Workshop-Conference: Se faire une place dans la cité (16-18 October 2019)

I am so excited to be preparing to fly to Montréal to be part of the workshop-conference ‘Se faire une place dans la cité‘ from 16-18 October 2019. Frédéric Dejean and Annick Germain have been discussing it for over a year with me, and it’s finally happening, along with a stellar line-up of keynotes by Lori Beaman and Jean-Paul Williame.

I’ll be part of two sessions on 17 October. The morning one is titled ‘Urbanisme, dynamiques spatiales et religions,’ while the afternoon will be ‘Les groupes religieux au service d’une ville inclusive ?’ My understanding is that I’ll speak for about twenty minutes on the research on which I collaborated with the late Claire Dwyer on No. 5 Road in the morning, then on the parts of my book project on Cantonese Protestants in Vancouver in the afternoon.

What is intriguing about this conference is that the presentations seem to be a prelude to a larger conversation that will happen in three-hour blocks. I understand from Frédéric that the delightful challenge for us academics will be to speak practically to planning practitioners. I relish this opportunity — as I told my dean, it’s a bit of a rapprochement — and in doing so, I’ll have to brush up on my high-school French. Frédéric tells me that everyone’s PowerPoint will be mercifully in English. I do not know if I will be brave enough to speak a language I haven’t spoken in years on my colleagues’ home turf.

Many thanks to Frédéric and Annick for organizing, as well as their very competent organizers Louis Raymond and Vincent Létourneau for handling the logistics.