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Learning Together 2014 – In-difference: conflict and diversity

Date: May 9, 2014
Place: Simon Fraser University, Surrey Campus
13450-102 Avenue, Surrey, BC, Canada

2014 Conference Theme

Today’s education landscape has become increasingly diverse. In the past quarter century we’ve seen an increase in degree-granting institutions, a growing international focus, and record breaking student demographics. From Kindergarten to postgraduate studies, we are living in the new mode of difference. A critical question, however, is whether all this diversity is starting to look the same. This is to say, have we become indifferent to difference? Against a standard of ‘sameness’, are we conflicted by difference? This year’s theme, “in-difference: conflict and diversity,” celebrates how our work and ideas can contribute to a better understanding of diversity.

Keynote Speaker, May 9 – Dr. John Bogardus

What’s love got to do with it? Conflict, Diversity & the End of the World

Dr. John Bogardus received his M.A. in Sociology from the University of British Columbia. For over a decade, he was active in trade union, community and global social justice concerns while successively employed as a sawmill and steel foundry worker, first aid attendant, and journeyman carpenter. Training as a psychiatric nurse led to extended employment as a youth worker in a residential treatment centre and an interest in the power dynamics inherent in the production of knowledge, the subject of his doctoral thesis in Anthropology at SFU. http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/handle/1892/8728. A five-year involvement as co-coordinator and facilitator of SFU’s Instructional Skills Workshop informed “Creating an Inclusive Community of Critical, Independent Thinkers,” a one-day workshop on collaborative classroom practices which has been presented at various universities and colleges on the lower mainland and southern Vancouver Island. John joined the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (SA) to facilitate innovative teaching practices and to develop undergraduate courses in both disciplines. Three writing-intensive offerings — Anthropology and Contemporary Life, Perspectives on Canadian Society, and Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism — are among the many courses he has designed. More recently, John co-developed the SA department’s Field Study of non-governmental and grassroots organizations in response to student demand for community-based learning. John is a recipient of the 2012 Cormack Award for Teaching Excellence in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Cormack Award Presentation: “What’s University Education For, Anyway?”  view presentation here. This is a 14 minute preview of a 35 minute presentation made on unceded Coast Salish territory. You will need to download the presentation to view it in its entirety.

Research Interests: Political sociology, political anthropology, Marxism, anarchism, critical pedagogy, community-centred research, participatory action research, institutional ethnography, auto-ethnography, global social justice.

2014 Organizing Committee

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