What is a Canadian critical race feminism?
As the contributors to this book note, the interventions of Canadian critical race feminists work to explicitly engage the Canadian state as a white settler society. The collection examines Indigenous peoples within the Canadian settler state and Indigenous women within feminism; the challenges posed by the settler state for women of colour and Indigenous women; and the possibilities and limits of an anti-colonial praxis.
Critical race feminism, like critical race theory more broadly, interrogates questions about race and gender through an emancipatory lens, posing fundamental questions about the persistence if not magnification of race and the "colour line" in the twenty-first century. The writers of these articles ? whether exploring campus politics around issues of equity, the media's circulation of ideas about a tolerant multicultural and feminist Canada, security practices that confine people of colour to spaces of exception, Indigenous women's navigation of both nationalism and feminism, Western feminist responses to the War on Terror, or the new forms of whiteness that persist in ideas about a post-racial world or in transnational movements for social justice ? insist that we must study racialized power in all its gender and class dimensions.
The contributors are all members of Researchers and Academics of Colour for Equity.
Sherene Razack is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies, University of Toronto. She is the author and editor of a number of books, including "Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics," and "Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society." Sunera Thobani is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia. She is the author of "Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada." Malinda Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Alberta, and author of "Beyond the 'African Tragedy': Discourses on Development and the Global Economy."

No matter where in Canada they occur, inquiries and inquests into untimely Indigenous deaths in state custody often tell the same story. Repeating details of fatty livers, mental illness, alcoholic belligerence, and a mysterious incapacity to cope with modern life, the legal proceedings declare that there are no villains here, only inevitable casualties of Indigenous life. But what about a sixty-seven-year-old man who dies in a hospital in police custody with a large, visible, purple boot print on his chest? Or a barely conscious, alcoholic older man, dropped off by police in a dark alley on a cold Vancouver night? Or Saskatoon's infamous and lethal starlight tours, whose victims were left on the outskirts of town in sub-zero temperatures? How do we account for the repeated failure to care evident in so many cases of Indigenous deaths in custody? In Dying from Improvement, Sherene H. Razack argues that, amidst systematic state violence against Indigenous people, inquiries and inquests serve to obscure the violence of ongoing settler colonialism under the guise of benevolent concern. They tell settler society that it is caring, compassionate, and engaged in improving the lives of Indigenous people - even as the incarceration rate of Indigenous men and women increases and the number of those who die in custody rises. Razack's powerful critique of the Canadian settler state and its legal system speaks to many of today's most pressing issues of social justice: the treatment of Indigenous people, the unparalleled authority of the police and the justice system, and their systematic inhumanity towards those whose lives they perceive as insignificant.

Somalia. March 4, 1993. Two Somalis are shot in the back by Canadian peacekeepers, one fatally.

Barely two weeks later, sixteen-year-old Shidane Abukar Arone is tortured to death. Dozens of Canadian soldiers look on or know of the torture.

The first reports of what became known in Canada as the Somalia Affair challenged national claims to a special expertise in peacekeeping and to a society free of racism. Today, however, despite a national inquiry into the deployment of troops to Somalia, what most Canadians are likely to associate with peacekeeping is the nation's glorious role as peacekeeper to the world. Moments of peacekeeping violence are attributed to a few bad apples, bad generals, and a rogue regiment.

In "Dark Threats and White Knights," Sherene H. Razack explores the racism implicit in the Somalia Affair and what it has to do with modern peacekeeping. Examining the records of military trials and the public inquiry, Razack weaves together two threads: that of the violence itself and what would drive men to commit such atrocities, and secondly, the ways in which peacekeeping violence is largely forgiven and ultimately forgotten. Race disappears from public memory and what is installed in its place is a story about an innocent, morally superior middle-power nation obliged to discipline and sort out barbaric third world nations. Modern peacekeeping, Razack concludes, maintains a colour line between a family of white nations constructed as civilized and a third world constructed as a dark threat, a world in which violence is not only condoned but seen as necessary.

The fear and violence that followed the events of September 11, 2001 touched lives all around the world, even in places that few would immediately associate with the global war on terror. In At the Limits of Justice, twenty-nine contributors from six countries explore the proximity of terror in their own lives and in places ranging from Canada and the United States to Jamaica, Palestine/Israel, Australia, Guyana, Chile, Pakistan, and across the African continent.

In this collection, female scholars of colour - including leading theorists on issues of indigeneity, race, and feminism - examine the political, social, and personal repercussions of the war on terror through contributions that range from testimony and poetry to scholarly analysis. Inspired by both the personal and the global impact of this violence within the war on terror, they expose the way in which the war on terror is presented as a distant and foreign issue at the same time that it is deeply present in the lives of women and others all around the world.

An impassioned but rigorous examination of issues of race and gender in contemporary politics, At the Limits of Justice is also a call to create moral communities which will find terror and violence unacceptable.

On June 23, 1985, the bombing of Air India Flight 182 killed 329 people, most of them Canadians. Today this pivotal event in Canada's history is hazily remembered, yet certain interests have shaped how the tragedy is woven into public memory, and even exploited to advance a pernicious national narrative. Remembering Air India insists that we "remember Air India otherwise." This collection investigates the Air India bombing and its implications for current debates about racism, terrorism, and citizenship. Drawing together academic analysis, testimony, visual arts, and creative writing, this innovative volume tenders a new public record of the bombing, one that shows how important creative responses are for deepening our understanding of the event and its aftermath. Contributions by: Cassel Busse, Chandrima Chakraborty, Amber Dean, Rita Kaur Dhamoon, Angela Failler, Teresa Hubel, Suvir Kaul, Elan Marchinko, Eisha Marjara, Bharati Mukherjee, Lata Pada, Uma Parameswaran, Sherene H. Razack, Renee Sarojini Saklikar, Maya Seshia, Karen Sharma, Deon Venter, Padma Viswanathan