Events

From Myth to Malice: Affective and Political Consequences of False Claims to Indigeneity

In this talk, Rowland will interrogate the phenomenon of false Indigenous identity claims and their corrosive effects on Indigenous communities. Drawing on personal experience, historical precedents, and critical Indigenous scholarship, he situates these practices within the broader logic of settler colonialism and its drive toward self-indigenization. In particular, he will focus on the drive to consume and assume historical Indigenous suffering in the effort to cohere false claims.

Obstructed Labour: A Century of (In)action on Maternal Mortality in Canada

Canada's official maternal mortality statistics are incomplete to the extent that the World Health Organization applies an amplifier of 60%. This problem has been known for at least 100 years with no lasting progress to address it at a national level. Through the lens of reproductive justice, this presentation chronicles the historical trajectory and interrogates the public policy failure to prioritize the critical issue of maternal mortality.

Lawless: Abortion under Complete Decriminalization

Canada is the only country with complete decriminalization of abortion: no gestational duration limitations, no parental consent obligations, and no waiting periods. In recent years, other countries (New Zealand, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico) have made strides toward this, while the United States has notoriously lost ground. Amidst the tumult, nurse and scholar Martha Paynter uses historical context and contemporary issues to explain why experts advocate against laws governing abortion.

Gender, Peace, and Power Sharing

Dr. McCulloch will be speaking on her upcoming book Gender, Peace, and Power-Sharing (University of Toronto Press, June 2026), coauthored with Siobhan Byrne (University of Alberta). The book explores how power-sharing and the women, peace, and security agenda intersect in peacebuilding practices. It offers a feminist “alternative telling” that captures the tensions and potential of these frameworks

Anna Drake will be speaking on a new approach to deliberative consociationalism. She combines critical work on structural injustice and deliberative democracy with intersectional feminist interventions into power-sharing. Drawing from the radical analysis in the Combahee River Collective statement (1977) and their argument that intersectional identity is a source of knowledge and the impetus for much-needed structural change, she argues post-conflict societies should focus not on power-sharing, but on a transformation of power.

Online MS Teams Link: Scholar Spotlight: Anna Drake | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams

Dr. Do will be speaking on her book, Process as Power, published at UBC Press. The book examines how Indigenous consultation is implemented in B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Process. Drawing on analyses of judicial decisions, environmental assessment reports, and interviews, it demonstrates how the process of Indigenous consultation is a key site where state legitimacy is contested.

Join us in the lobby of Dana Porter Library for a showcase of ongoing graduate student political science research. This poster session highlights emerging scholarship from the PSCI 601 class (Research and Writing in Political Science) and leverages the Library as a hub for research connections, interdisciplinary dialogue, and knowledge mobilization. All members of the academic community—undergraduates, graduate students, staff, and faculty are invited to engage with the presenters and learn about current political science inquiry.

In this talk, Dr. Macfarlane will speak on to the relationship between specific governments and the judiciary. Extending a previous study of the records of the Mulroney, Chrétien, and Harper governments before the Supreme Court of Canada, and applying a conception of political regimes adapted from American scholarship, this paper analyzes the impact of judicial review on the Trudeau governments’ legislative agenda. The paper draws on a dataset of all Supreme Court cases involving federal legislation challenged on Charter grounds during the Trudeau era (2015-2025), as well as a handful of relevant lower court cases involving highly salient policies. In so doing, the paper also re-examines the relevance of a ‘regimes’ lens of analysis in light of criticisms that the concept does not translate to the context of a parliamentary system.