Migration or Escape: Journeys to Sanctuary

Migration or Escape: Journeys to Sanctuary is an evening conversation, including a set of readings and talks, that will explore the emergent areas of creative work around migration that are grounded in archival materialism. Drawing from various archives, artists and scholars are generating emerging theoretical spaces that ask critical questions on the global movements of subjects within the context of new Imperialisms, nationalist violence, and continuing global economic interests. These trajectories of movement, whether migrating subjects are escaping civil war, wars of aggression, racial and ethno-cultural genocidal programs, or escaping to find better ways of life and work, are embedded within global capitalism and imperial formations.Phinder Dulai - Phinder Dulai’s critically acclaimed poetry collection dream / arteries (Talonbooks) was published in 2014. He is the author of two previous books of poetry. Dulai was this year’s co-convener of Sound Thinking 2015 Voicing the City In/verse: Reading Surrey and the Super-Suburb. Dr. Renisa Mawani - Renisa Mawani (PhD, University of Toronto) is an Associate Professor of Sociology and inaugural Chair of the Law and Society Program at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Mawani works in the fields of critical theory and colonial legal history and has published widely on law, colonialism, and legal geography. Melanie Hardbattle - Melanie Hardbattle is the Archivist for Simon Fraser University Library’s Special Collections and Rare Books division. Graduating with a Master of Archival Studies degree from UBC in 2000, she has worked at the SFU Library since 2009, during which time she has served as the project coordinator for several digitization and community engagement projects.Moderated by David Chariandy, Associate Professor in SFU’s Department of English, David specializes in contemporary fiction, (especially Canadian, Caribbean, and Black Atlantic), as well as interdisciplinary theories of postcoloniality, diaspora and ‘race.’