Critical Cross-border Conversations (CCC) Research Group

CCC Research Group is a TRU-based, nationally and internationally linked, multidisciplinary group committed to knowledge creation, exchange, and the networking of critical researchers on contemporary social issues. This research group addresses research areas that are of strategic importance at TRU: Technology and Optimization, and Community and Cultural Engagement, for the purpose of fostering social justice and equity.

The name Critical Cross-border Conversations, both distinct and descriptive, reflects a pilot knowledge mobilization and exchange platform for scholarly conversations responding to contemporary issues of social justice — one that transcends boundaries transnationally, across and within disciplines. In particular, each word is chosen for its multilayered implications:

  • "Critical" signifies not only the critical multidisciplinary body of theory and research methodologies working for social justice, but also its timely, urgent, and transformative connotations.
  • "Cross-border" denotes transdisciplinary and transnational or the transgressive opportunities across and within disciplines and nations.
  • "Conversations" refers to academic reflections, responses, and analyses which are inclusive and trans-medium (written, oral, performance, visual).

Critical Cross-border Conversations Research Group is housed at Thompson Rivers University, located on unceded Secwepmec territory, where generations have been engaging in cross-border conversations.

General rationale

Critical research is scholarship that explores the dialectic between structural/macro forces and human agency for the purpose of social change.

It is based on a premise that marginalization is produced and maintained by unequal power relations, and espouses a commitment to holding individuals' lived experience as the primary source of data. It locates research within a historical context, and understands that social reality is socially constructed, negotiated and can be challenged.

Critical theory has been embraced by multiple disciplines, including critical social work, pedagogy, criminology, law, cultural studies, philosophy, and critical race studies. It serves as a common framework that allows and encourages the interdisciplinary study of contemporary social issues. This research group will be committed to fostering the critical scholarship of its members, and the critical engagement of social, cultural and political debates across platforms of the "real" and virtual.

CCC objectives

The objectives of the CCC Research Group are to foster transdisciplinary collaborations for new and innovative research creation and dissemination, and to engage faculty, and undergraduate and graduate students.

In particular, the research aims to:

  • Foster and create new multidisciplinary research collaborations by engaging in intra- and inter-networks of critical scholars.
  • Provide a "real" and "virtual" venue for research creation and dissemination at TRU and beyond.
  • Engage both critical faculty and graduate and undergraduate students in innovative conceptualizations and methodologies.
  • Expand TRU's profile to other critical research communities, extending the local to the global with the goal of social justice and equity.
  • Host events that will bring together researchers at TRU, and from institutions in Canada and around the world, who are working on critical research projects, pedagogy and practices.
  • Generate externally funded research opportunities and collaborations relevant to critical interdisciplinary dissemination, by leveraging the existing research, expertise and capacity that exists at TRU and partnerships elsewhere.