Areas of Study:
activism, affect studies, attachment, critical race theory, cultural studies, digital media, feminism, gender, homonationalism, masculinities, migration, neoliberalism, pedagogy, popular education, queer theory, refugee sponsorship, sexuality studies, social movements, solidarity, transformative justice, transnational feminism, war.
I work on collaborative research in the area of gender and sexuality with a focus on solidarity and social justice, transformative approaches, pedagogy, contemporary classroom practices, popular education, curriculum design, violence prevention, and social movements.
Current Research Projects
Transformative Encounters: Gender and Sexuality Pedagogies in Canada
Transformative Encounters is a national study on learning experiences in the gender and sexuality classroom. Assembling a large team of leading scholars and practitioners of community engaged research and teaching, our project connects gender and sexuality pedagogies with research, popular education, and activism in transformative justice. This 4-year study aims to identify transformative experiences in learning environments to help develop pedagogical approaches to preventing and transforming the conditions shaping violence.
Research Team: Natalie Kouri-Towe (PI), Susanne Luhmann (co-applicant), Michelle Miller (co-applicant), S. Trimble (co-applicant), Ardath Whynacht (co-applicant), Nadine Attewell (collaborator), Nathalie Batraville (collaborator), Ann Braithwaite (collaborator), Claire Carter (collaborator), Gulzar Charania (collaborator), OmiSoore Dryden (collaborator), Hannah Dyer (collaborator), Angela Failler (collaborator), Nancy Kang (collaborator), Jade Ferguson (collaborator), Kelly Fritsch (collaborator), Ka Man Fung (collaborator), Mylène Gamache (collaborator), Dina Georgis (collaborator), rosalind hampton (collaborator), Alexandra Ketchum (collaborator), Kimberley Manning (collaborator), Corinne Mason (collaborator), Genviève Pagé (collaborator), Jasbir Puar (collaborator), Carrie Rentschler (collaborator), Joelle Rouleau (collaborator), Julia Sinclair-Palm (collaborator), Arzoo Singh (collaborator), D. Alissa Trotz (collaborator).
Funding: SSHRC Insight Grant
Solidarity at Risk
The provocation that frames the title of this project aims to intervene in the theorization of solidarity and the practices of transnational solidarity activism in the 21st century. In an era structured by the ideologies of neoliberalism, where free market globalization, privatization and individualism are reshaping the public sphere, the terms and practices of solidarity are shifting. Yet, theories of solidarity have remained embedded in older political frameworks, rooted in early social movement practices in the Marxist tradition or liberal democratic models of civic engagement. In a world changed by neoliberalism, we need new interpretive frameworks for analyzing and practicing solidarity today, not least because contemporary social movements require new ways of envisioning activist solidarity.
Neoliberalism has also changed the geopolitical landscape of human rights. In what some queer theory scholars have called homonational times, we find the political stakes of queer solidarities embedded in the changing discourses of sexual rights. Looking at examples of solidarity at risk in the queer social movement practices, my research maps the political stakes and impact of homonationalism and neoliberalism on activism today. Using interdisciplinary scholarship in feminist, queer and political theory, I consider what binds us in solidarity, how our political attachments are important threads in theorizing solidarity, and how we might rethink our models of solidarity to sustain our political imaginings in neoliberal and homonational times.
Previous Research Projects
Reading the Room: Lessons on Pedagogy and Curriculum from the Gender and Sexuality Studies Classroom
Pre-order 20% Discount Code: ROOM2024
Reading the Room (2024) is an edited volume forthcoming with Concordia University Press featuring twenty-two chapters from twenty-eight authors that highlights the classroom as a coalitional space. The chapters offer an invitation to scholars from across disciplines to engage with the research and praxis-driven pedagogies emergent in the gender and sexuality studies classroom for a broad audience concerned with the challenges that shape education today. Topics include: racial inequality and diversity; power dynamics in the classroom; embodied classroom experiences; trigger warnings; and more.
Editor: Natalie Kouri-Towe
Funding: SSHRC Connection Grant, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Scholarly Book Awards, Concordia University Aid to Research Related Events
Better Practices is an open access Concordia University Library Pressbook guidebook drawing on popular education tools and pedagogical insights on “better practices” for the classroom, including background and primers on the debates shaping these practices. The guidebook includes common challenges emergent in contemporary classrooms and addresses the intersectional ways that shape student and faculty experiences in the classroom. Using prompts around common challenges, conflicts, and debates in teaching, the guide outlines some of the strategies and resources currently available to the best of our knowledge on how to prioritize sustainable and equitable classroom practices.
Author: Natalie Kouri-Towe and Myloe Martel-Perry
Triggering Education: Relational Readings of Trigger Warnings in the Canadian Post-Secondary Classroom (2020-2023)
A collaborative national study examining student and faculty practices and perceptions of “trigger” and “content” warnings in Canadian institutions of higher education.
Research Team: Michelle Miller (PI), Hannah Dyer (co-investigator), Natalie Kouri-Towe (co-investigator), Julia Sinclair-Palm (collaborator)
Funding: SSHRC Insight Grant
Éducation « difficile » : avertissements de contenu dans les études supérieures au Québec et au Canada (2021-2024)
A project examining trigger warning in French-speaking institutions of higher education in Quebec and Canada.
Research Team: Natalie Kouri-Towe (PI), Joëlle Rouleau (collaborator)
Funding: FRQSC Research Support for New Academics
Everyday Kinship and Solidarity with Refugees / Family and Kinship in the Refugee-Sponsor Relationship in Canada (2019-2022, extended to 2024 due to pandemic)
A study examining the roles and relationships of sponsors, supporters, and solidarity activists in helping refugees in Canada.
Funding: SSHRC Insight Development Grant
Natalie Kouri-Towe 