Contemporary Vulnerabilities offers critical reflections about vulnerable moments in research committed to social change. This interdisciplinary collection gathers reflexive narratives and analyses about innovative methodologies that engage with unconventional and unexpected research spaces inhabited and shared by scholars. The authors encourage us to collaborate within, reflect on, and confront the frictions of inquiry around social change. With an aim of contesting the dominance of Eurocentric epistemologies, the collection includes modes of storytelling and examples of knowledge gathering that are often excluded from academic texts in general and methodological texts in particular. All those interested in research methodologies and social justice inquiry will find provocation and recognition in this volume, including scholars, ethics boards, and students.

Contributors: Aly Bailey, Kayla Besse, Meredith Bessey, Madeline Burghardt, Claire Carter, Shraddha Chatterjee, Yuriko Cowper-Smith, Eva Cupchik, Cheyanne Desnomie, Bongi Dube, Athanasia Francis, Rebecca Godderis, Moses Gordon, Emily Grafton, Caitlin Janzen, Evadne Kelly, Debra Langan, Rebecca Lennox, Corinne L. Mason, Tara-Leigh McHugh, Preeti Nayak, Anh Ngo, Jess Notwell, Marcia Oliver, Cassandra J. Opikokew Wajuntah, Merrick Pilling, Kendra-Ann Pitt, Salima Punjani, seeley quest, Carla Rice, Jen Rinaldi, Lori Ross, Kate Rossiter, Brenda Rossow-Kimball, Siobhán Saravanamuttu, Melissa Schnarr, Bettina Schneider, Irene Shankar, Skylar Sookpaiboon, Chelsea Temple Jones, Amelia Thorpe, Paul Tshuma, Amber-Lee Varadi, Jijian Voronka, Kristyn White.

Claire Carter is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender, Religion, and Critical Studies at the University of Regina.

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Chelsea Temple Jones is Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University.

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Caitlin Janzen is a Ph.D. student in sociology at York University. Her doctoral research focuses on women’s psychic responses to representations of violence against other(ed) women. Janzen’s past research is in the areas of violence, sexual exploitation of children, and sex work. Janzen is the co-author of articles that have appeared in Hypatia, Violence Against Women, and Journal of Progressive Human Services.

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“This book is both inspirational and aspirational, demonstrating how researchers can find hopeful, generative entry points into ethical social justice research. In discussions too often dominated by detached, positivist notions of research, Contemporary Vulnerabilities disrupts categorical notions of vulnerability and instead centres vulnerability as an inherent part of research relationships and processes.” Christina Clark-Kazak, University of Ottawa

"This book is a carefully curated collection of analytic reflections by social justice researchers whose standpoints vary in meaningful ways. Its core project is to shake, rattle, and roll the concept of 'vulnerability' such that we stop assigning it automatically to certain groups without accounting for the ways that people push back—personally and collectively—and for the subjectivity and situatedness of the researcher. By chipping away at 'objectivity' as a form of ruling, contributors suggest fresh directions for rigorous social science in the contemporary moment." Kathryn Church, Associate Professor Emeritus, Disability Studies, Toronto Metropolitan University