Bio: Dr. Tristen Johnson (she, her, hers) is a TEDx Speaker and currently works as a Diversity Education Specialist for a top-ranking cancer center in Florida. She is a former higher education professional. She holds a master’s degree from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and a bachelor’s degree from Western Illinois University. She recently defended her dissertation for her Ph.D. at Illinois State University. Her research focused on Black women professionals who work in diversity roles at predominantly white institutions. She is the founder and owner of The Tristen Johnson, LLC, a business dedicated to consulting, trainings, and workshops surrounding diversity and inclusion initiatives and making body jewelry. In her spare time, she enjoys creative writing, traveling, and advocating for Beyoncé.

Abstract: Black women have been the backbone of the United States of America since our arrival on its shores. Black women have been at the center of economic, political, and social exploitation at the hands of white supremacy and have almost been written out of the narrative of many of the social and political movements of this nation. This keynote will trace a brief history of instances where the idea of justice for all women have excluded Black women and placed them in the margins. This historical journey will show how even in 2021, Black women are still fighting to debunk the racist and sexist ideals about them. This lecture will end with tangible tips for “allies” to support, include, acknowledge, and center the contributions of Black women to use in their personal, professional, and social spaces. Black women are the narrative.

Bio: Harsha Walia is the author of the new book, Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism. She is also the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism, co-author of Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration as well as Red Women Rising: Indigenous Women Survivors in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Harsha has organized in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, abolitionist, and anti-imperialist movements for the past two decades.

Abstract: In this lecture, Harsha Walia will deliver an unflinching examination of migration as a pillar of global governance and gendered racial class formation. Her talk will explore a number of seemingly disparate global geographies and how borders around the world consolidate imperial, capitalist, ruling class, and racist nationalist rule. Illuminating the brutal mechanics of state formation, her work exposes US border policy as a product of violent territorial expansion, settler-colonialism, enslavement, and gendered racial exclusion. Further, she compellingly details how Fortress Europe and White Australia are using immigration diplomacy and externalized borders to maintain a colonial present, how temporary labor migration in the Arab Gulf states and Canada is central to citizenship regulation and labor control, and how far-right nationalism is escalating deadly violence in the US, Israel, India, the Philippines, Brazil, and across Europe, while producing a disaster of statelessness for millions elsewhere. Instead, she calls for a vision of no borders as an internationalist and abolitionist horizon for freedom.

• Border & Rule: Global migration, capitalism, and the rise of racist nationalism
• Undoing Border Imperialism

Bio: Professor Carney is a choreographer, educator and performer of dance. Carney received her MFA in Dance Performance & Pedagogy, as well as her Certificate of Study in Feminist Methodologies & Sexualities from Arizona State University. Her BFA was earned at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.