Research Description

I’m studying the responses of visible minority and working-class women located in British Columbia to the 1968 Royal Commission on the Status of Women. I have spent considerable time with the RCSW records located at LAC in Ottawa and am in the process of conducting oral history interviews with local activists to contextualize responses to the Commission that were not published in the RCSW’s 1970 report.

Working Dissertation Title

"Do These Women Not Know?": Working Class and Visible Minority Women Respond to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in British Columbia, 1967-1970.

Biography

Leigha Smith was raised in the BC interior and mostly employs the lenses of gender and sexuality in the course of trying to better understand intersecting systems of power and oppression in society. Her side projects currently include asexual and genderqueer representations in queer communities, resolution to sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, patterns of intersectional activism among grassroots activists, and how and why government and legislative reform efforts are employed in response to various forms of grassroots activism in politically tense geographic areas.

Conference Papers

(Forthcoming) “Framing Experience: Problems in Advocacy for Immigrant Women in British Columbia, 1968.” Intersectionality Research, Policy and Practice: Influences, Interrogations and Innovations (Vancouver, British Columbia), April, 2014.

(Forthcoming) “Encouraging Intersectional Spaces: Accounts of experienced exclusion of asexual and genderqueer identities from queer environments.” Participant in roundtable session entitled "’All/None of the Above’": Intersectional Approaches to (and Retreats from) Researching and Teaching Sexuality. Intersectionality Research, Policy and Practice: Influences, Interrogations and Innovations (Vancouver, British Columbia), April, 2014.

“Constructing Peace: Analyzing Themes of Identity (Re)Construction and Conflict Resolution in the Good Friday Agreement, 1998.” On the Edge Conference: Transitions, Transgressions, and Transformations in Irish and Scottish Studies (Vancouver, British Columbia), June, 2013.

“Troubled Intersections: Constructing and Contesting Antiracial-Feminism in Canada, 1981-1997.” Qualicum History Graduate Conference (Parksville, British Columbia), February, 2013.

“‘In’Activism: Explaining Asexuality’s Absence from Canada’s Sexual Revolution, 1966-1980.” Qualicum History Graduate Conference (Parksville, British Columbia), January, 2012.

Teaching Assistantships

HIST 104: The Americas from Colonization to Independence (Spring 2014)

HIST 130: Introduction to World History (Fall 2013)

HIST 235: Europe Post-1945 (Summer 2013)

HIST 146: Africa After the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Spring 2013)

HIST 101: Canada to Confederation (Fall 2012)

HIST 115: Introduction to the History of Sexuality (Spring 2012)