Centre for Canadian Studies, Jadavpur University
March 3-4, 2022, online
Deadline: February 14, 2022
“Just birth,” you smiled,
“creation, re-creation,
new paths cut
from old patterns”
— Lee Maracle, Ta’ah
Conversations about creation and re-creation seem difficult when the present realities
of the world appear to be antithetical to the premises of creation or re-creation. The pandemic, as it enters into its third year, has successfully ‘created’ a great amount of confusion among the people of the world — we are unable to concretely understand its nature, its potential, and the multiple variations that it morphs into, as it hits the world in successive waves. This confusion delays the prospect of containment or extermination of the virus and affects the virtues of hope and motivation that enable processes of ‘creation’ and ‘re-creation’. But the transformative and resilient potentialities of the virtue of ‘hope’ in individuals/communities have created/recreated multiple models of sustainability during the pandemic. Communities, from all over the world, have joined hands to ensure that we persevere and do not perish in the face of this difficult and confusing adversary — without causing a significant depletion in the share of the resources for the future generations. In the pandemic situation, it has become necessary for individuals and communities to take newer responsibilities. A part of these responsibilities is to ensure that sustainable access to food, healthcare, shelter, transportation, communication services, remunerated jobs, and natural resources are facilitated; but sustenance involves more than these tangible requirements. It also entails the creation of spaces and possibilities — the ‘headspace’ being a significant inclusion in this regard — that enable conversations, creativity, communication, and resistance as they are imperative to ‘sustain’ ourselves during a pandemic. In pertinence to this multi-nuanced understanding of sustainability and of spaces/possibilities that sustain — the Centre for Canadian Studies, Jadavpur University aims to open up a conversation, among scholars, academics, writers and activists, on the resilient and transformative potential of communities and individuals in Canada and India that enable sustainability during a pandemic.