break |
1:30-3:00 Panel 3 Chair: Megan Bradley Catherine Lu, Ending Wars, Ending Structural Violence Mohamed Sesay, On the limits of (neo)liberal peacebuilding in postcolonial Africa: Historical structural injustices in ‘postconflict’ Sierra Leone |
3:00-4:00 pm Coffee/tea break – time in the sun break |
4:00-5:30 Keynote Lecture Chair: Catherine Lu Mahmood Mamdani, Reflections on Settler Colonialism in North America and Africa |
5:30-6:30 pm Reception |
Day 2 |
9:00-9:30 Welcome |
9:30-11:45 Panel 4 Chair: Ryoa Chung Yann Allard-Tremblay, Consolation and Reconciliation: a Path from Whiteness to Humanity Lorenzo Veracini, Relations Beyond Recognition Olivier Samson, The repositioning of Canadian Settlers in response to contemporary indigenous struggles |
11:45-1:00 Lunch break and Student Poster session: Alexia Leclerc Elyssa Khoury Grey Lorbetskie Jaymes MacKinnon Maeve Botham Robert Spadidakis |
1:00-2:30 Panel 5 Chair: Hasana Sharp Adam Dahl, Settler Colonialism and Cultural Pluralism: The Limits of Transnational Citizenship Didier Zúñiga, Progress, technology, nature: Life and Death in the Valley of Mexico |
2:30-3:00 pm Coffee/tea break |
3:00-4:30 Panel 6 Chair: Makonen Bondoc Talia Holy, No One Is Illegal on Stolen Land! Migrant Rights in Settler Colonial States Kelsey Brady, There Are No Such Things as Territorial Rights |
4:30-5:30 Break-out group discussions 5:30-6:00 Public Roundtable following the break-out groups on Transcending Settler Colonialism |

À l’occasion des midis de l’éthique du CRÉ, Pablo Gilabert offrira une présentation intitulée « Self-Esteem and Social Competition”.
Pour y participer par Zoom, c’est ici.
Résumé
This paper explores the relations between self-esteem and social competition. Self-esteem is a very important good and social competition is a widespread phenomenon. They are commonly linked, as people often seek self-esteem through success in competition. Although competition in fact generates valuable consequences and can to some extent foster self-esteem, empirical research suggests that competition has a strong tendency to undermine self-esteem. To be sure, competition is not the source of all problematic deficits in self-esteem, and it can arise for goods other than self-esteem. But the relation between competition and access to self-esteem is still significant, and it is worth asking how we might foster a desirable distribution of the latter in the face of difficulties created by the former. That is the question addressed in this paper. I identify nine mechanisms that support individuals’ self-esteem and impose limits on competition. I offer justifications of these mechanisms through prudential and moral arguments that apply to both interpersonal and sociopolitical contexts. I focus, in particular, on the challenges faced by people in their practices of work. The approach I propose neither recommends self-denial nor the uncritical celebration of the rat race.

Zoey Lavallee offrira une présentation intitulée « Contextualizing Agency and Self-Control in Addiction » dans le cadre des midis de l’éthique du CRÉ.
Pour y participer par Zoom, c’est ici.

Atelier de discussion du GRIN/CRÉ autour du thème « Incommensurability and Hardness », et à l’occasion duquel Chrisoula Andreou nous présente ses travaux.
Pour y participer par Zoom, c’est ici.

The aim of the Social Justice Theory Workshop is to enable sustained exploration in the theory of social justice. It addresses topics such as the articulation of ideals and principles of economic, political, gender, race, environmental, and cultural justice; the critique of inequality, domination, exploitation, and alienation; and the illumination of political institutions, practices and processes of transformation that might foster progressive change.
Workshop papers will be pre-circulated, and participation implies a commitment to reading the papers in advance.
Owing to the global pandemic, this year’s workshop will be held online via Zoom. If you would like to participate, please send your name to Christiane Bailey (sjc@concordia.ca) by 02 July 2021.
This year’s workshop is organised by Pablo Gilabert and Peter Dietsch, in association with the Social Justice Centre (Concordia University) and Centre de Recherche en Éthique (Université de Montréal).
Preliminary program
(All listed times are in EDT)
Time TBD | |
| Author: Thomas Christiano (University of Arizona) Paper: “Worker Participation and The Egalitarian Conception of Fair Market Exchange.”Commentator: Arash Abizadeh (McGill University) |
| Author: Peter Dietsch (University of Victoria) Paper: “It’s power, stupid! Or: why we need to treat the labour market more like politics.”Commentator: Patti Lenard (University of Ottawa). |
| Author: Pablo Gilabert (Concordia University) Paper: “Self-esteem and Social Competition.”Commentator: Daniel Weinstock (McGill University) |
| Author: Colin Macleod (University of Victoria) Paper: “The Demands of Justice.”Commentator: Andrée-Anne Cormier (York University) |
| Author: Suzanne Love (Georgia State University) Paper: “Freedom from the Market. »Commentator: Sylvie Loriaux (Université Laval) |
| Author: Ingrid Robeyns (Utrecht University) Paper: “What can egalitarian political philosophy learn from visions for a green egalitarian future (and vice versa)?”Commentator: Alexandre Gajevic Sayegh (Université Laval) |

As the high tide of Rawlsianism recedes, political theorists and philosophers are devoting renewed attention to a number of concepts that had been central to classical social theory but largely submerged during Rawls’s ascendance in political philosophy. New works on domination,social structures, and power have proliferated. In particular, the relational egalitarianism pioneered by Elizabeth Anderson and the neo-republicanism favoured by Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner have aspired to reorient the focus of political theory away from the distribution of goods and towards social structures constituted by hierarchical relations of social power amongst individuals, whether relations of oppression (emphasized by relational egalitarians) or of domination (the central issue for neo-republicans). Our international research workshop will highlight new and ongoing work that both analyzes these key concepts and undertakes substantive inquiry into the scope and dynamics of structures of social power and domination.
The workshop will occur over three days. Day one will be a workshop on Arash Abizadeh’s manuscript on Power, Subjection, and Democracy, elements of which have appeared in recent articles on social power. Day two will focus on William Clare Roberts’s book manuscript, A Radical Politics of Freedom: Domination, Ideology, and Self-Emancipation. On day three, participants will present papers on key questions and concepts; these will be short and pointed interventions clarifying the stakes of competing definitions of power and domination and the implications of focusing our political theorizing on these concepts.
Format
To maximize the quality of discussion, participants will have read the manuscripts and papers beforehand. The manuscript days each comprise three sessions dedicated to the manuscript. Each session will begin with brief critiques of chapters of the manuscript, followed by a brief response by the author and general discussion.
Presenters Arash Abizadeh (McGill), Amanda Greene (UC-SB), Alex Gourevitch (Brown), Mara Marin (Victoria), Sean Ingham (UC-SD), Niko Kolodny (UC-Berkeley), Will Roberts (McGill), William Paris (Toronto), Victoria Wills (George Washington).
An event co-organized by Arash Abizadeh (McGill U.) and Will Clare Roberts (McGill U.) for the Research Group on Constitutional Studies (RGCS) of the Yan P. Lin Centre, the Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique de Montréal (GRIPP), and the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ).
A call for registration will be forthcoming.

En mode hybride. Salle C-2059 du Carrefour des arts et des sciences du Pavillon Lionel-Groulx (UdeM) et sur Zoom.

Organisation : Charles Fontaine & Véronique Armstrong
Le Groupe de recherche en éthique environnementale et animale (GRÉEA) a le plaisir d’annoncer la tenue de la seconde édition de sa journée d’étude jeunes chercheuse·eurs ouverte aux étudiant·es et récent·es diplômé·es dont les travaux s’inscrivent dans au moins l’un des trois axes de recherche du GRÉEA :
- Les enjeux normatifs fondamentaux de l’éthique animale et/ou de l’éthique environnementale;
- Les questions pratiques qui entourent nos rapports aux animaux et à la nature;
- Les connaissances scientifiques et les considérations épistémologiques qui nous permettent de penser nos relations avec le non humain.
Présentation de la journée d’études
L’objectif de cette journée est de permettre aux membres étudiant·es du GRÉEA et aux jeunes chercheuse·eurs qui travaillent sur des problématiques relatives aux enjeux d’éthique environnementale ou animale de publiciser leurs travaux dans un espace propice à l’échange et à la discussion. La journée se déroulera cette année encore en distanciel (Montréal, EDT). Le temps alloué à chaque communication sera de 35 minutes, avec 20 à 25 minutes réservées à la présentation du travail de recherche et 15 à 10 minutes pour la discussion. Le programme complet de la journée d’études sera diffusé à la fin de l’été.
Mission du GRÉEA
Le GRÉEA est un groupe de recherche interuniversitaire et interdisciplinaire en éthique environnementale et animale, crée à la fin de l’année 2015 et associé (2016) au Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ).L’objectif du GRÉEA est de favoriser l’échange et la collaboration entre chercheuse·eurs diplômé·es (professeur·es d’université ou de CEGEP, post-doc, etc.) et étudiant·es de cycles supérieurs (maîtrise ou doctorat) qui travaillent en éthique environnementale, éthique animale ou sur des questions relatives à ces deux domaines de recherche, notamment à partir d’une perspective non-anthropocentrée. Le GRÉEA vise en outre à rendre plus visible et plus accessible la recherche actuelle, francophone et anglophone, en éthique environnementale et animale dans le monde universitaire et en dehors. Le GRÉEA s’engage finalement à réduire l’impact négatif de ses activités sur les animaux, les communautés écologiques et les écosystèmes lors de ses événements à travers différentes actions (réduction des déchets, nourriture végane et biologique, non-financement des voyages en avion et réduction des voyages longue distance, etc.). Le GRÉEA reconnaît que la majorité de ses activités a lieu sur les territoires autochtones non-cédés à Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal. Plus d’information : https://greea.ca/

Les membres du CRÉ sont heureux d’accueillir Stefan Gosepath (Freie Universität Berlin), qui nous offrira une présentation intitulée « What, if anything, is wrong with bequest? »
Résumé
This talk is concerned with the question of whether or not it is just that people inherit property. Should an owner, while alive, be entitled to transfer property holdings after their death to a person of their choosing? Is the right to posthumous transfer a part of the right to private property? In this talk, Gosepath defends the thesis that the common social practice of inheritance, embodied in law and institutions, is in fact pro tanto unjust, since it confers an unjust advantage on the beneficiary. To establish this thesis, Gosepath first considers the main arguments against inheritance from a justice perspective, then defends these positions against three of the main normative arguments offered in favor of inheritance: the right to property objection, the gift objection, and the value of the family objection.
Crédit photo: Nicolas Stelter.

Midi de l’éthique de Johannes Kniess (Newcastle University, UK).