What Is Initiatives in Global Justice?
(archived site; IGJ was phased out in 2021)
Initiatives in Global Justice (IGJ) began in 2012 with the aim of fostering connections between University of Guelph researchers who work on issues of globalization, broadly speaking. Increasingly, the most pressing challenges that face us are ones that traverse national borders, and include economic, social, political, and environmental dimensions.
Climate change, food security, rising North-South inequality and poverty, migration flows caused by economic hardship, environmental degradation, political oppression and war: all of these phenomena are transnational in scope. Some problems, like gender discrimination and sexual violence, manifest differently in different parts of the world, but can be illuminated by comparative and cross-disciplinary study. Guelph has an abundance of faculty and students who think and write about a wide range of global issues from diverse disciplinary perspectives and contexts, and IGJ aims to galvanize this energy and expertise. We want to forge connections among faculty and student researchers at U of G and beyond, and to bring their insights to a wider audience.
Based in the Department of Philosophy, Initiatives in Global Justice is coordinated by Prof. Monique Deveaux and funded primarily by the Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Global Social Change. An advisory group composed of faculty from several departments and programs across the university supplies advice and guidance.
IGJ also co-sponsors research events at the university (talks, workshops) that bear on issues of global ethics and justice; please contact Prof. Monique Deveaux (mdeveaux@uoguelph.ca) for more information.