Dr. Jenna Woodrow

Dr. Jenna Woodrow is an associate teaching professor in philosophy at Thompson Rivers University. Her teaching and research areas centre on knowledge and justice. Her work focuses on how norms evolve; the relationships to land and people that ground justification, meaning, and practices of holding one another responsible; and the roles that gender, oppression, and colonization play in producing knowledge and ignorance. She is deeply committed to open educational resources as a way of addressing epistemic inequities.

Jenna is also faculty advisor to the TRU Philosophy Club, founding chair of the Canadian Philosophical Association Decolonizing and Indigenizing Committee, chair of the Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association Equity Committee, member of the Philosophy in the Schools Project, and western regional director and founding member of Ethics Bowl Canada.

Jenna is originally from Kuujjuaq in northern Québec. Her parents, Louise Beaudoin and Keith Woodrow, and their parents, Horace Beaudoin and Beverly Campbell and Kaye Timmony and John Woodrow, are all from Tiohtiàke colonially known as Montréal, in the traditional territories of the Kanien’kehá:ka peoples. Both her children, Lachlan Johnson and Saya Johnson, were born on the traditional and unceded territories of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc within Secwépemc’ulucw. She is grateful to live work and play in these beautiful lands.

Gurinder S. Purewal

Gurinder is a current MA student in human rights and social justice (candidate) at Thompson Rivers University. He currently resides on the traditional and unceded territory of the Secwépemc, on whose traditional territories he is privileged to attend his post-secondary education.

His research interests include the politics and security dynamics of South Asia and the Indo-Pacific; bilateral relations between Canada and India; diaspora, extremism, and social movement studies in South Asia; and the examination of human rights violations in developing states.

His current experience includes working alongside Dr. Woodrow as a graduate research assistant for the Politics, History and Philosophy Department; working for the Asia-Pacific Policy Project as a research fellow, and actively engaged in the co-creation of accessible, equitable and inclusive student knowledge as part of the Students as Research Partners Fellowship.

Gurinder holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science and public administration from the University of Victoria (UVic). His professional experience includes working in higher education and student services roles at UVic for over 3 years.

Gurinder is originally from Victoria, BC and has had the privilege of being able to grow, work and play on the traditional and unceded territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Esquimalt) Peoples and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples, whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. His parents, Manjeet Kaur Purewal and Amarjit Singh Purewal, and their parents Gurdev Kaur Mattar and Darshan Singh Mattar and Mohinder Kaur Purewal and Baldev Singh Purewal, are all originally from the state of Punjab, India and immigrated to Victoria, B.C., in the late 1980s.