Institution: Ryerson University, Sociology
Location: Ontario, Canada
Position: Post-doctoral Fellow

Landscapes of Injustice
Partnership Project

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP IN ORAL HISTORY
Position start date Fall 2014

Landscapes of Injustice is a seven-year multi-sector, interdisciplinary project that aims to explore and narrate the history of the dispossession of Japanese Canadians and to share this history with audiences across Canada and beyond. Research findings will be disseminated in a traveling museum exhibit, teaching materials for elementary and secondary schools, educational websites, popular and scholarly publications, and public presentations across the country. Many Canadians know that people of Japanese ancestry, the vast majority of them Canadian citizens, were uprooted from the British Columbia coast during the 1940s. Less widely known is the Government policy to forcibly sell all of their property and most possessions. The dispossession of Japanese Canadians caused enduring and, in some ways, irreparable harms. It left Japanese Canadians without homes to which they could return after restrictions were finally lifted in 1949. It forced the eradication of Canada’s historic Japanese-Canadian neighbourhoods and settlements, thereby transforming individual lives and subjectivities, as well as the landscapes of Canadian ethnic and urban life. It resulted in material hardships and its memory has reverberated across multiple generations.

Our partnership team includes 14 institutions and 33 specialists from universities, community organizations, and museums across Canada. The project is funded by a major grant and by the participating institutions (see: www.landscapesofinjustice.ca).

The Postdoctoral Fellow will assist Dr. Pamela Sugiman, Professor of Sociology, Ryerson University, in the management of the oral history research cluster of the Landscapes project. The successful candidate will contribute to the intellectual direction of the cluster and assist in the supervision of graduate and undergraduate research assistants. She/he must furthermore demonstrate a strong interest in and understanding of oral history, in depth interviewing, and issues of racism and racialization.

A goal of the oral history cluster is to conduct interviews with various groups of individuals who experienced the internment, directly and indirectly, with a focus on property loss: Japanese Canadians who were dispossessed during the Second World War, Hakujin (non-Japanese) bystanders and witnesses of the dispossession, and the descendents of both of these groups. This cluster will also integrate existing interviews into its research materials. In addition to assisting in the supervision of research, the Postdoctoral Fellow will be involved in the administration, analysis, and presentation of materials related to this research, as well as the larger intellectual development and activity of the Landscapes project. Finally, the Postdoctoral Fellow will teach a one-semester course in the Sociology Department at Ryerson University, subject to the conditions set out in the Ryerson University-CUPE 1 collective agreement.

The Postdoctoral Fellowship is valued at $40,000/year and is renewable for a total of two years. Additional funds will defray the cost of the Postdoctoral Fellow’s travel for research and presentation of project materials.

Contact:

Applications should include a cover letter, a CV, three letters of recommendation and if available, a writing sample.

Please e-mail applications to Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross, Project Director, Landscapes of Injustice, at landscapesofinjustice@gmail.com. We will begin to review applications on July 25, 2014 and will continue on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

For more information, email our project at landscapesofinjustice@gmail.com

Website: www.landscapesofinjustice.ca