Congratulations to Professor Jerry Flores and Professor Weiguo Zhang who have recently received funding from the University of Toronto, Mississauga for their upcoming research projects. This funding is administered by UTM's new initiative "Black, Indigenous, and Racialized Scholar/Research Grant Program". The purpose of this program is to support research projects that address racial inequity, the ongoing effects of racism, and social justice.
Professor Flores' research project is titled "Broadening access to the Kaxúmbekua (way of life): Saving P’urhépecha culture across English speaking countries." In this project, Professor Flores will be collaborating with community elder and artist, Huíchu Kuákari, in translating two key books belonging to the P’urhépecha peoples, a group of Indigenous people located in central Mexico. These translations will be the first step in a larger community-based research agenda that investigates how members of the P’urhépecha community from across the world recover their culture and resist the larger Mexican state’s racial project and multiple attempts at erasing the P’urhépecha people.
Professor Jerry Flores is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. His areas of interest include studies of gender and crime, prison studies, alternative schools, ethnographic research methods, Latina/o sociology, and studies of race and ethnicity. He also recently published his first book titled "Caught Up: Girls, Surveillance and Wraparound Incarceration".
Professor Zhang's research project is titled "COVID-19 Racism against Chinese in Canada". In this project, Professor Zhang will be conducting surveys, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews to understand (1) the prevalence of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic (2) the Chinese perception of racial discrimination, and (3) the impact and coping strategies of Chinese people in Canada in response to racism. Professor Zhang hypothesizes that "those with different levels of acculturation will have a different perception of discrimination, a different attitude towards discrimination, and will adopt different means and strategies to deal or cope with discrimination".
Professor Weiguo Zhang is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. He specializes in the topics of social demography, sociology of families, and social policy. His research focuses primarily on rural areas of China, investigating the relationship between national population, economic policies, and individual livelihoods.
Congratulations, Professor Flores and Professor Zhang, for receiving these grants and we look forward to seeing the results of this important research!