Home(place):

This volume is a collective offering that extends bell hooks? vision of homeplace as a site of resistance, refuge, and liberatory worldmaking. This volume emerges from a deep commitment to anti-colonial, anti-racist, and matriarchal practices rooted in care, ethical relationality, and community. As we troubled the waters of theorizing home amidst grief, occupation, displacement, and longing, we honored what it means to write in times of uncertainty?when home is not always safe, and when it must be carried, remembered, or reimagined. This collection centres the voices of Black and Indigenous women, 2Spirit, trans, queer, non-binary, and gender expansive peoples, offering pathways for rethinking kinship, safety, and belonging. Conceived as an intellectual and spiritual gathering, the volume holds space for mourning and hope, interruption and renewal. We invite readers to reflect, imagine, and find comfort in the care extended within these pages.

Dr. Whitneé L. Garrett-Walker (she/her) is a Black, Indigenous and Queer woman (enrolled member of the Natchitoches Tribe of Louisiana). As a scholar-practitioner with over a decade of service to urban public schools in Oakland and San Francisco, California, Dr. Garrett-Walker actively engages liberatory frameworks to understand the context, self-definition, healing, and opportunities for solidarity between and among Black and Indigenous women educators and administrators. Whitneé believes deeply in collective liberation and solidarities beginning with the intentional centering of love and Land. Dr. Garrett-Walker is the Assistant Dean of Credentialing and Partnerships at the University of San Francisco, School of Education. Dr. Qui Alexander is an Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Trans Studies in Curriculum and Pedagogy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Their teaching and scholarship centers Black trans studies, abolition & transformative justice and education outside of formal school contexts. Grounded in their experiences as a community organizer, Qui views their scholarship as a place to articulate the cultural work they do in relation to their communities. Dr. Jennifer Brant belongs to the Kanien?kehá:ka (Mohawk Nation) with family ties to Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. Jennifer is the founding director of the Indigenous literatures lab and an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Jennifer teaches about Indigenous maternal pedagogies, Black and Indigenous feminist solidarities, and Indigenous literatures and writes to honour Indigenous maternal histories, and storied lives. Jennifer positions Indigenous literatures as powerful narratives that humanize Indigenous peoples through multiple calls for justice, and accountability, and extends this revolutionary body of work to inspire resistance, rebirth and renewal. Jasmine Pham is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Jasmine?s research explores the experiences of Chinese Canadian students in Mandarin-English bilingual programs across Alberta, particularly in relation to Sinophobia, the Model Minority Myth, and anti-Asian racism. Her work draws upon Critical Race Theory in Education, Asian Critical Theory, and Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogy.