A message from the 2024-2025 SOPR Community of Practice Facilitators
The days are getting shorter, the air at night is fresh, and there’s a sense of anticipation in the air. We find ourselves in the threshold between the glorious days of summer and the crisp cool of fall. That can only mean one thing. It must be back-to-school season!
As we start the 2024-2025 school year and welcome a new cohort of Social Practice and Transformational Change (SOPR) students into our growing community, we wanted to take an opportunity to introduce ourselves.
We are Naty Tremblay, Tehzeeb Bano, Leah Connor, and Allison Bishop, and we are the students who will be facilitaing this year’s SOPR Community of Practice.
Who are we?
Naty Tremblay (they/them)
Allo, I’m Naty Tremblay and I’m going into my 4th year of the SOPR Phd program! I’m an identical twin, working class-agrarian, mad & white bodied trans person from Treaty 2 territories with mixed french Canadian, muskrat métis & ashkenazi jewish ancestry.
My life’s work is co-creating interactive multidisciplinary projects, workshops & gatherings exploring identity & power, regenerative reciprocity, healing justice & magics of the natural world, amongst other things! I have a BA in Integrated Media from OCADU (2006), and 20+ years building experiential arts based street scholarship with LGBTQ+ and street involved young people in Toronto and internationally. I’ve been really passionate about grassroots co-learning and organizing in Transformative Justice for 10+ years with low income folks.
For a decade I ran the interdisciplinary community arts for social change training program for marginalized youth leaders at Sketch working arts and I’m the former ED of Rittenhouse: A New vision (2020-2022), Canada’s oldest abolitionist organization. I also have a 20+ year interdisciplinary arts practice – and I’m a proud founding member of the Switch Collective which has been mounting roving queer political performance works since 2016, as well as the Trans Healing Arts Web (THAW) which uses community arts gatherings to center the healing & creativity of Trans folks. In 2021 I was awarded the Toronto Arts Foundation Community Artist Award in 2021. I received SSHRC funding for my PhD research on Queer Transformative Justice Praxis in 2023.
More importantly, I am mystified by water, seeds, the cosmos, regenerative reciprocity and interspecies entanglements. <3
Tehzeeb Bano (she/her)
Hello! My name is Tehzeeb Bano. I am currently completing my first year of doctoral studies in Social Practice and Transformational Change (International Development Studies). I am from Gilgit-Baltistan, a region that has been disputed between India and Pakistan for over 75 years as of 2024. My mother tongue is Balti, a dialect of Ethno-Tibetan origin. I came to Canada in September 2023 and started my journey with SOPR in the beautiful city of Guelph.
My PhD research examines how Indigenous mountainous communities in the Trans-Himalayas address climate-induced challenges through the use of indigenous environmental knowledge. I have always been observing the indigenous environmental practices of my community since my childhood. I aim to connect with like-minded individuals globally, fostering collaboration to create something innovative and impactful.
I love midnight walks. <3 The quiet of the night deepens my connection to nature, making the world around me feel more serene and intimate. It clears my mind and brings a sense of peace.
Leah Connor (she/her)
Hiya! I’m Leah! I am entering into my third year in the Social Practice and Transformational Change program at UofG. I am a lone parent of two lovely people (pictured), as the matriarch of a gender-queer, poor, multiethnic-racial family much of my motivation in knowledge creation and exploration is rooted in my lofty (sometimes misguided) attempts to make this world a little bit softer. I enter into academia as a subversive intellectual; “under false pretenses, with bad documents, out of love.” (Moten & Harney, 2013 p.26).
I have many side hustles in order to support my family – including my position at the Live Work Well Research Centre as a Research Cluster Liaison. I am a member of my local paper’s Community Editorial Board, in this role I share my perspectives and musings related to what is happening in the Waterloo Region.
I live in the so-called City of Kitchener, on the Haldimand Tract, in a community owned building of which I am a proud tenant and member of the Board of Directors. In my spare time I take my dog on walks, play board games with my kids, and spend time with the wonderful friends who I have the honour of knowing and loving.
Harney, S. & Moton, F. (2013). The Undercommons: Fugitive planning and Black study. Minor Compositions, https://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/undercommons-web.pdf
Allison Bishop (she/her)
Hello! I am Allison Bishop, and I am a third-year doctoral candidate in the Social Practice and Transformational Change program at UofG. I am a white Canadian whose matrilineal ancestors have settled on the shores of Azhoonyang (Lake Simcoe) in the territory of the Williams Treaty Nations for five generations. My research is connected to my ongoing journey of learning how to contribute to Indigenous-led decolonial movements in Canada from within my responsibilities as a settler.
My work in the SOPR program is deeply connected to my role as manager of the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership, which is an Indigenous-led SSHRC partnership grant that seeks to help elevate and catalyze Indigenous-led conservation while also supporting decolonial change within the Canadian conservation sector more broadly. More specifically, in my project, I am working with environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in Canada to help deepen their commitments and efforts to support Indigenous-led conservation. I hope to map common practices and how these practices open and/or foreclose possibilities for decolonizing conservation; I also hope to identify and shine a light on innovations that are making space for Indigenous-led conservation futures.
For fun, I love to go on hikes and bike rides, read poetry, do hand embroidery, cook, and I’m learning to paint. I’m passionate about ecological gardening (though I am a beginner) and enjoy watching/sharing space with all the critters in my yard. My pup, Elvis, is a great source of joy, and so are my two nephews. Looking forward to deepening existing relationships within the SOPR community and getting to know community members this year!
What is the SOPR Community of Practice?
The SOPR Community of Practice (CoP), aims to create space and opportunity for students to gather informally, co-lead, engage in sharing, offer collaborative support, experiment, fumble and to build connections and learning across the program.
In past years, we have attended public lectures on campus, held community pot-lucks, hosted visioning & planning for the SOPR program, and played with different methodologies (for example, we practiced a critical walking methodology by the Speed River last spring).
Our gatherings, which often include faculty and the broader SOPR community, aim to facilitate meaningful dialogue, cross-mentorship, and shared problem-solving for members of the program. In past years, students have worked hard to identify student needs/desires from the CoP. Through this process we have learned that SOPR students desire for the CoP.
Throughout the year, we will work to help animate the blog to tell the story of our SOPR community as a community!
What will the SOPR CoP be doing this year?
SOPR Methods show and tell – Full corn/harvest moon!
We will be hosting a guest panel discussion about methods. We’ll get a sneak peak look into how different members of the SOPR community are working with theory in their approach to data collection and analysis. This is a chance for a behind-the-scenes look at different approaches to methodology and methods.
Tentatively planned for Friday, November 15th in the afternoon.
SOPR Blog Content Jam – Winter – Full Wolf Moon!
We will be coming together to co-create content for the SOPR Stories blog. Expect to receive information a month before we meet, inviting ideas for individual and collaborative content pieces.
This will be a hybrid session. Tentatively planned for Monday, January 13th
Roadblocks “speed dating” – Full Pink Moon!
During this session, we will focus on supporting each other through stuck places on our SOPR journeys, with a particular focus on supporting first and second-year SOPR students. The theme and focus will shift depending on what is alive in that time
Tentatively planned for Friday April 11th. Stay tuned for more details!