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Ricardo Tranjan
Ricardo Tranjan is a political economist and senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Previously, Tranjan managed Toronto’s Poverty Reduction Strategy and taught at universities in Ontario and Quebec. His early academic work focused on economic development and participatory democracy in Brazil, his native country. His current research is on the political economy of social policy in Canada. Ricardo holds a PhD from the University of Waterloo, where he was a Vanier Scholar. A frequent media commentator in English and French, he lives in Ottawa.
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Arthur Manuel
Arthur Manuel fought for decades for Indigenous land and human rights in Canada and internationally. He participated in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues from its inception in 2002 and served as spokesperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade (INET) from 2003 to 2016. Working through INET, Manuel succeeded in having the struggle for Aboriginal title and treaty rights injected into international financial institutions, setting important precedents for Aboriginal title and rights in Canada. Manuel was a spokesperson for the Defenders of the Land.
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bell hooks
bell hooks (1952-2021) is the author of numerous critically acclaimed and influential books on the politics of race, gender, class, and culture. Celebrated as one of America’s leading public intellectuals, she was a charismatic speaker who divided her time among teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world.
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Graphic History Collective
The Graphic History Collective is made up of activists, artists, writers, and researchers passionate about comics, history, and social change. They produce alternative histories—people’s histories—in an accessible format to help people understand the historical roots of contemporary social issues.
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Silvia Federici
Silvia Federici is a feminist writer, teacher, and militant. In 1972 she was cofounder of the International Feminist Collective that launched the Wages for Housework campaign. Her books include Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women; Caliban and the Witch; Re-enchanting the World; and Revolution at Point Zero.
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Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel
Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel is a Kanien’kehá:ka, Wakeniáhton (Turtle Clan), artist, documentarian, and Indigenous human rights and environmental rights activist living in Kanehsatà:ke Kanien’kehá:ka Homelands.
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Gabriel Allahdua
Originally from St. Lucia, Gabriel Allahdua worked as a migrant farm worker in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program for four years, from 2012 to 2015, before leaving the program to seek permanent residency in Canada. Now a leading voice in the migrant justice movement, Allahdua is an organizer with Justicia for Migrant Workers and an outreach worker with The Neighbourhood Organization, providing services to migrant workers across southwestern Ontario. He lives in Toronto with his two adult children and his grandson.
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David Austin
David Austin is the author of the Casa de las Americas Prize-winning Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex, and Security in Sixties Montreal, Moving Against the System:The 1968 Congress of Black Writers and the Making of Global Consciousness, and Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution. He is also the editor of You Don’t Play with Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James.
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Steven High
Steven High is a professor of history at Concordia University in Montreal where he co-founded the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. He has authored a number of books and articles on structural and mass violence as well as deindustrialization as a political, socio-economic, and cultural process. He is currently the head of the transnational “Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time” (DEPOT) research project which brings together researchers, museum professionals, archivists, and trade unionists across Europe and North America.
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Leslie Kern
Leslie Kern is the author of three books about cities, including Gentrification Is Inevitable and Other Lies and Feminist City: A Field Guide. Her latest book, with Dr. Roberta Hawkins, is Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make it Better for Others, and Transform the University. Until 2024, she was an associate professor of geography and environment and feminist and gender studies at Mount Allison University. Leslie’s research has earned a Fulbright Visiting Scholar Award, a National Housing Studies Achievement Award, and several national multi-year grants. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vox, Bloomberg CityLab, and Refinery29. Leslie is also an academic career coach, helping academics find meaning and joy in their work. She lives in Cambridge, Ontario with her partner and two cats.