Pluralistic Societies: Epistemic Pluralism and Ecologies of Knowledges
Globally and locally, we are witnessing societies shaped by increasing human entanglements and social polarization. Pluralism in the city, what might be called pluralism from below, recognizes the need for an active engagement that creates a society of shared values and peace and prosperity from a diversity of civilizations, cultures, peoples, groups, and entities. It addresses the wicked social challenges associated with the super-diversity and hyper-diversity of our time: social disconnection, division, distrust, dehumanization, religious intolerance and political strife. Pluralism is inextricably concerned with depolarization. It is fundamentally concerned with how to make diversity work so we can live well together. It requires actively cultivating an understanding of different perspectives and facilitating how this multiplicity shapes social transformation for the better. Pluralism is what can emerge from relationship building and intercultural engagement, bridging divides, social healing, collaborative problem solving, and interfaith engagement. This context calls for a paradigm shift for bold solutions, culture change, shifting values, norms, skills, behaviours, how we see ourselves and others, and how we see ourselves in relation to diverse others. The University of Calgary has been laying the groundwork toward a Pluralism Strategy for many years and is currently seeking to recruit a global leader in Epistemic Pluralism and Ecologies of Knowledges.
The knowledge domain has become a site of struggle and increasing demands for epistemic pluralism. At the centre of the struggles are calls for institutional transformation, recognition of diverse ways of knowing and redefinition of social relations. There is a resurgent and insurgent epistemological decolonization targeting intersectional inequalities concerning race, class, gender and other vectors of social exclusion, advocating the reclaiming of worldviews and epistemologies that have been pushed to the margins of modern societies; cultivation of new consciousness predicated on decoloniality and humanity in all of its diversity.
The core team is diversely constituted, consisting of researchers at various career stages working in different faculties, departments, and research areas.
Dr. Pallavi Banerjee
Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Department of Sociology
Core Team Member specializing in the Sociology of Immigration and Refugee Studies; Transnationalism; Families; Gender; Critical intersectional feminism; Qualitative Methods; and the Global South.
Dr. Aleem Bharwani
Clinical Associate Professor, Cumming School of Medicine
Co-Lead, Institutional Pluralism
Dr. Michael Hart
Professor and Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Research), Indigenous Engagement, Office of Indigenous Engagement
Lead, Indigenous Engagement
Dr. Clara Joseph
Professor, Faculty of Arts, Department of English
Core Team Member specializing in nonviolence; South Asia; India; Thomas Christians; Portuguese colonization; freedom movement; literary analysis; history; travelogue; and Eastern Christianity
Dr. Ben McKay
Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Department of Anthropology and Archeology
Core Team Member specializing in critical agrarian studies, land politics, rural development, global food politics, and food sovereignty
Dr. Hieu Van Ngo
Associate Professor, Associate Dean - Teaching and Learning Faculty of Social Work
Core Team Member, specializing in equity, diversity, inclusion, anti-racism, youth crime prevention, inclusive education, immigration, multiculturalism
Dr. Roberta Rice
Faculty of Arts, Department of Political Science
Core Team Member specializing in Indigenous movements; Global South: resource conflicts; Indigenous and environmental activism; decolonization; and depatriarchalization
Dr. Malinda Smith
Professor and Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Research), Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Institutional lead on EDI in Research and Plural Societies
Dr. Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Arts, Department of English
Core Team Member specializing in Black and African literature; masculinities; ethics; decolonial/postcolonial; feminist; cultural studies.
Pluralistic Societies: Transdisciplinarity, Cognitive Justice and Education
Globally and locally, we are witnessing societies shaped by increasing human entanglements and social polarization. Pluralism in the city, what might be called pluralism from below, recognizes the need for an active engagement that creates a society of shared values and peace and prosperity from a diversity of civilizations, cultures, peoples, groups, and entities. It addresses the wicked social challenges associated with the super-diversity and hyper-diversity of our time: social disconnection, division, distrust, dehumanization, religious intolerance and political strife. Pluralism is inextricably concerned with depolarisation. It is fundamentally concerned with how to make diversity work so that we can live well together. It requires actively cultivating an understanding of different perspectives and facilitating how this multiplicity shapes social transformation for the better. Pluralism is what can emerge from relationship building and intercultural engagement, bridging divides, social healing, collaborative problem solving, and interfaith engagement. This context calls for a paradigm shift for bold solutions, culture change, shifting values, norms, skills, behaviours, how we see ourselves and others, and how we see ourselves in relation to diverse others. The University of Calgary has been laying the groundwork toward a Pluralism Strategy for many years and is currently seeking to recruit a global leader in Transdisciplinarity, Cognitive Justice and Education.
The core team is diversely constituted with representation from different career stages, faculties and disciplines in support of the transdisciplinary research.
Dr. Jennifer Adams
Associate Professor and CRC in Creativity in STEM, Faculty of Science and Werklund School of Education
Lead, Creativity, Equity, & STEM
Dr. Gabriela Alonso Yanez
Associate Professor, Werklund School of Education,
Lead, Partnerships and Sustainability
Dr. Aleem Bharwani
Clinical Associate Professor, Cumming School of Medicine, Department of Medicine
Co-Lead, Institutional Pluralism Initiative
Dr. Michael Hart
Professor, Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Research), Indigenous Engagement, Office of Indigenous Engagement
Lead, Indigenous Engagement
Dr. Susan Kutz
Professor, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
Lead, Arctic One Health
Dr. Jennifer Markides
Assistant Professor, Werklund School of Education
Lead, Curriculum Studies
Dr. Yvonne Poitras-Pratt
Associate Professor, Werklund School of Education
Lead, Adult Learning
Dr. Pratim Sengupta
Professor, Werklund School of Education
Lead, Learning Sciences
Dr. Malinda Smith
Professor and Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Research), Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Institutional lead on EDI in Research and Plural Societies
Dr. Rahat Zaidi
Professor, Werklund School of Education
Lead, Language and Literacy