To our community partners and registrants,
In solidarity with the CAUT censure on the University of Toronto, the organizers of the Community Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) Summer Institute have collectively decided to postpone this event, at this time. This censure resulted from concerns related to academic freedom, institutional autonomy and human rights.
The CBPAR Summer Institute is organized by the University of Toronto Scarborough’s Knowledge Equity Lab, the Toronto Centre of Learning & Development, and the Ontario Council for International Cooperation as a project of the UNESCO Knowledge for Change (K4C) Tkaronto Hub. Our collective goals are to cultivate equitable and reciprocal partnerships, centre community priorities in research, and mobilize the practice of CBPAR for social transformation. CBPAR itself is driven by social purpose and utilizes principles of anti-oppression, decolonization, and respect for different ways and approaches to knowing. We have decided to postpone this event in solidarity with fellow researchers and human rights activists.
This postponement will impact community partners and registrants from multiple regions, cultures, and linguistic backgrounds who were to be co-facilitating and participating in this collaborative learning experience. The event aimed to provide free access to research training and alternative methodologies, and to learn and share the diverse ways research can take place while investigating overlooked topics.
We are committed to internal reflection on the meaning of equitable partnerships and practices of solidarity. We plan to offer this event in the future with enhanced reflexivity.
For further information about the censure, see:
- CAUT Council imposes rare censure against University of Toronto over Azarova hiring controversy
- IHRP Director Hiring Controversy: Resource Page
For further information about the UNESCO Knowledge for Change (K4C) Tkaronto Hub, see: https://knowledgeequitylab.ca/lab-projects/unesco-k4c/.