Congratulations to the Recipients of the Barbara Roberts Memorial Fund!

Congratulations to Dr. Vasuki Shanmuganathan, Yasmeen Nematt Alla, and Katherine Eun-Young Bell, who are the recipients of the 2020 Barbara Roberts Memorial Fund prize! 

How can we document people’s experiences of communal care during a pandemic? How can we engage communities to share research when we cannot meet in person? These are the questions that drive Shanmuganathan, Nematt Alla, and Bell’s project, entitled Documenting Communal Care Practices. Drawing on Indigenous and Black feminist methodologies, and centering the voices of racialized and non-binary people, they aim to make care work visible in their neighbourhoods and to preserve the stories of care as “resistive and restorative rituals.” Their project will begin with a digital art space and social media engagement that will be used to collect moments and gestures of care, and will eventually result in an installation at the Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto. We are delighted to support this innovative project that will confront long-simmering questions about care and social justice, questions that are all the more urgent in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.