FEMINIST LEGAL STUDIES QUEEN's
International Women's Day Conference:
Gender, Wellbeing, and the Politics of Imagination:
Law, Culture, Compassion
Robert Sutherland Hall (Policy Studies Building)
138 Union Street, Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, Feb. 27-28, 2016
According to the Canadian Index of Wellbeing report (CIW, 2011), even
though economic growth between 1994 and 2008 was significant, "increases
in the wellbeing of Canadians were not nearly comparable." The Index
also found that "societies with greater inequality ... have worse health
and wellbeing outcomes." Although countries like Canada have
responsibility for one of the largest shares of global biocapacity, they
tolerate persistent levels of food insecurity, environmental
contamination, and poverty. The CIW Provincial Report On Wellbeing, How
are Ontarians Really Doing? (2014), found that Ontarians have even lower
levels of wellbeing than in the rest of Canada.
Improved wellbeing and better futures are political, cultural,
sociological, and economic issues as well as legal issues. Law is not
the only site of political struggle. Imagining better futures is a
collective social process. Institutional transformation, law reform, and
improved wellbeing demand moving toward moral imaginations focused on
equality, diversity, and participatory governance.
Over twenty years ago, the Beijing Platform for Action was adopted at
the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women to secure active
state engagement in bringing all laws, policies, and practices into
compliance with the Convention on the Eradication of Discrimination
against Women, to which Canada is signatory. Since then, the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has also
come to advocate wellbeing policies. In order to accelerate this
discussion, the 2016 FLSQ International Women's Day conference will
focus on how eliminating gender and intersecting discriminations will
benefit all members of society.
FLSQ invites academic and practicing lawyers, policy analysts,
interdisciplinary experts, and students in law and other disciplines,
community members, and those involved in research and governance to
submit proposals to examine the personal, political, societal,
structural, institutional, and environmental factors that shape human
experiences and material living conditions, and that can promote all
aspects of individual, societal, and ecological wellbeing. This includes
work on collaborative and community-based research methods and their
potential for mobilization, community service, collective action;
pedagogical, curricular, professional, and institutional innovations;
and developing mindful client and community-oriented practices for law
students as social advocates, better personal and professional
management, and institutional transformation, including, for example,
work including --
* First Nations, Inuit, and Metis women, and indigenous women in
other regions
* Living standards, gender inequality, health, and the welfare state
* Concepts and measures of equality and wellbeing (epistemologies,
methods, indicators)
* Fiscal systems and policy alternatives, including public services
and accountability
* Regulatory governance, self-governance, and political agency
* Violence against women
* Resource management and nonrenewable resource extraction
* Traditional economies and reciprocal relationships
* Environmental issues, including human and ecological degradation,
settlements, sustainable practices, chemical exposure, and human health
* Thriving and justice as fundamental human rights
* Corporate governance
* Science, nation building, and militarization
* Food security, shelter, and wellbeing in Canada, including in
reserve communities
* State roles in assisted reproduction and suicide
* Maternal mortality and reproductive rights
* Mental health and legal practice
* Education, law, love, culture, compassion, material existence, and
quality of life
* Community vitality, work, and leisure
* Mindful practice, adjudication, and civil society
Critical perspectives grounded in law or policy reform, law and society,
empirical, comparative, or interdisciplinary approaches involving
Aboriginal studies, sociology, domestic or international law, fiscal
policy, public policy, political studies, cultural studies, social
anthropology, history, economics, philosophy, women's/gender studies,
and/or human rights are sought.
Submitting paper proposals:
If you are interested in presenting a paper or organizing a panel on a
specific issue, please email a short outline of your proposal (a
paragraph in length) to Kathleen Lahey (kal2@queensu.ca) and Bita Amani amanib@queensu.ca) and copy Melissa Howlett (Melissa.Howlett@queensu.ca). Proposals may be submitted until December 11, 2015. Participation will be confirmed in January 2016. When submitting proposals, please use this subject line: FLSQ2016 abstract.
When submitting a paper or panel proposal, please indicate whether you
would be able to obtain institutional support to attend, or whether you
could attend only if you receive funding from Feminist Legal Studies
Queen's.
Registration, accommodation, and childcare:
Attendance without presenting a paper is welcome. Contact the organizers
to indicate interest and obtain registration information. Some funding
is available to assist students to attend. Registration will open on
January 15. Information on accommodation will be provided on request.
Anyone wanting childcare should mention this request so appropriate
arrangements can be made.
For further information please contact:
Prof. Kathleen Lahey (kal2@queensu.ca) and Prof. Bita Amani,
(amanib@queensu.ca),
Co-Directors, Feminist Legal Studies Queen's
Faculty of Law,
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario
