Corey, Yancey and Anneliese contribute with two sessions at the Symposium. For bio and info please scroll down.
Here is the first abstract (and here is the second).
CMW as a social justice maneuverer: Creating Change for LGBTQ2S+ communities
Storytelling is central to social justice movements, generating actual transformation of oppression and injustice. We see Collective Memory Work as a methodological extension of those efforts, with a specific aim of community-building during the generation, analysis, witnessing, and mobilization of our diverse, multiple, privileged and painful stories. In this session we will discuss the nuances of two projects:
Georgia Safe Schools Coalition
Despite the ethical and legal duty to keep students who are LGBTQ safe, school personnel and youth workers have made few strides in doing so. This lack of progress is not due to a lack of studies showing the need to reduce LGBTQ-bullying, but the insidious nature of heterosexism and homophobia within those spaces. Our project engaged approximately 20 youth over their positive and negative memories of school, which resulted in the creation of The Georgia Safe Schools Coalition (GSSC). GSSC facilitated the creation of documentary films, curriculum, trainings, policy advocacy, and more. This year the organization celebrated 10 years.
Waterloo Region Trans Health Imitative
Previous research on the health of trans Canadians has revealed that the trans community is consistently underserved in health care settings—citing barriers such as lacking knowledgeable care providers, refusal of access to health care, and/or care provider refusal to approve hormone therapy and/or surgeries. However, we are beginning to see a shift in provincial educational and health care policy that prioritizes supporting health care providers in creating trans-inclusive primary care. In line with this shift, we utilize collective memory work to engage 10-12 trans identified students in an examination of their individual health experiences; in order to identify ways to improve health practices on campus and within Waterloo Region. The results informed the creation and content for a two-day workshop aimed at providing formal trans-specific education for health practitioners in the Waterloo Region.
Bio – Corey Johnson
Dr. Corey W. Johnson is a Professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo. He teaches courses on inclusive recreation, social justice, gender and sexuality, qualitative research methods, and the philosophy of science.
Dr. Johnson’s theorizing and qualitative inquiry focuses its attention on the power relations between dominant (white, male, heterosexual, etc.) and non-dominant populations in the cultural contexts of leisure. This examination provides important insight into both the privileging and discriminatory practices that occur in contemporary leisure settings. He sees this research as complimentary to both his classroom instruction and his professional service, and he uses advocacy, activism, civic-engagement, service-learning and community partnerships to create unique learning opportunities for individuals and institutions.
His research has been published in journals like the Journal of Leisure Research, Leisure Sciences, The Journal of Homosexuality and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education just to name a few. He has co-written the seminal texts Fostering Social Justice through Qualitative Research: A methodological guide, Collective Memory Work: Learning with and from Lived Experience and co-edited Digital Dilemmas: Transforming gender identities and power relations in everyday lives, Contemporary Issues in Leisure Sciences and Promiscuious Perspectives: Sex and Leisure. He has received substantial financial support in his efforts to create safer environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in institutional settings such as camps, secondary schools, universities and detention centers, Co-producing two documentaries, “be there for me”: collective memories of LGBTQ youth in high school, and “We exist”: collective memories of transgender, queer and questioning youth; distributing the films with a resource binder to +1000 schools in the state of Georgia. He was selected as one of the top ten educators (P-16) in Georgia working for equality by the Georgia LGBT Pride Committee and in 2012 he received the UGA President’s MLK Jr. Achieving the Dream award for his efforts. He has also recently secured Canadian Government (SSHRC) and corporate partnership (Bumble) funding for his work studying geo-social networking applications (also known as hook-up apps).
Attempting to practice what he preaches, his own leisure includes traveling abroad with his husband Yancey, and spending time with his Frenchie Sedgwick.