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GRIS-Montreal
Marie Houzeau received the Woman of Distinction Award for her social engagement. This award is given the Montreal Women's Y Foundation and recognizes women who make a difference through their achievements in our society. View the press release.
COCQ-SIDA
+ COCQ-SIDA and Alexandra de Kiewit (Stella) presented a conference entitled « Are Public Testimonials Effective in Fighting Stigma? Lessons Learned From a Community-Evaluation Project in Quebec » at the Canadian Association for HIV Research (CAHR), Friday May 13th, in front of roughly 150 people in Winnipeg. The presentation went well.
+ The English version of PLWHA's vibrant testimonials' list was launched in Winnipeg May 13th 2016. Access the list.
+ René Légaré also presented a poster at CAHR on the evaluation of the « « Je suis séropo » campaign.
+ COCQ-SIDA and its partners are in the consultation process for targeting their community research priorities for 2016. Take the survey to help guide the HIV/AIDS research in Quebec. The survey is open to all!
Stella
On June 8th 2016, Stella, l'amie de Maimie launched a new campaign « Against Exploitation, Against Prohibition: For the Rights of Sex Workers, the Right to Work ». This campaign draws attention to the reality and impacts of the repression and criminal prohibition of sex work. Like all of Stella's work in the past 21 years, the campaign highlights the need to combat abusive working conditions rather than sex work itself. At the heart of this struggle id the need to repeal repressive laws that criminalize sex work and put sex workers at risk.
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Cultures du témoignage (sexualités) et changement social : Quelles pratiques, quels usages, quelles retombées? – Conference Summary
On May 9th, 10th and 11th was held our 601 colloquium during the 84th ACFAS Congress. This three-day conference was aimed at people whose work, research or studies relate to the practices, uses and benefits of public testimonials as an intervention strategy in today's society. In total, more than 150 people attended the colloquium; a multidisciplinary and interactive public, consisting of students, professors, activists, researchers and community organizations. On average, there were 50 people in attendance every day, a real success!
Scientifically, the conference was an opportunity to mobilize knowledge relating to the use of testimonials in contemporary sexual communities: people who identify as lesbians, gays, bisexuals and queer, trans and intersexe people, people living with HIV/AIDS, people with sex work experience and autopornography, victims of sexual assault. We also had the chance to hear other "community voices", those of deaf people, the hearers of voices and young women who go to Maison Passages. The round tables, communications and workshops were all equally challenging. We exposed the theoretical and methodological foundations of the testimonial cultures, and the many powers and pleasures that drive them. Thank you to all the speakers!
In terms of networking, the conference brought together the participants during two Cocktail-events, designed to socialize and initiate informal contacts. One of these, held Monday, May 9th at the Bistro de la cinémathèque québécoise, was organized in collaboration with the Coalition Plus and was an opportunity to announce the winner of the Emerging HIV/AIDS Community-Based Researcher Award. Congratulations to Nora Burke! For the rest, a big thank you to Mariève Beauchemin and the team for two memorable evenings.
The full conference program (in French only)
Seminar on transidentities and the media
The seminar facilitated by our international guest Karine Espineira, co-founder of the Transidentities Observatory (France) went well. She talked about her extensive media corpus and analysis of how trans people have been represented between 1930 and 2010. The participants showed great interest in the popular representations of trans people over the decades, which led to rich discussions on the scale and scope of this study. Watch the seminar
Presentation in Paris
In May, Maria Nengeh Mensah delivered a lecture entitled « The practices of public testimonials by sexual communities: evolution and challenges of a renewed feminist intervention strategy » during a symposium on Gender and Social Intervention in Paris. This communication aimed to promote the value of community-university partnerships like the one we've been experiencing since 2010.
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We want to say thank you to Mariève Beachemin for the logistic coordination of our colloquium, Cultures du témoignage (sexualités) et changement social : Quelles pratiques? Quels usages? Quelles retombées?, at ACFAS. The team wishes you great success in your future projects.
Laurence Gagnon recently joined the team of research assistants to support Jamie Goodyear in the organization of the exhibition « Témoigner pour agir » taking place late fall 2017.
Our research assistants will continue their work during the summer. They will also take some time to rest. Gabriel Giroux will enjoy summer in Montreal. Myriam Pomerleau will be off visiting Hawaii, while Isabelle Robichaud will be reuniting with her loved ones on the East coast.
The Testimonial Cultures' team wishes you a great summer!
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