About the Project
Staging Justice brings together a variety of research initiatives on justice with a focus on policing, artivism, activism, police training, and policy. As interdisciplinary research, Staging Justice brings researchers from different domains to investigate themes critical to achieving a just society. At the moment, there are four research components under this broad research:
Ar(c)tivism and Policing is a digital archival project that centers on the potency of protest art, particularly its role in resisting oppressive system such as police violence. The series feature artworks from protests in Nigeria, the United States, Canada, Bangladesh and more— each highlighting the use of art in protest, resistance and liberatory gestures against police brutality, racism and the ongoing impact of colonization. The featured artworks are open to the public and represent a significant part of the Centre’s effort in documenting artistic expressions around policing.
BIPOC Adolescent Youth and Policing Perception on the Prairies and Beyond:
Little has been reported about racialized youths’ perception of the police in Canada and elsewhere. This research fills that gap, exploring BIPOC youths’ experiences and perceptions of policing on the Canadian Prairies and beyond by raising community voices through creative and artistic expressions such as storytelling and audio drama.
Rethinking Police Curriculum and Training:
This research aims to foster police professionalism through education of recruits, continuing education of officers and national standards for the curriculum to achieve increased trust among Canadians for police officers. The training given to police recruits and their ongoing professional development has been identified as critical to fostering the needed systemic change in policing and surveillance. Through different frameworks such as Emotional Intelligence, the research takes a deeper dive into police curriculum, training and policies.
In various artistic performances and productions— from auditory to visual, this component explores issues of justice and policing through creating new works.