Reflections on Repair Praxis in Academic Spaces – Webinar with Prof. Daphne Winland
What can we learn from anthropological research on the ethics of repair for navigating increasingly vulnerable academic spaces? How can these lessons help shape more just, thoughtful, and supportive learning environments?
Join us for a presentation by Professor Daphne Winland, Department of Anthropology, York University to examine how practices of repair emerge and take root in the wake of tension, conflict, and trauma. Daphne will draw from several decades of teaching and research in political anthropology to explore the insights that her research on the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and on the Kitchener-Waterloo Mennonite Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program offer on “repair practices” and the ways individuals and communities develop modes of repair in response to complex histories and lived realities.
These insights strongly resonate in the present moment, as universities grapple with pressures on academic freedom that have intensified alongside the war in Palestine/Israel. Suspensions, censure, and heightened surveillance have created a troubling climate that significantly affects pedagogy and scholarship for both faculty and students.
Daphne argues that reaffirming the centrality of academic freedom requires intentional pedagogical strategies. She will share several approaches she has implemented in the classroom and how faculty and student groups are working to create spaces for critical thought, respectful dialogue, vigorous debate, and attentive listening despite highly polarized conditions. Such grassroots initiatives are essential for building networks grounded in thoughtful engagement, allyship, and, where appropriate, activism.
She will conclude her presentation by reflecting on anthropological scholarship on the ethics of repair and its potential to inform pedagogical practices designed to help academic communities navigate increasingly fraught and vulnerable institutional environments.
This webinar will also offer an opportunity for Q & A and for attendees to engage in dialogue and share their “repair’ strategies.
About Professor Daphne Winland
Building on research and publications in the areas of diaspora, (trans)nationalism, and the cultural politics of representation, Professor Winland has conducted ethnographic research in Croatia, Bosnia and Canada focusing on the impacts of the Wars of Succession in the former Yugoslavia. She is the author of “We are now a nation: Croats between “home” and ‘Homeland” (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007, reprinted 2013) and numerous articles exploring the politics of identity, citizenship, the politics of memory and ethnonationalism. She has conducted extensive research on diaspora involvement in nation-building projects and citizenship regimes as well as historical revisionism and populism in Europe. Current research projects include ethnographic research on transnational memory, comparative study of East European diaspora with a focus on memory activism and the political genealogies of diplomatic archives and their relationship to the performance of trans/national imaginaries, memory-making and nation-building in Israel/Palestine.
Learn More about Professor Daphne Winland’s Work
Winland, D. (2025). Reflections on repair praxis in academic. Studies in Social Justice, 19(3). From antagonism to care: Reimagining academic freedom and justice in higher education Reflections on Repair Praxis in Academic Spaces | Studies in Social Justice
