Parin Dossa's New Publication: The Circle Unfolds

We are pleased to announce the publication of Professor Emeritus Parin Dossa's book: The Circle Unfolds: Envisioning Social Justice from the Margins.

Preface
An unfolding circle is a rich metaphor for connectivity within our human-nature family. Stories, memories, poems, and graphics, emanating from the margins rather than the center, have the potential to advance social justice from the ground up.  Human beings are members of a whole. This reflective intervention on social justice is part of a lecture I delivered at the President’s Faculty Lecture Series, Simon Fraser University.

The metaphor of the circle facilitates transnational collaboration. Research participants that I have spoken to, and whose stories are laid plain in this book, (largely Muslims) are subject to structural oppression brought about by neo-colonization and global capitalism. These powerful systems have been exposed more recently by climate change, racism, Islamophobia, Black Lives Matter and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The question to ask ourselves is: How do we go about dismantling structural systems that have essentially plunged humanity into crisis? Emerging works on ethno-Graphics reveal possibilities of interconnectivity to effect systemic change starting from the outer edges of a an interactive circle. The circle continues to unfold bringing “light in dark times.”

Summary
How do we go about dismantling systems that have plunged humanity into crisis? How can we mobilize marginality to enact alternative, imaginative and social-justice oriented possibilities. As a rich metaphor for connectivity The Circle Unfolds suggests a pathway for a better world. Stories, memories, poems, sacred traditions, and graphics, emanating from social margins rather than the center advances social justice from the ground up. This graphic storied text calls on the readers, researchers, educators, and activists to reflect on the impact of structural exclusion with the question: could it have been otherwise? If so, how can we capture these moments of “otherwise” to build a world where we can co-exist with the life worlds of human-nature family? The visual language of graphic-stories fosters spaces of intervention for exploring alternative ways of being and becoming. Existentially, we are bound to each other. Praxis-oriented focus of our work lends itself to alternative readings based on affect and imagination.

Abour The Author
Dr. Parin Dossa, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Simon Fraser University, received her education on three continents: Africa, Europe, and North America. Her long-standing interest on displacement and critical feminist ethnography has led her to focus on the interface between social inequality, health, gender, and social palliation.

Click here to purchase.