“THE FEMINIZATION AND RACIALIZATION OF POVERTY: Intersecting Legislated Policies of Dispossession”
Drawing on her past work as the Project Coordinator of Vancouver Status of Women’s Feminization and Racialization of Poverty Project, Benita Bunjun re-examines the deepening of poverty as experienced by racialized women (Indigenous women & women of colour) due to present and historical social and economic policies.
She draws on an intersectional critical race feminist analysis to specifically examine how welfare, immigration, and labour policies disproportionately impact racialized women within Canada, a white-settler society. During this era of colonial conservative ideology, systematic barriers faced by women living in poverty are further reinforced and sustained.
Due to limited economic resources, Indigenous women and women of colour remain forced to work precarious underpaid part-time jobs. Social programs are being dismantled while regressive policies are implemented onto the bodies of dispossessed populations. The processes of occupation, re/settlement, nation building, slavery, disenfranchisement, labour migration, and employment regulation continue to contribute to the depth of poverty and criminalization experienced by racialized women. Bunjun will also share lessons learnt while coordinating such a project in regards to the non-profit industrial complex and Indigenous/settler of colour relations.
Dr. Benita Bunjun, UBC Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
Benita Bunjun received her PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies at UBC. Her doctoral research entitled “The (Un)Making of Home, Entitlement, and Nation: An Intersectional Organizational Study of Power Relations in Vancouver Status of Women, 1971-2008” examines organizational power relations within feminist organizations with an emphasis on discourses of nation-building.
Dr. Bunjun is a past President of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women where she chaired the Intersectional Feminist Frameworks Working Group. She teaches at UBC and is currently an Advisory Committee member at the Centre for Race, Autobiography, Gender & Age (RAGA). She is a Collective Member of Vancouver Status of Women (VSW) and also coordinates the independent Research Project on the Academic Well-Being of Racialized Students.
Tuesday, 4 February @ 12:30 PM
Room 123, Allard Hall (1822 East Mall)
